The U.S. Center for SafeSport has given U.S. Olympian and former University of Kentucky head swim coach Lars Jorgensen a lifetime ban. A former member of both USA Swimming and the U.S. Tennis Association, Jorgensen’s status was updated on Thursday to “Permanent Ineligibility” with an associated No Contract Directive.
The ban comes after accusations from multiple former staff members who allege that he raped them while at the University of Toledo and the University of Kentucky.
Earlier this year, Jorgensen was given a Show-Cause order by the NCAA for violations of NCAA practice rules unrelated to the alleged assaults. He is also facing civil suits by at least two former staff members who have accused him of rape. That trial is scheduled to begin in June 2026.
Jorgensen can appeal the case to arbitration, though it is not clear if he will do that.
The U.S. Center for SafeSport is a congressionally-mandatfed organization, funded by the USOPC, the Department of Justice, donations, and educational programs. The Center is tasked with overseeing SafeSport programs throughout the Olympic movement in the United States.
Jorgensen represented the United States at the 1988 Olympic Games in the 1500 free, finishing 23rd. He went on to swim at the University of Tennessee, graduating in 1994, and became a graduate assistant coach there.
After a few brief stints as a club coach, he was an assistant at LSU from 1999 until 2004, when Toledo hired him as head coach.
In 2010, he returned to Tennessee as the successor to John Trembley, his former coach. In 2012, Trembley was fired after sending sexually explicit text emails from his university email account. Jorgensen took over as the interim head coach for the remainder of the 2011-2012 season.
In June 2012, he was hired by Kentucky as the successor to Gary Conelly.
Alleged Assaults
The first alleged assault dates back to December of 2013, at a team Christmas party that Jorgensen hosted at his house. A former swim team staffer told The Athletic that Jorgensen forced her into his bedroom and raped her. He is accused of continuing to abuse the staffer over the next two years and telling her that nobody would believe her if she told anyone. She ultimately left in 2016 for a job at a “less prominent program.”
One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit is Briggs Alexander, a former team captain and an assistant coach with the Wildcats. The complaint claims that Jorgensen “groomed” Alexander during her time on the women’s team from 2014-18.
“Jorgensen isolated Alexander, sought to gain her trust, strove to control every facet of her life, and repeatedly made sexualized comments in an attempt to desensitize sexual topics,” says the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.
In December of 2019, after the team’s annual Christmas party at Jorgensen’s house, Alexander alleges that Jorgensen forced her into his bedroom, pinned her down by the wrists, and raped her. She also described three more sexual assaults while working as a volunteer assistant coach (2019-20) and assistant coach (2020-22) and a fourth that allegedly occurred in April of 2023, almost a year after resigning in May of 2022.
Alexander now identifies as male, but the lawsuit uses gender pronouns that align with his transition timeline so readers can understand “who I was in the moment when I was being abused.”
Jorgensen has also been accused of sending a member of the women’s swim team photos of his penis and videos of him masturbating, and sending suggestive messages to swimmers over social media.
What took so long ?
The part I missed in the initial reporting is how much of a perv John trembley is/was. Birds of a feather between trembley, jorgensen and cline
Maybe Trump will pardon him
My only thought while reading the OP is he sounds like cabinet-member caliber
You are not wrong
Where’s Riley Gaines’s outrage on this?
This guy sounds like a terrible person.
He was initially in on the grift. He blamed the Riley Gaines/Lia Thomas situation for his prosecution. So naturally she had to defend him.
Then she kind of walked it back (kind of) in a lukewarm Tweet.
Now she’d like to pretend like it never happened. She’s too big for this.
Her silence on this makes it pretty clear that her agenda has nothing to do with “protecting women.”
Making money is her agenda
It is possible that she didn’t know the extent of the abuse and/or she was not subject to it. Even team chatter is still hearsay. Riley spoke out on what impacted her. It is impossible to know what other people are doing at all times.
Sounds to me like Masters Swammer & this thread is just trying to discredit Riley due to their own axe to grind.
…literally Riley’s entire personality is “an axe to grind” so IDK why you think this is some kind of elite clapback.
While not applicable to Riley, there is something called institutional control which makes it people’s job. They get paid handsomely to do it.
I’m not sure why there’s so much chatter about Riley when there’s sitting administration that hired and oversaw Lars.
Dang. That is shocking and totally unacceptable!!
I didn’t realize how serious the accusations were. I thought he was just some a-hole coach but really he belongs in jail.
He was connected to the right people, so a lot of the allegations were largely whitewashed when presented to the public.
Good.
Chip Kline next.
Get him! And all the rest of them! This has to stop in our sport! And all sports! And everywhere else!