Say not anything.
That’s what Caroline Ullring stored telling herself in the course of the ultimate days of March 1999.
She had accused her university tennis mentor of sexually assaulting her in a Texas motel room all the way through a spring split shuttle with the staff. In past due March, she had instructed athletic area officers about it, together with a counselor and the senior ladies’s administrator, who briefed the athletic director in regards to the allegations. The message Ullring felt she used to be getting from officers at Wake Jungle College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, used to be that you’ll want to book this calm.
The mentor, Lew Gerrard, instructed the similar officers what he instructed The Athletic previous this 12 months. He admitted to ingesting within the presence of the staff, most likely touching Ullring’s thigh and giving gamers massages. Not anything else.
He affirmative to surrender. He denied assaulting Ullring.
Ullring says she used to be instructed that if she took her tale to the police or alternative government, it could be her assurance towards his. The whole lot would change into folk. There used to be just one method to safeguard privateness.
Say not anything.
For the later twenty years, that’s in large part what she did.
A teammate who heard rumors in regards to the causes at the back of Gerrard’s escape requested Ullring about them in a while upcoming he resigned. She stated she couldn’t speak about it. She didn’t proportion main points of the alleged attack together with her oldsters or her pals. In 2006, upcoming her boyfriend died abruptly, Ullring used to be hospitalized, and gained remedy from psychologists and psychiatrists. However she hardly ever mentioned the incident with Gerrard, so medical doctors didn’t diagnose her with post-traumatic tension condition.
“I was a good girl,” she stated all the way through a contemporary line of video interviews from her house in Norway.
Gerrard, an 87-year-old from Brandnew Zealand who has spent maximum of his grownup moment training tennis within the U.S., stated all the way through a telephone interview in Might: “I’ve never had any sexual relationship with any player I have been teaching.” He described being offered with the allegations as “a shock,” and stated he remembered considering Ullring had “made it up.”
In a 2d telephone interview in November, Gerrard stated that Wake Jungle officers had by no means instructed him about any allegations of sexual attack, although he had stated in Might that they’d performed so.
“They didn’t present me with anything like that at all,” he stated in November. “A sexual assault, absolutely not.”
In an interview in early December, Ron Wellman, who used to be Wake Jungle’s athletic director on the age and is now retired, stated he had offered Gerrard with the allegations. He additionally stated that he didn’t recall ever advising an athlete to stay peaceful.
“We talked in detail about everything,” Wellman stated of his assembly with Gerrard. “At the end of that meeting, he agreed to resign.”
Wake Jungle declined to serve any details about the incident, or the method that ended in Gerrard’s escape for “personal reasons” (consistent with a press leave) days upcoming Ullring reported it, mentioning privateness rules. It introduced please see observation:
“Lew Gerrard was hired in 1988 and resigned on March 26, 1999. Additionally, Caroline Ullring was enrolled at Wake Forest from 1995-99 and was a member of the Demon Deacons women’s tennis team.”
In 2019, Ullring started optical a therapist who makes a speciality of treating public suffering with the results of shock. She mentioned the alleged attack together with her in quality for the primary age.
Thru her lengthy quietness, Ullring from time to time idea she had performed one thing unsuitable that evening in Texas years in the past. She didn’t know someone else who had this revel in together with her mentor. Such a lot of of her teammates perceived to love Gerrard.
“I felt I had to do it for the team and the university and I did not see any other way,” Ullring stated just lately.
Later terminating spring, she checked out her telephone and noticed the message from an vintage teammate that may change into a hinge era in her moment. A 67-year-old girl from Colorado named Karen Clark sought after to talk with Ullring.
She sought after to discuss a tennis mentor who she stated had sexually assaulted her within the early Seventies: Lew Gerrard.
Karen Clark, next Denison, 3rd from proper at a Woman’s Nationwide Town Group Match in 1974. (Courtesy Karen Clark)
The tales that Ullring and Clark say they’ve lived with for many years are all too familiar in sports activities, particularly particular person ones like tennis. Younger gamers spend lengthy hours coaching and touring with used, most commonly male coaches. Too a lot of the ones coaches utility their energy to aim to make the most of the ones gamers sexually, from time to time to bring about incidents and relationships that territory from beside the point to felony.
The USA Tennis Affiliation recently has 137 coaches on its Cover Play games Disciplinary checklist, that means they’ve been stopped or suspended for mistreating gamers. Seventy-three of the ones people had been accused or convicted of sexual misconduct with minors.
It took place to Pam Shriver, a Elegant Slam doubles champion and member of the World Tennis Corridor of Reputation. It took place to Kylie McKenzie, who effectively sued the USTA in 2022 upcoming the U.S. Heart for SafeSport discovered it “more likely than not” that she were assaulted by means of her mentor, Anibal Aranda, when she used to be 19 and he used to be 34. (Aranda, who used to be suspended and next fired by means of the USTA, denies the allegations.) It occurs to in large part unknown youngs whose tales ended up within the fingers of prosecutors, and to others who raise their secrets and techniques without end.
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Next years of quietness, Shriver in any case went folk with the tale of the way her longtime mentor, Don Sweet, a similar pal of Gerrard’s, pursued a sexual dating together with her, starting when she used to be 17.
“It was stuffed down there,” she stated all the way through a contemporary interview, describing how she lived for many years in quietness about what took place all the way through her age with Sweet, who’s now deceased.
It’s a familiar behavioral development for sexual attack survivors: Put the nightmare in a field; stow it away.
That’s what Ullring did. Till she didn’t.
Rising up in Oslo within the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, Ullring had loved the type of lively formative years that many Norwegian youngsters revel in in a rustic this is insane for sports activities and the outside. She performed golfing, participated in gymnastics and skied plethora. She cherished tennis probably the most. By means of her young years she used to be the most effective women in Norway, representing the rustic in nationwide staff competitions.
When she used to be 16 her used brother, Petter, died by means of suicide. His loss of life despatched her into an extended fight with melancholy.
At her oldsters’ advice, upcoming completing highschool in 1994, she took a split from schooling and attended Dennis Van der Meer’s tennis academy in Hilton Head, South Carolina. Van der Meer were an established educator for each coaches and gamers, together with, for a age within the Seventies, Billie Jean King. School coaches from the mid-Atlantic pocket, together with Van der Meer’s vintage pal, Lew Gerrard, continuously scouted skill at his academy.
Gerrard seemed all the way through Ullring’s first months there. He complimented her recreation and requested if she could be keen on enjoying for Wake Jungle. She enrolled there within the fall of 1995, intending to review chemistry.
Ullring quickly discovered moment in Winston-Salem, N.C. used to be committing to be other than she had anticipated. She sought after to play games singles however wasn’t, even supposing she stated Gerrard had instructed her she would. Chemistry labs conflicted with practices, so she needed to transfer to finding out condition and workout science.
Taking college-level categories in English used to be tough. Her dictionary had canine ears on just about each web page. She needed to leave out staff dinners and alternative gatherings as a result of her homework become so time-consuming.
She used to be terrified that she would fail. Her tension ranges spiked. Docs on the college condition sanatorium prescribed anti-anxiety cure, similar to Zoloft, which she would pluck, as wanted, all the way through her age at Wake Jungle.
From the start, she and alternative teammates spotted some questionable conduct from Gerrard, like ingesting alcohol across the staff on street journeys or all the way through staff dinners at his house together with his spouse. One former participant, who spoke on situation of anonymity for the reason that tale residue delicate for her pals and teammates, described Gerrard as a mentor who once in a while made beside the point, suggestive feedback however were one thing of a father determine to a couple gamers, opening his house to them after they have been a long way clear of theirs for the primary age.
“We would have a few drinks and he would make flirty comments,” stated Nicola Kawai, a retain from Brandnew Zealand and similar pal of Ullring all the way through their years at Wake Jungle. “There were the feelings of awkwardness and the giggles, and we would have to all laugh it off.”
Gerrard instructed The Athletic he would have a pitcher of wine at dinners with the staff, and may have a drink when the gamers got here to his area for cookouts. He stated they didn’t drink with him.
Later there have been the massages, consistent with more than one former gamers. Some noticed it as a useful officialism, for the reason that staff didn’t have a devoted schoolteacher and gamers have been clothed when the massages took playground. Others stated it made them uncomfortable.
Requested about giving the massages, Gerrard stated, “I may have, if there was cramp in the leg or something like that.”
In mid-March 1999, upcoming a loss on the College of Texas, Ullring used to be sitting at a desk ingesting with Gerrard all the way through a staff evening out at a Texas eating place. He started confiding in her about his marriage and alternative relationships with ladies, she stated. A co-captain, she used to be additionally determined to create the singles lineup.
On the finish of the evening, she and Gerrard left the eating place in combination in a single automotive, generation the remains of the staff rode in some other with the colleague mentor. She remembered considering that used to be abnormal.
Gerrard walked Ullring to her room and next, status at her door, introduced to provide her a therapeutic massage. She declined, however next he coaxed her a couple of doorways ailing the hallway, to his room. The later factor she knew she used to be mendacity on his mattress on her again and he used to be massaging her shoulders, and next her breasts, and telling her that he simply sought after her to really feel just right.
“You just freeze, you dissociate,” Ullring stated.
The terminating factor she recollects is a picture of Gerrard on the finish of the mattress in his boxer shorts. She does no longer know whether or not he penetrated her.
Ullring described what mavens say is a common reaction for sexual attack sufferers: One of those conscious blackout, a survival intuition. The thoughts shuts ailing.
A slight generation after, when she become acutely aware of her environment once more, she used to be on her abdomen, and Gerrard used to be telling her that this used to be committing to be their unrevealed. He additionally instructed her she would without a doubt play games singles that season, she stated. Later he stated it used to be age for her to proceed again to her room. She did as she used to be instructed.
Again on campus, she going to an appointment on the condition products and services middle and met with the physician who used to be accountable for her cure. She instructed him what had took place. He instructed her she had to record the incident to the athletic area in order that alternative ladies at the staff would no longer be in peril. Kawai, Ullring’s teammate and pal, who had transferred to Pepperdine, stated Ullring referred to as her within the days upcoming the alleged attack to inform her what had took place. She additionally inspired Ullring to record it.
3 alternative ladies who have been at the Wake Jungle tennis staff all the way through Ullring’s senior 12 months, who requested to not be quoted or recognized as a result of the delicate nature of the subject, stated they’d heard some model of the tale, however didn’t have direct wisdom of it. One stated she referred to as Ullring in quest of information about what had led as much as Gerrard’s escape, however Ullring instructed her she used to be no longer allowed to discuss it.
Ullring sought out Dianne Dailey, the senior ladies’s administrator within the athletic area. Dailey stated in an interview that Ullring instructed her that she used to be “uncomfortable and upset” about an incident that had happened with Gerrard. Dailey advised she talk with some of the athletic area’s counselors and referred her to Johnne Armentrout, whom Ullring knew from earlier counselling periods. She additionally briefed Wellman on what Ullring had instructed her.
Next Ullring met with Armentrout, Dailey requested Armentrout if she had any hesitation about whether or not Ullring used to be telling the reality in regards to the alleged attack. Armetrout instructed her she had none, consistent with Dailey, who retired from Wake Jungle in 2018.
A Wake Jungle staff picture from 1998. Lew Gerrard is first left, Caroline Ullring is fourth left. (Courtesy Caroline Ullring)
Wellman scheduled a gathering with Gerrard for that afternoon and offered him with the allegations. Armentrout, who now supplies counseling on the Trinity Heart in Winston-Salem, didn’t go back messages in quest of remark. She is against the law from talking publicly about her periods with shoppers.
Each Wellman and Dailey stated they may no longer recall their later conferences with Ullring.
Ullring stated Wellman instructed her about his assembly with Gerrard, and the mentor’s escape. In step with Ullring, Wellman instructed her it could be easiest for everybody to book calm about all this. It will be treated briefly.
“I am a very loyal person,” Ullring stated, explaining her choice to not proceed folk for such a lot of years. “It’s very hard for me to tell you.”
Wellman stated he may no longer be mindful advising an athlete to stay peaceful about allegations involving a sexual attack, and would in lieu permit a pupil create that call with the support of a pro counselor.
“We never tried to have an athlete keep quiet about something like that,” Wellman stated.
Information about Gerrard’s dismissal from Wake Jungle by no means become folk.
All through his preliminary interview with The Athletic, Gerrard showed that officers instructed him Ullring had accused him of assaulting her. He denied it however stated ingesting alcohol within the presence of gamers.
“We had a non-drinking rule for the coaches,” he stated, explaining what ended in his escape.
He endured to show privately, however he by no means coached at a school once more, and went directly to paintings in actual property sooner than sooner or later retiring.
Sven Ullring, Caroline’s father, recalled his daughter calling him and her mom on the finish of March 1999 to inform her that Gerrard were pressured to surrender as a result of an incident between them.
“She told me about sexual harassment by her coach, but she didn’t give any details. She said also that she had spoken with the administration at Wake Forest University, who told her that he had been forced to resign,” stated Sven, an engineer and the previous eminent govt of Det Norske Veritas, a Norway-based multinational power and maritime conglomerate. He stated she sounded calmness. “She thought it was terrible and she had fainted,” Sven recalled. “But at that time I got the impression that it was not very bad. It was not a question of rape.”
He requested her if she felt they had to rent a legal professional.
“She said no, because she had been told by the university that she mustn’t talk to anyone about what had happened,” Sven Ullring stated.
He didn’t press her for main points. “At that time, it was something that wasn’t talked about,” he stated.
In an electronic mail to her father days after, Caroline wrote that she used to be taking part in herself at the tennis courtroom way more with Gerrard long past.
Sven Ullring stated his daughter gave the impression in a just right atmosphere of thoughts at commencement in Might, but if she returned house for Christmas after within the 12 months, she instructed them that she were suffering with bulimia. He started to miracle whether or not one thing extra really extensive than sexual harassment had happened between her and Gerrard. She were in a delicate atmosphere since her brother had died by means of suicide.
“And this, on top of that, probably made it very bad,” he stated.
Thru staring at his daughter go through remedy the date 25 years, he understands all this now as a normal development of post-traumatic tension condition.
“I understand that these things don’t come suddenly,” he stated. “They develop over time.”
Ullring stated the terminating age she noticed Gerrard used to be from a distance. He used to be riding within the neighborhood of the Wake Jungle campus, within the days following her conferences with Wellman and his escape from the college. Their optical locked. He seemed extraordinarily furious together with her, she stated.
1 / 4 of a century after, the eye of an coming near automotive, when she doesn’t know the intentions of the motive force, can nonetheless ship her right into a panic.
“It’s so deep in my body,” she stated. “I was afraid he was going to kill me.”
Ullring deliberate on enjoying the remains of that terminating season for Wake Jungle now that she felt higher, as she had instructed her father. Rather, being at the tennis courtroom in no time become dried to supremacy.
On April 1, her birthday, her teammates held a birthday party at observe. Upcoming that pace, when she used to be unloved, she pressured herself to throw up for the primary age, the start of her yearslong fight with bulimia.
She instructed someone who requested she may no longer speak about Gerrard. Inside of weeks, she blocked attending practices continuously.
“It all fell apart,” she stated. “All the strength I built up from when my brother died.”
In 1973, Karen Clark used to be 15. Later referred to as Karen Denison, she used to be a juvenile participant within the Washington, D.C. branch, the 6th of 7 brothers and sisters, an outgoing athletic woman at a age when alternatives in sports activities have been settingup to develop for teenagers like her. Gerrard, a well-regarded mentor within the pocket, noticed Clark play games at a tennis camp, she stated. He sought out her oldsters and introduced to paintings with their daughter.
Clark had already performed effectively in regional age-group tournaments. The prospect to paintings with a mentor with a rising recognition gave the impression too just right to cross up. Her oldsters signed on, and she or he started coaching with him two times a date on the Tennis Barn in Columbia, Md.
That fall, Gerrard instructed Clark he can be instructing an grownup sanatorium in Charlottesville, Va. on the Boar’s Head Inn. Did she wish to come alongside? On the age, Clark’s used sister used to be attending graduate faculty there on the College of Virginia.
Clark’s mom drove her to Charlottesville from their house close Washington, D.C. There used to be a slight tennis at the first evening, and next Gerrard instructed her they had to head to his resort’s bar to catch up with one of the vital alternative gamers on the Boar’s Head’s eating place, she stated.
Apart from the ones gamers weren’t there. She and Gerrard sat ailing at a desk anyway. She recollects ingesting a pitcher of “something brown,” she stated. Later Gerrard instructed her that he needed to retrieve one thing from his room. She had infrequently even sipped dried alcohol sooner than. She recollects the just about uninhabited tavern and recollects stumbling thru a hallway and getting into the room. Later, alike to what Ullring recollects, she says she skilled a mindful power outage.
The later factor she recollects is waking up at the mattress, mendacity on her again together with her tennis skirt round her knees. Gerrard used to be wiping her abdomen with tissues, she stated.
He gave her a trip to her sister’s condominium. Clark awoke the later pace and idea: I will’t ever inform someone about this.
In an interview with The Athletic, Gerrard stated he didn’t recall training any person named Karen Denison in 1973. He coached a quantity of gamers, and that used to be an extended age in the past, “more than 50 years.” He denied having any sexual touch with any of his scholars.
Clark’s sister, Pat Denison, now a mentor of drama and literature at Barnard School in Brandnew York, stated she remembered Clark staying together with her to take part within the sanatorium together with her mentor, Gerrard.
Shriver stated she recollects her mentor, Don Sweet, taking her to look at Gerrard mentor Clark at a event in Baltimore.
Gerrard stated that each Sweet and Shriver have been pals of his. He additionally stated he coached clinics on the Boar’s Head within the Seventies with Dennis Van Der Meer.
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Clark has lived a quantity since next. She had a occupation in industry, operating at McDonnell Douglas in Alabama as a purchaser for Length Lab portions and as a liaison between buying and engineering. She coached collegiate tennis. She married, had youngsters, and become a grandmother. She instructed no person in regards to the alleged incident with Gerrard till 2006. She used to be just about 50 years vintage, a mom of 3, married to her husband, Raoul, for twenty-four years.
Karen Denison Clark in Indian Wells, Calif. in March 2023. (Allison Dinner / The Brandnew York Instances)
She used to be additionally the colleague tennis mentor on the College of Denver, operating with a tender head mentor named A.J. Jensen. Jensen, an Australian, used to be a contemporary graduate of the College of California at Berkeley, the place she had gained 3 NCAA ladies’s doubles titles.
Prior to that, Jensen had spent a part of a 12 months at Wake Jungle.
“I got recruited by this pervert from New Zealand,” Jensen instructed Clark one pace. Jensen had heard that the mentor were fired a couple of years after as a result of one thing had took place between him and a participant.
Clark knew precisely who Jensen used to be speaking about.
She drove house. It used to be the center of the pace. Her youngsters have been in class. Her husband used to be at paintings. In her first flooring sunroom, she doubled over, crying tougher than she had ever cried sooner than.
“It was this revelation that it wasn’t just me,” she stated.
That evening, she instructed her husband about what she remembered taking place to her on the Boar’s Head Inn in 1973, although with out a lot quality. She didn’t speak about it once more till she entered remedy in 2015. Raoul Clark showed the 2006 dialog, and a after one in 2015, when Clark clear the alleged attack.
Ultimately, she instructed her youngsters and her pals. Later, in 2019 she tracked ailing Gerrard and wrote him a letter.
I had desires, Lew, obese ones. I depended on you to support me fill my attainable, handiest to have you ever thieve it from me. The way you idea that you must do what you sought after with my frame is past comprehension. You messed with my head in addition to my frame, however you didn’t split me.
She instructed him to not reply and to by no means touch her.
When she heard Shriver inform her tale on a podcast, she tracked her ailing and shared what Don Sweet’s just right pal had performed to her. Clark says Shriver right away remembered her and her mom, and Gerrard too. She says Shriver instructed her that abuse can are available in many methods, and continuously from the public you may least be expecting.
In early Might, Clark realized that once faced together with her tale, Gerrard claimed no longer to keep in mind her, even supposing he had coached her for just about a 12 months.
“This is exactly why I didn’t tell anyone, because he was going to deny it,” Clark stated. “And it is devastating.”
Clark by no means blocked desirous about that pupil at Wake Jungle. She puzzled if she had struggled unloved for years as Clark had. Later, in June 2023, she reached out to Jensen, now a tennis mentor at U.C.-Santa Cruz.
May Jensen support her to find that pupil? Days after, Caroline Ullring’s telephone lit up.
For twenty-four years, Ullring had idea her revel in with Gerrard used to be distinctive. She had idea that in some way she had performed one thing unsuitable, that it used to be her fault.
In 1999, she had returned to Europe together with her unrevealed. She sooner or later enrolled in clinical faculty in Eire, however in 2006, in the midst of her research, her boyfriend died of headaches from remedies for a mind tumor. She fell right into a deep melancholy and used to be admitted for the primary of more than one remains within the psychiatric wards of numerous hospitals. She completed her clinical level, however does no longer observe drugs.
She underwent electroshock remedies and survived more than one suicide makes an attempt. Operating with a psychologist who handled her for publish nerve-racking tension condition in 2019, she delved into all her injuries. A 12 months in the past, although, she used to be nonetheless susceptible to emotions of ambivalence about residing or loss of life.
Listening to Clark inform her tale in a line of messages over textual content and electronic mail, as much as a video name terminating summer season, modified that.
“I wasn’t alone,” she stated. “It wasn’t something wrong with me.”
Clark has described Ullring as “a gift.” The speculation of her had made Clark double over in tears again in 2006. Now they’ve a bond that is helping maintain either one of them. They textual content every alternative more than one instances each date. They have got but to satisfy in particular person. They’re certain they are going to one pace.
In past due March this 12 months, Ullring made up our minds to do one thing she had no longer performed in years. Nearing 50, she signed up for Norway’s over-40 indoor singles championship.
Her condition wasn’t the place she sought after it to be. Nonetheless, she felt that vintage urge to compete. She gained one fit and next some other. There have been moments when she entered a wave atmosphere she recollects from her early years in Oslo, when tennis appears like what you are supposed to do.
And next there weren’t any further suits left to win and she or he used to be the 40-and-over champion of Norway. Tennis and moment had change into one thing else.
There used to be gratitude, too, for having survived, although she nonetheless has just right days and malicious days.
“I’m lucky,” she stated a couple of days upcoming the event. “I’m happy that I’m still alive.”
(Representation: Kelsea Pietersen / The Athletic)
