Ex-Kentucky swimmer: I was ‘vigorously discouraged’ from coming forward about coach’s sexual abuse

Former Kentucky women’s swim team captain Briggs Alexander said he was “vigorously discouraged” from coming forward about former coach Lars Jorgensen’s alleged sexual abuse during his time as a swimmer and later an assistant coach with the team.

“I thought I could trust them,” Alexander said of Kentucky’s Title IX office. “I went to them and disclosed my abuse and thought it was going to be taken care of. … I was repeatedly discouraged and vigorously discouraged to not come forward.”

Alexander is one of two former team members who filed a lawsuit against Jorgensen, Kentucky, UK athletic director Mitch Barnhart and former UK swim coach Gary Conelly. According to the complaint, Kentucky’s “complicity and deliberate indifference” enabled Jorgensen “to foster a toxic, sexually hostile environment within the swim program and to prey on, sexually harass and commit horrific sexual assaults and violent rapes against young female coaches and collegiate athletes who were reliant on him.”

During Jorgensen’s time as an associate head coach and eventually the head coach, Kentucky received reports of Jorgensen being in a relationship with a swimmer he previously coached at the University of Toledo. Kentucky was contacted by Mark Howard, a former Toledo…