A new investigation from Washington news outlet KNKX has found that allegations of a culture of sexism, racism, and abuse at a premier youth soccer club mirror the behavior alleged at the professional level. The investigation found allegations of racial and sexual harassment, player endangerment and inappropriate touching of underage players at one of Washington’s premiere youth leagues. Reporter Grace Madigan joins us to talk about what they found.
Note: This transcript was computer generated and edited by a volunteer.
Geoff Norcross: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Geoff Norcross, in for Dave Miller. A report released last fall by US Soccer shook the sporting world. The investigation led by former US Attorney Sally Yates detailed a culture of harassment and abuse in professional women’s soccer. It also concluded this misconduct has its roots at the youth soccer level.
Seattle Public Radio Station KNKX is out with a new investigation of a top tier youth soccer program in Washington State. It uncovered allegations of racial and sexual harassment, player endangerment and inappropriate touching of underage athletes. We’ll be getting into details, so keep that in mind when there might be young people listening with you. Grace Madigan is a Reporter with KNKX and she joins us now. Grace, welcome to the show.
Grace Madigan: Thanks so much for having me.
Norcross: So this club is called Crossfire Premiere. It’s in Redmond. And just so we understand the stakes, how successful are they?
Madigan: Yeah, so this is one of the top clubs definitely in Washington State and even in the nation – and the way you can kind of characterize that is the fact that they’ve got teams playing in the ECNL, which is the League Clubs National League, one of the top leagues that you can play in, in youth soccer. Most of these players go on to play in college and the majority of them are playing D1 [ Division One] and many go on to play professionally in the US and around the world.
Norcross: Yeah, it’s a club that young players hope to be able to join there in the Seattle area?
Madigan: One hundred percent. It’s a club, where if you wanna play D1, if you want to play professionally, if you have any aspirations, Crossfire advertises themselves and everyone knows that Crossfire is one of the clubs that you go to.
Norcross: Your story focuses on two coaches at Crossfire. Their names are Bernie James and Billy Wiskel; We’ll talk about each of them in turn. But taken together, what kind of reputation do they have, as coaches?
Madigan: Yeah, they’re coaching some of the top teams at the club. So, they have teams that play in other competitive leagues, but both of them, Billy and Bernie, coach ECNL teams. Bernie James, last year in 2022, he led his U-18, U-19 boys team to the ECNL National Championship. So they’ve got many successes under their name. But they’re both known to be yellers. They are known to use language from the sidelines that parents and players have commented on.
Norcross: Well, let’s get specific. We’ll start with Billy Wiskel. What did the players you talk to accuse him of doing?
Madigan: Yeah, so, Elise Morris is one of the former players of Billy Wiskel that I talked to and they described some of the yelling and verbal abuse they experienced during their time. But yeah, I think you guys have a clip from Elise, themselves.
Norcross: Yeah, let’s hear what Elise had to say.
Elise Morris [recording]: “I developed an eating disorder during that time. I had such a negative self image. You learn who you are through your sport if you’re playing at that level and the things that Billy was teaching me was to hate myself, was to hate others.”
Norcross: And Elise Morris was a serious player. How did the experience with Billy Wiskel affect the relationship with soccer?
Madigan: They said that they lost that love for soccer that they had, they were really, really passionate going in. They were entering freshman year of high school and they switched to Crossfire because they wanted to go down that road of playing it at a D1 school. But after a year or so of playing at Crossfire under Billy, Elise said they basically questioned if they would even continue playing soccer.
Norcross: There was an investigation into Wiskel’s behavior by an organization called the US Center for Safe Sport. What came of that?
Madigan: So, there is an investigation that was closed last spring. That basically means the US Center for Safe Sport closed that and when reached by phone, Billy said that he was cleared and specifically denied ever making racial comments to his players, and ended the phone call there. And I followed up with the attorney that represented him and Crossfire, and she declined to elaborate on what exactly the investigation was about, but we do know that there was an investigation and it was closed.
Norcross: [Billy Wiskel’s] boss at Crossfire is the Director of Coaching Bernie James, obviously an extremely successful coach, as you have already mentioned here. But you tell this story about another coach of Crossfire and how James treated her son when he was injured. Can you tell me that story?
Madigan: This other coach you’re mentioning is Justi Baumgardt and she was at Crossfire from 2009 to 2022, so for a long time. She has two sons and they played for Crossfire, and the important thing to know about all of this is that even before her son, Caden Yamada’s injury, that kind of propelled her to do something, is that for this decade she was coaching at Crossfire, she was enduring sexual harassment by Bernie James. And so when her son got a concussion in a game when he was playing for Bernie James, towards the end of 2021 in December, it was sort of the final straw for her to decide to actually do something and try to hold Crossfire accountable.
But essentially the incident was her son, who was 17 at the time, in December of 2021, they were playing Spokane Sounders over at Mary Moore, which is a public park on the east side of the Seattle area, and her son was dragged down by another player with just 15 minutes left to go. I saw a video, his head, shoulders hit the ground and his head kind of pops off the ground and it was clear, because he rolls over holding his head, that he was injured. He was diagnosed with a concussion by a doctor and his mom says he missed a week of school. So it was a serious injury and something that Washington State law says that needs to be taken seriously and a player needs to be evaluated by a medical professional before returning to the field.
Norcross: And as you mentioned, this inspired Justi Baumgardt to actually do something. And she made a report to Safe Sport about the incident and James’ handling of it. What was the outcome of that?
Madigan: Before there was even an outcome, this report kind of got bounced around. She reported initially to Safe Sport about specifically her son’s concussion, but this was dismissed by Safe Sport and sent back to US Soccer who sent it to Washington Youth Soccer, who sent it back to US Soccer and it kind of stayed there until some retaliation - what Baumgardt believes to be retaliation - happened. And then US Soccer helped to file a second Safe Sport report regarding retaliation and the sexual harassment that Justi would eventually told them about.
The second report to Safe Sport was the one that ultimately got investigated and that was closed at the end of April this year. So it took over a year because that second Safe Sport Report was made last March… so March 2022, outcome April 2023. And the outcome basically closed the case, according to Justi who had a phone call with Safe Sport.
Norcross: Well, two coaches, two investigations, two closed investigations. What does Coach Bernie James say about all this?
Madigan: So when I called James, he had a prepared statement that he put together with his attorney. And basically, he just said that US Center for Safe Sport concluded their investigation and dismissed the allegations, and that he would continue to coach.
Norcross: Justi Baumgardt decided to stop coaching after this investigation was concluded and she talked about that decision with you. Here’s what she said:
Justi Baumgardt [recording]: “You know, obviously I was a part of that culture for 13 years and, and I chose to stay and there are a lot of things that I disagreed with. And stepping away from it, being away from it for the past year, you realize kind of really how bad it really was.”
Norcross: How has this whole experience affected her?
Madigan: Yeah, I mean, I think clearly the fact that she decided to leave coaching club soccer speaks volumes to this whole experience. She felt like she didn’t get any accountability, even though she clearly tried to. So I think it kind of made her question spending over a decade in this sort of system. So, yeah, it was definitely I think disheartening for her, for someone who played at the highest level. And to see this happening at the youth level.
Norcross: So, what about these two coaches? Bernie James and Billy Wiskel? Are they both still coaching?
Madigan: They are still coaching. Yep.
Norcross: Is there any change in the organization that you can point to?
Madigan: So far, no. They are both still coaching. I believe Billy is coaching several teams, and yeah, there was nothing that was done by Safe Sport, no sanctions or anything. So, as far as we all know, nothing has changed.
Norcross: As we mentioned at the top, the Yates Report that came out last year points to the culture of harassment in professional women’s soccer as having roots in the youth game. And I’m wondering if your reporting bears that out?
Madigan: I think so and Crossfire is just one club, one youth soccer club obviously. But for me, at least talking with four former players for Billy Wiskel who were all on the same team, and hearing them talk about that environment on the team, and the things that Billy would say, what struck me was the similarities between how they described Billy and how the players in the Yates Report described coaches named in that report - the remarks that are racially insensitive, commenting about players’ bodies and really questioning players’ confidence in themselves. Those are all things that a former Crossfire player said that you can see in the Yates Report, which I think is pretty, pretty telling.
Norcross: Grace, thank you so much for this.
Madigan: Thank you for having me.
Norcross: Grace Madigan is a reporter with public radio station KNKX.
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