Re: 10th former Colton High player alleges sexual assault by ex-coach's Democrat daughter

In article <[email protected]>
[email protected] wrote:
>
> All Democrat coach daughters are whores.
>

Former player alleges current Grand Terrace Athletic Director 
Tiffany Gordon began sexually abusing him shortly after her 
father, Harold Strauss, was hired in 2000

Near the end of the 2000 football season, a Colton High School 
freshman team coach approached one of the varsity’s standout 
players in the school’s football facility.

“Is it true?” the coach asked, according to the player.

“What?” the player responded.

“Is it true you’re doing Coach’s daughter?” the coach answered, 
using a slang term for sexual intercourse, the player said.

“Yep,” the player said.

“And he was like ‘Damn!’ and walked away laughing,” the player 
recalled.

The coach the assistant was referring to was Colton varsity head 
coach Harold Strauss, then in his first season of a career that 
would make him a revered figure in the community as the 
architect of what has been described as Colton’s pipeline to the 
National Football League.

His daughter is Tiffany Gordon, then Colton’s athletic trainer 
and currently the athletic director at Grand Terrace High School 
in the Colton Joint Unified School District.

The player is the first known alleged victim who Gordon sexually 
assaulted, abused and molested with the knowledge of Harold 
Strauss and other Yellowjacket coaches between 2000 and 2007, 
according to court filings obtained by the Southern California 
News Group.

In a series of interviews with SCNG and in court documents, 10 
former Colton players allege that Gordon had sexual intercourse 
with and performed oral sex on players who were between the ages 
of 14 and 17 in the school’s locker room, training room, 
bathrooms, weight room and football trailer as well as at her 
parents’ house during weekly meetings between the coaches and 
top players. One player alleged in an interview and the lawsuit 
that Gordon had sex with him at least 50 times during his senior 
year at Colton High, when he was 17.

In a lawsuit filed against Gordon and the CJUSD in San 
Bernardino Superior Court on Friday and in an interview with 
SCNG, the former player, identified as John Doe 7079 in court 
filings, said he was sexually assaulted shortly after Strauss 
and Gordon arrived on the Colton campus prior to the 2000 
season. This began a three-month period in which Gordon 
continued to sexually assault the player, then 17, at “Captains’ 
Dinners” for team leaders at Harold Strauss’ home, on a football-
related trip and in Gordon’s car while it was parked on the 
Colton campus and other sites around Colton and Grand Terrace.

“What happened at Colton is simply inexcusable,” said Jemma E. 
Dunn, an attorney for the former players. “The sheer number of 
people who have come forward about Tiffany Gordon’s rampant 
sexual misconduct demonstrates a systemic issue within the 
football program and at the District.”

In an interview this week, John Doe 7079 was asked if he 
struggled coming forward.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I don’t want to do this. I feel like I’m 
the beginning. And the timeline of what I’ve seen of what 
happened is horrifying and disgusting and it started with me. 
And I’m a little afraid of, I think people are going to know 
exactly who this is, but I live far away from there but I feel 
like it needs to be said. This happened the moment she stepped 
on campus and was only allowed to keep going and building and 
get worse and then was promoted and who knows? And kind of 
horrifying there’s probably more. Like we don’t know.”

He said he has never discussed Gordon’s alleged abuse with his 
family – “My parents to this day still don’t know or won’t talk 
about it” – but said he is coming forward in part to try to 
change a pervasive attitude in sports culture where sexual 
relations between older female coaches, trainers or teacher and 
younger male players and students are often not seen as sexual 
abuse but a rite of passage or source of pride for the boys. As 
a result, the survivors are frequently viewed as heroes instead 
of victims.

“These football programs need to see that these gender roles 
don’t matter anymore,” John Doe 7079 said. “I’m just ready to be 
a part of that, a change.

“This makes me so anxious just talking about this right now.”

Gordon is currently on a leave of absence, a school official 
said. The CJUSD declined to say when Gordon was placed on leave 
or whether she is being paid while on leave.

Gordon has not responded to multiple requests for comment. Her 
attorney also did not respond to a request for comment. Gordon 
has been interviewed by the Colton Police Department, according 
to Paul Wallin, Gordon’s criminal defense attorney, and 
previously confirmed to SCNG.

The CJUSD has hired a Sacramento law firm to conduct an 
investigation into the allegations against Gordon. It is the 
same law firm Mater Dei hired last year to investigate 
allegations of bullying and other misconduct within the school’s 
football and athletic programs.

“From the moment the District was presented with the 
allegations, we immediately took decisive action by placing the 
party in question on administrative leave, as well as contacting 
the Colton Police Department,” the CJUSD said in a statement to 
SCNG. “The District has made itself, and will continue to make 
itself, completely available to the Colton Police Department. 
The District is committed to ensuring that law enforcement has 
access to all of the facts and information for their 
investigation.

“Although the current administrative team members were not in 
leadership roles with the District 20 years ago, the district 
leadership team is extremely concerned about the allegations 
being made. Our commitment is always to the safety and well-
being of our students, families and staff, and we will work with 
local law enforcement to protect our community and lend our 
support to any victims in this case.”

Harold Strauss died in December 2019 at the age of 60.

SCNG does not name the survivors of sexual abuse.

Harold Strauss was hired at Colton in the spring of 2000 after 
spending two seasons coaching in Colton, Oregon. Strauss was 
already well known in the Inland Empire, having coached 
Bloomington Christian to six CIF title games, winning twice.

In his return to Southern California, Colton gained a national 
reputation for sending Yellowjacket players to Power 5 college 
programs and the NFL. Six players from Colton, a school with 
less than 2,000 students, were on NFL rosters during the 2014 
and 2015 seasons. A year later, 10 former Colton players were 
invited to NFL training camps. Colton’s 2005 roster included six 
future NFL players.

John Doe 7079 remembers Harold Strauss and Tiffany visiting the 
Colton campus in April 2000. She was also at his side when the 
Yellowjackets opened practice the following August.

“As the daughter of Colton High School’s highly influential and 
prominent Head Coach and Athletic Director, Harold Strauss, 
Gordon used her authority and role as the team’s trainer to gain 
access to Plaintiff and numerous other student-athletes,” 
attorneys for John Doe 7079 write in the most recent court 
filing. “She took advantage of her position of influence, 
authority, and power – given to her by CJUSD – to develop the 
players’ trust and then to sexually assault, harass, and molest 
them.

“Knowledge of Gordon’s misconduct with minors spread throughout 
the football team, the players’ parents, and the team’s staff. 
Despite rampant rumors surrounding Gordon’s misconduct, CJUSD 
knowingly, intentionally, willfully, deliberately, negligently, 
and/or recklessly allowed Gordon to continue working at the 
school when she abused Colton High School’s varsity football 
players. In doing so, Defendants fostered a pervasive and 
hostile environment that utterly disregarded the rights and 
safety of minor athletes who were entrusted to CJUSD. As a 
result of CJUSD’s failure to even do the bare minimum – report 
and investigate instances of sexual misconduct with minors – 
Plaintiff and numerous other student-athletes suffered 
humiliation, shame, guilt, and embarrassment as a result of the 
system of abuse.

“Despite the extensive and pervasive abuse of these minor 
students by Gordon, CJUSD not only continued to employ Gordon, 
but even promoted her to Athletic Director at Grand Terrace High 
School – another high school within its district. Thus, rather 
than report or investigate the rampant sexual abuse of minors by 
Gordon, CJUSD chose to reward it. In doing so, CJUSD thereby 
emboldened her authority, ratified her conduct, and allowed her 
to gain further access to other minors, solely for the 
satisfaction of Gordon’s own prurient sexual desires.”

John Doe 7079 said Gordon performed oral sex on him in her car 
early in the 2000 season. He said he was a virgin when Gordon 
had sexual intercourse with him at Harold Strauss’ home after 
the coach and his family hosted a “Captain’s Dinner.” Other 
former Colton players have also alleged that Gordon had sex with 
them during or after “Captain’s Dinners” at the Strauss home.

Gordon began having sex with John Doe 7079 on a regular basis, 
the former player said, on Colton High School grounds. He 
recalled sneaking out of his family home at night to meet Gordon 
and have sex with her in nearby cul de sacs and “a construction 
site building future sub-prime housing crash houses in Grand 
Terrace.”

They also continued to have sex at the Strauss home.

“One moment that really stands out is I was leaving their 
house,” John Doe 7079 said, “Tiffany was taking me home at like 
1 in the morning, 2 in the morning, Coach Strauss, I encountered 
him at the bottom of the stairs going to the front door and it 
was very obvious, it was 2 in the morning or such and he said 
‘Hey, (players name), I’ll see you in the morning’ or something 
to that effect or ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ And at that moment I 
was like ‘OK, the jig is up.’ Like you do know about this and 
no, nothing really came of it.”

He was asked if Strauss ever said anything to him about the 
encounter after that night or took any action?

“No,” the former player said. “Nobody did.”

Another former Colton player alleged in an interview and a 
lawsuit filed earlier this year that Gordon was performing oral 
sex on him in the locker room with the lights off on Halloween 
2007 when Strauss entered the room.

“When Coach Strauss made his way through the locker room, he 
confronted the two and asked why the lights were off,” the suit 
said. “Gordon made excuses, claiming they were just cleaning up 
and leaving.”

John Doe 7079 said he told Gordon he wouldn’t see her again 
after the incident with the freshman coach.

“It’s like more of a slap on the back and then, ‘Holy 
(expletive), man, are you all right? This is horrible and 
(let’s) figure something out,’” he said recalling the freshman 
coach’s reaction to his acknowledging Gordon had had sex with 
him.

“‘All right, we need to be done,” John Doe 7079 recalled 
thinking. “This is, you could feel people knew. People in the 
program knew and the shame kind of builds, right? And it feels 
like this could filter into my friends who aren’t on the 
football team or teachers. The shame builds, right? It builds 
and builds and builds and I’m pretty good at burying stuff. So 
yep, we’re done here.

“I wanted to be a high school student and I was kind of living a 
double life there and having this sexual relationship with this 
person within the confines of this football program and trying 
to have friends that were my age. Even a relationship with 
another person. So the shame and the kind of embarrassment and 
all that stuff was building as we went along. As football was 
over, I was like, ‘I have to stop this.’ I had to get out.

“It was gross, it’s not normal and not OK.”

He told Gordon it was over on the day Yellowjacket players 
cleaned out their football lockers.

“Leave me alone,” he recalled telling Gordon. “It was a rainy 
day, one of the few. And that was it.”

He soon felt estranged from Strauss and the football program. He 
thought he was good enough to play college football, but after 
the break with Gordon, no one at Colton showed any interest in 
helping him contact college recruiters. He lost interest in 
school.

“Felt like it was pretty widespread, that everybody knew and 
that caused me to have no contact with the football program,” 
John Doe 7079 said, referring to awareness at the school about 
Gordon having sex with him. “Coach Strauss, there was no 
communication, my football life and whatever college prospects 
and any powerhouse football things that followed, I definitely 
wasn’t a part of. I was kind of done at that point.

“To be quite honest with you, they had portrayed themselves as 
this Christian family and stuff like that and it all just felt 
like bull (expletive),” he continued, referring to the Strauss 
family. “You know it’s wrong. You’re a kid, it did come up when 
we were kids, but I didn’t want it to be known and I wasn’t 
super interested in school, ACT, SAT. I wanted to get away. I 
wanted to grow up and go away and that’s what I did. School 
stopped being school. It was like I’m somehow an adult now 
because I was with an adult and acting like an adult, or I think 
I am and now they don’t like me and I’m not supposed to be 
around. It changed for sure.”

He worked for a while after high school before joining a friend 
at a community college in the midwest and then graduating from a 
four-year college in the region.

Today, he is a teacher and coach in the Midwest.

“Now I’m an actual teacher and in charge of young people and 
it’s even more kind of sickening, what happened and thinking 
about what happened after me and finding out what has happened 
since me,” he said. “I coach. I’m in charge of young people and 
families trust me and the people that are around me as teachers 
to take care of them. Sometimes I can’t believe like it 
happened. I can’t believe that it went on and it kept going and 
it’s a part of my story and it’s really unfortunate.”

<https://www.sbsun.com/2022/12/23/10th-former-colton-high-player-
alleges-sexual-assault-by-ex-coachs-daughter/>