Lakehead's former running coach the latest facing maltreatment claims by athletes at Thunder Bay university
CBC
Lakehead University (LU) is once again facing pressure from former student athletes, this time centred on allegations that a former running coach maltreated them at the Thunder Bay, Ont., school.
Former cross country and track and field athletes have come forward to talk about Kip Sigsworth, who left the university's athletic department in 2020 after 16 years as a head coach.
According to 11 of them who spoke to CBC News, Sigsworth regularly singled out and belittled athletes, and created a culture where athletes were pushed to the point of competing with injuries because they were afraid to voice their concerns.
"Almost from Day 1, I noticed that [Sigsworth's] treatment of people and the way he spoke to them was very condescending … belittling of runners at practice was commonplace, people were treated poorly, particularly people who weren't as fast," said Dr. Connor McGuire, who joined the running programming after starting at LU a decade ago, and is now a physician and plastic surgery resident in Eastern Canada.
The latest allegations come months after the departure of longtime women's basketball coach Jon Kreiner, who said he "parted ways" with the university last fall, and was facing allegations he maltreated and stole money from his players. Lakehead has never publicly acknowledged the investigation or its status.
Over several months, CBC News has also been investigating the university's athletics department. We spoke to 30 former student athletes who largely described a culture where complaints were not taken seriously by the athletic department and they feared speaking out in case of retribution.
Now, some Canadian safe sport researchers that CBC News reached out to are critical of steps taken by LU, including what appear to be new policies about safe sport and conflict resolution, saying they are a "Band-Aid" solution and asking why the athletic department should be trusted now after so many years of inaction.
Their comments come as there's growing national attention on the issue.During a recent House of Commons committee hearing, former elite athletes called for a public inquiry into abuse at all levels of sport.
CBC News requested an interview multiple times via email and phone last week with Sigsworth and several university officials, but did not receive a response.
McGuire had 'high hopes" when he first came to Thunder Bay in 2013 to complete graduate studies.
He was already an accomplished varsity athlete. Earlier that year, Athletics PEI named him senior male athlete of the year after winning the Atlantic University Sport cross-country title, plus two conference titles, among other awards.
McGuire told CBC News his experience at Lakehead was very different.
Sigsworth was already a decorated coach at Lakehead at the time, hired by the university in 2005. He was named the 2012 Ontario University Athletics (OUA) men's cross-country coach of the year, among other recognitions. Sigsworth resigned as head coach in December 2020.
"With Kip [Sigsworth], it was an incredibly unsupportive environment. I really did feel that negatively impacted my mental health and I've actively discouraged people from the East Coast from going to Lakehead," McGuire said about his time running for Lakehead in the mid-2010s.
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