The University of San Francisco's highly ranked men's basketball team will play in the NCAA "March Madness" playoffs this month for the first time since 1998. But campus jubilation at the Dons' success on the court is tempered this week by an emerging scandal involving the men's baseball team.
In January, associate baseball coach Troy Nakamura was fired after complaints of wildly inappropriate and sexually graphic language and behavior. Head coach Nino Giarratano was initially reprimanded but allowed to remain. But he, too, was fired on Sunday, following a lawsuit filed against Nakamura, Giarratano, USF and the NCAA.
In the 113-page class-action lawsuit filed on Friday in a federal court in San Francisco, three former baseball players allege that USF knew about the coaches' alleged problematic behavior, and that USF and the NCAA failed to protect the health and safety of student athletes who they say were exposed to an "intolerable sexualized environment" that was allowed to continue under Giarratano, who has been at USF for over 20 years.
According to the complaint, the coaches "created a culture where, in the light of the day, it was 'normal' to see Coach [Nakamura] naked on the field or in a window, swinging his penis in a helicopter fashion while the entire team — and Coach [Giarratano] — watched." According to reporting from The San Francisco Chronicle, Nakamura was seen mingling with coaches at a practice last week, nearly two months after he was fired.