Huskies softball coach relieved of duties
Published 9:00 pm Sunday, December 21, 2003
SEATTLE – Washington softball coach Teresa Wilson was relieved of her coaching duties by the school on Monday, the most significant fallout so far from a scandal involving a former team doctor who handed out narcotics to players.
Athletic director Barbara Hedges said she had reassigned Wilson to other duties, and that assistant coaches Scott Centala and Steve Daily would lead the team on an interim basis.
“This is a difficult decision, but one I feel is necessary to move this program beyond the issues with which it has been dealing since October,” Hedges said in a news release.
Hedges told a news conference that Wilson will not be retained when her contract ends in June.
State health investigators in October suspended the license of Dr. William Scheyer, after investigators determined he improperly prescribed and dispensed large quantities of narcotics, tranquilizers and other prescription drugs to UW softball players in recent years.
“This is the most shocking thing short of a death that’s ever happened to me,” Wilson earlier told The Seattle Times. “Obviously, it’s sad that anyone would think that it’s necessary or that it would come to this. I’m in disbelief.”
Citing an unidentified source, The News Tribune of Tacoma reported Sunday that an internal university investigation revealed Wilson knew Scheyer improperly handed out drugs to her players.
The 41-year-old Wilson, who is in her 11th season as head coach, built Washington softball into a national power.
She is the second prominent coach at Washington to lose her job this year. Hedges fired former football coach Rick Neuheisel in June for gambling on the NCAA basketball tournament, then initially lying to NCAA investigators. Neuheisel contested his firing and has sued the university and NCAA.
The Washington State Patrol and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, under guidance of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, has opened a criminal investigation into the allegations involving the softball program.
Since 1999, Washington student-athletes have been treated by doctors from the University of Washington Medical Center. At Wilson’s insistence, Scheyer was retained as an outside team physician for softball.
When complaints of Scheyer’s dealings with softball players surfaced in 2001, assistant athletic director Dave Burton tried to fire him. Wilson intervened, and Scheyer stayed on as the team’s “consulting physician.”
Hedges terminated Scheyer’s involvement at the end of August, when state Health Department investigators questioned whether he illegally prescribed thousands of doses of painkillers and other drugs to the softball team.
The state suspended Scheyer’s medical license in October after health investigators determined he had improperly written hundreds of prescriptions in the names of a Washington softball player, a school athletic trainer and a USA Softball team trainer.
The 76-year-old Kirkland doctor told investigators from the state Board of Pharmacy that a female softball team coach – the name is deleted from the transcript – “always knew” which players were being given drugs, The Times reported.
In October, Wilson denied knowing of any illegal medical practices by Scheyer.
“I don’t think Dr. Scheyer would ever do anything to hurt our program,” the coach said at a UW news conference one day after the state suspended the doctor’s license.
However, one softball player questioned during the investigation said she was given tranquilizers and painkillers before and during games so she could play injured.
Another said some athletes were given medications to play, but that it was to remain “hush-hush.” A former athlete told state health investigators Wilson liked Scheyer “because the athletes were always able to play.”
Dr. John O’Kane, Washington’s head team physician, said Scheyer was known to give powerful narcotics to players when other team physicians would have prescribed over-the-counter anti-inflammatories.
Scheyer told state health investigators that a coach, whom he named, knew of and approved his drug-dispensing ways.
The state Health Department, citing privacy laws and its ongoing investigation, removed most names in a copy of the transcript provided to The News Tribune under a public records request.
Wilson, the first woman to play and coach in softball’s College World Series, came to Washington in 1992 after coaching at Minnesota and Oregon. Her record with the Huskies is 532-198-1.
The Huskies have qualified for postseason play 10 straight years, reaching the College World Series six times.
Copyright ©2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
