SAN DIEGO — The director of San Diego State University’s athletics department said Monday that the school had not ignored allegations that members of its football team had been accused of gang-raping a 17-year-old girl last fall.
“That is absolutely not true,” John David Wicker said during a news conference that turned tense moments earlier when Wicker and head football coach Brady Hoke refused to answer questions about the alleged rape then walked out. Wicker returned later and spoke about the allegations.
“We will hold any student and coach, any staff member to be held responsible for anything that is confirmed and adjudicated,” he said.
“It is absolutely not true that we swept this under the rug because it is football and because we were having a successful season. That is not who we are. That is not who I am.”
Monday’s news conference was the first by the university’s athletic department since the young woman filed a lawsuit in San Diego Superior Court last week. The suit comes as SDSU celebrates the start of its 100th football season.
The Aztecs will host the Arizona Wildcats on Saturday in the new $310 million Snapdragon Stadium.
According to the complaint, the girl was 17 and a senior in high school when she said she was raped by several men — all strangers to her — at an off-campus house party in October.
She reported the incident to San Diego police the next day. Her father also spoke with San Diego State University Police a day later. San Diego police asked the university to hold off on an administrative inquiry for fear it would affect the crime investigation. SDSU agreed to do so.
The university was also getting word of the incident through an internal reporting system for student athletes, who said they had heard the rumors.
News of the gang rape allegations became public when the Los Angeles Times broke the story in June.
Earlier this month, San Diego police turned their investigation over to the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office for review. No one has been arrested, and no criminal charges have been filed.
The civil lawsuit alleges that punter Matt Araiza, then 21, had sex with the teen in a side yard of a College Area residence before bringing her into a bedroom where a group of men took turns raping her over the course of an hour and a half. Players Zavier Leonard and Nowlin “Pa’a” Ewaliko were part of the group, according to the lawsuit.
In April, Araiza was drafted by the Buffalo Bills, who released him Saturday. That same day, Leonard, a redshirt freshman from Arlington, Texas, was dropped from the SDSU roster. Ewaliko left the team shortly before preseason practice started Aug. 5.
Araiza’s attorney, Kerry Armstrong, had said previously that the allegations against Araiza are false, and on Monday said his client “definitely never went into that bedroom.”
Leonard’s attorney, Jamahl Kersey declined detailed comment Monday, saying only that they are “in the initial stages of our investigation. He said no one should jump to conclusions as to what the final outcome of this case will be.”
Ewaliko’s attorney, Marc Carlos, did not respond to a request for comment Monday. Last week, he noted that the young woman has said she cannot remember details of the incident, which Carlos called “problematic.”
Araiza earned the nickname “Punt God,” and last season he set an NCAA record with a 51.19-yard punting average. He was tapped with the 2021 Ray Guy Award as the nation’s top punter, and in doing so became the first football player in SDSU’s history to win a major national award.
In April, the Buffalo Bills used the first pick in the sixth round of the 2022 NFL Draft to select Araiza, a Rancho Bernardo High School graduate. He was the first punter the team had used a draft pick to obtain since 1990.
Through his agent, Araiza issued a statement last week that the “facts of the incident are not what they are portrayed in the lawsuit or in the press.”
Araiza’s parents, Kerry and Rico Ariaza, released a statement through their son’s attorney.
“There has been a war waged on our son,” they said. “He has been tried and convicted in the media based on information released solely from the alleged victim and her attorney, much of it through social media.”
They said their son has been extorted and harassed, and that he and their family have received threats of violence and death. “We have been canceled,” they said. “Every member of our family.”
“Salacious rumors grew as fact,” their statement reads. “There are multiple witness reports to deny the claims that are made against him. The legal system is designed to find facts and make decisions. They should be allowed to do that.”
Monday’s sit-down with Wicker, head football coach Brady Hoke and several reporters started with Wicker and Hoke issuing statement regarding the allegations. A school official began the news conference by saying the two men would not take questions about the incident, but would talk about football and the upcoming season.
But it immediately turned tense, with reporters repeatedly asking questions about who knew what about the alleged rape and when, and why the school did not move to address the matter internally. Wicker and Hoke then walked out of the news conference.
About 15 minutes later, Wicker returned and answered questions related to the allegations.
A reporter pointed to rumors that Araiza’s name arose last fall, and asked Wicker when he or Hoke heard that name in connection with the allegation.
“We did not receive confirmation from anyone that was party to the event until the civil lawsuit dropped,” Wicker said.
Wicker also answered a few questions about a November presentation to the football team by Brenda Tracy, a gang-rape survivor who now speaks to college athletes about sexual assault and gender-based violence.
Wicker echoed a statement issued by SDSU officials Friday, saying administrators brought Tracy in to speak to provide “enhanced education for all of our male student-athletes” in connection with the investigation that was going on at that time.
Tracy told the Union-Tribune earlier this month that when she came to the campus, she was aware there had been some type of sexual-assault incident, but she didn’t know specifics.
“As I read more and more of the details of this case, it is becoming more obvious that SDSU did not do the right thing,” Tracy wrote in a statement she released Sunday night. “Institutions should not defer to police investigations. Title IX and criminal cases can run concurrently. They are separate processes and the (school’s) obligation is to prioritize student safety.”
Tracy wrote that she would have rather been there under more proactive circumstances, “but that doesn’t usually happen in my career.”
Tracy told the Union-Tribune it was likely that some of the players named in the civil suit, if not all, attended her presentation.
