2 coaches banned from local soccer club

A third coach also was accused and suspended, but the Arizona Youth Soccer Association hearing panel found insufficient evidence and allowed him to return to coaching.

No criminal charges have been filed against the banned coaches, Chris Fernandez and Chris Hospedales, though a police report was made. Fernandez, who now lives in California, denied the accusations and his lawyer said he will appeal the ban.

Attempts to reach Hospedales, who moved to California last year, were unsuccessful.

The three accused coaches all worked at Arizona Rush Soccer Club, the local branch of an elite national youth-soccer organization.

Fernandez was head of coaching, the supervisor of all the club's coaches, before leaving in early 2009. He also was head coach of the club's semi-pro women's team, and for five years had been a coach in the state's Olympic Development Program. Hospedales was one of several coaches of Rush's youth teams.

Parents of Arizona Rush players have received formal notice only of the return of the coach whose suspension was lifted. The club has not notified families that Hospedales and Fernandez were found by the soccer association to have behaved inappropriately with at least one teen girl they coached.

One former Rush player, now an adult, said in a letter to a hearing panel and later in testimony, that for months Fernandez discussed starting a physical relationship with her before kissing her in a hotel room at a tournament in Colorado when she was 15. The same woman accused Hospedales of propositioning her by phone and text message - sometimes in the company of Fernandez - and said he repeatedly asked her over to his house. When she was 17, they had sex, she said.

The woman spoke openly, but other testimony was presented in anonymous form.

Told of the suspensions, a Pima County prosecutor said youth clubs ought to err on the side of disclosure.

"Parents have a right to know in case there are more victims out there," said Susan Eazer, head of the Pima County Attorney's Office's special victims unit.

Video on facebook

Word of possible misconduct by coaches at Rush was circulating early last year after a player posted a short video on Facebook. It showed at least four female players in a boat with at least three adult male coaches who appeared to be drinking beer. It is unclear how old the players were.

When a Rush coach, Mike Corbus, left the club to form a new, elite team within the Fort Lowell Soccer Club, he discussed the video with others outside Rush.

Rush filed a grievance against him with the Pima County Junior Soccer League, the organization that oversees 5,000 to 6,000 players. Corbus was accused of violating two bylaws: one that prohibits recruiting players from other clubs outside a set period, and the other prohibiting activities against the "good of the game" - in this case maligning Rush publicly.

Rush officials declined through their attorney to comment for this story.

When the hearing before a three-member panel occurred in June, Corbus' defense wasn't a simple denial. He dug up information supporting his comments about inappropriate behavior by Arizona Rush coaches. He brought two letters from former Rush players and one of them appeared as a witness, all detailing allegations of attempted and consummated sexual liaisons.

Detlef Lange, longtime local soccer personality, led the hearing as an officer of the Pima County Junior Soccer League and said the first letter shocked him.

"I took it, read the first paragraph, didn't even read the rest," Lange said. He said he called in Pat Dunham, a Tucsonan and Arizona Youth Soccer official who is expert in risk management and said, "Look at this."

She called the police.

Tucson police came to Dunham's office, where the hearing was held, and took a report. Then they passed the case to the Pima County Sheriff's Department, citing the location of the alleged incidents, said Tucson police Sgt. Fabian Pacheco.

Pima County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Deputy Dawn Barkman could find no record of the report or of the department's pursuing the incident. "Without information (and input) from the victim, it would be difficult to investigate," she said via e-mail.

The three-member hearing board cleared Corbus. Then Pima County Junior Soccer League passed the allegations against the other coaches to the Arizona Youth Soccer Association.

previous accusations

It wasn't the first time the association had dealt with accusations of serious misconduct against a coach. But it's much easier for the association when the coach is arrested and charged with a crime, as happened in 2003.

In November of that year, Tucson police arrested Darren Kerry, 29, who was coaching for the Fort Lowell Soccer Club and Tucson Soccer Academy.

Kerry, who had recently come from Britain, was then indicted on 19 counts of sexual conduct with a minor, a female player who was 15 and 16 years old during the encounters. After pleading guilty to two of those counts, he served about eight months in jail and was deported.

Kerry was banned from coaching youth soccer..

When it came to the allegations against Hospedales, Fernandez and the third coach, the Arizona Youth Soccer Association suspended them, then set up a hearing process that association president Jason Vanacour said is established in the state bylaws.

At the Oct. 17 hearing for all three, the accused coaches and principal accuser all were allowed to have lawyers, but the lawyers couldn't ask questions. Only the participants could. Hospedales did not attend and was not represented.

"It's really difficult to be a lawyer and a potted plant at the same time," said Dan Cooper, who represented Fernandez.

Rick Lougee, who represented the coach whose suspension was lifted, said: "They kind of made up the rules as it went along."

On Dec. 21, the association sent out its verdict: Hospedales and Fernandez violated the association's bylaws and were suspended indefinitely, but there was insufficient evidence against the third coach, who could resume coaching.

The Star is not naming the third coach because the allegations against him were not upheld.

third coach "innocent"

Arizona Rush responded Jan. 10 with a letter to Rush families and coaches from Walt Patton, president of the club's board, announcing that after "perhaps the longest period of review in AYSA history, (the third coach) has been cleared in the matter of this complaint. Another way to say cleared would be 'innocent.' "

The message did not mention the findings against Fernandez and Hospedales, who had left the club in the previous year.

Michelle Cozzens, a former Rush parent, said her teen daughter played for Hospedales for two years, and he was a great coach. But she said parents, and even former parents, ought to be told if a complaint against a coach is upheld.

"I think the information should be put out there simply to stop the gossip and get the story straight," she said.

But Richard San Jose, a longtime coach of girls teams at Fort Lowell Soccer Club, said there's also a danger in disclosure for the clubs. An accused coach could sue the club for defamation, San Jose said.

Vanacour, head of the state youth soccer association, said the state group regularly shows families, coaches and clubs how to determine if a coach has been disciplined.

Fernandez left Rush in early 2009 and got a job as the top assistant to women's soccer coach Paul Stumpf at the University of California-Santa Barbara. Among his duties is "recruiting coordinator," the school said.

Told of Fernandez's suspension, Stumpf said, "It's all news to me," and declined to comment further.

Hospedales worked briefly for the University of California-Irvine women's soccer team last year, head coach Scott Juniper said.

question of consent

Eazer, the Pima County prosecutor, said she wasn't surprised that rumors about the coaches circulated, but nothing was reported until Corbus was accused of defamation and backed into a corner. People often don't consider rumored sexual conduct with a minor may be criminal, she said.

"People look at it as consensual," Eazer said.

Local lawyer Lynne Cadigan represented Darren Kerry's victim in a lawsuit - settled confidentially in 2005 - over Kerry's conduct. Cadigan, the main attorney who represented victims of priest sexual abuse in Tucson's Catholic diocese, said the reaction is predictable.

"It's typical in all cases where a beloved authority figure is accused of a sexual crime with a minor," she said. "No one wants to believe it. In order to maintain that illusion, they have to blame the girl."

risk management

Organizations and clubs from U.S. Youth Soccer on down have policies and training available on "risk management," including avoiding sexual misconduct and accusations of it.

Perhaps the strongest outcome of the Darren Kerry incident was that Fort Lowell Soccer Club and others began conducting criminal background checks on every volunteer who will be dealing with children.

If a coach hears of possible sexual abuse or other misconduct with children and has a "reasonable suspicion" it is true, the coach is obligated under state law to report it immediately. In fact, state law makes it a crime for any "person who has responsibility for the care or treatment" of minors not to report that conduct.

How to verify suspensions

U.S. Youth Soccer publishes a monthly list of suspended coaches, players and others on its Web site. To find the Disciplinary and Risk Management Action Report, or DARM, go to this site: www.usyouthsoccer.org/ risk_management/ and click on Monthly Disciplinary Action Report. Then click on the top link, which as of Friday said "December Report (Suspensions)" but called up a Feb. 10 report.

Contact reporter Tim Steller at 807-8427 or tsteller@azstarnet.com