Top North Carolina State sports officials, including the athletic director, knew of allegations of inappropriate physical contact with male athletes against sports medicine director Robert M. Murphy Jr. for several years before anyone raised concerns with the school's Title IX office, according to documents obtained by ESPN.
The former NC State Title IX deputy coordinator told investigators she recalled "having a what-the-f--- moment" when she learned of a 2019 memo, which contained concerns raised by athletic department staff about Murphy's behavior. The memo had been buried in a folder for three years while he remained on the job.
"Frankly, it pisses me off. I'm trying really hard to hide my anger right now," coordinator Michelle Lee told investigators in 2022. "It's really upsetting that we have this kind of information in this document, and we've done nothing with it."
Lee's account appears in more than 1,000 pages of confidential documents that were part of a 2022 Title IX investigation reviewed by ESPN showing that senior sports officials at NC State received repeated warnings as early as 2014 or 2015 about Murphy's behavior yet failed to raise red flags with Title IX officials, as they were required to do.
The allegations included that Murphy touched male athletes' genitals inappropriately during treatments, observed male athletes in the locker room and shower, engaged in behavior one coach described as "grooming," and had boundary-crossing relationships with student-athletes.
Some of the allegations were included in a 32-count criminal indictment filed in September against Murphy for alleged sexual abuse of 14 athletes. Murphy, through his attorneys, has denied the charges.
NC State said in a statement, "Sexual misconduct of any kind is unacceptable...As soon as the allegations were reported to NC State University Police and the Title IX office in 2022, the university took prompt action...We can state clearly that Robert Murphy is no longer employed at NC State, and has not worked at NC State since the university learned of the allegations and took action. As this is an ongoing legal matter, we cannot comment further at this time."
Murphy's attorneys did not respond to requests for comment, but in a Sept. 24 statement, they said: "We, as always, believe that when people hear the actual facts of what occurred, Mr. Murphy will be cleared and the truth will be paramount."
In the 2022 Title IX report, investigators concluded that Murphy's conduct while treating a student-athlete was "unwelcome and of a sexual nature," "pervasive" and "sufficiently severe."
Murphy started at NC State in 2012 and resigned in spring 2022, before the Title IX investigation concluded.
ESPN contacted more than two dozen people who were named in the documents, interviewed by investigators or named as defendants in the civil lawsuit. Most declined to comment or did not respond.
The 2019 memo was written by Murphy's manager at the time, senior associate athletic director Raymond Harrison, and addressed to outgoing athletic director Debbie Yow. Harrison raised concerns that Murphy was observed using questionable massage techniques, inviting male athletes to have their hair cut in his home and "virtually straddling a student athlete," which he later downplayed to investigators saying he had seen other trainers use similar techniques.
Harrison also reported a comment Murphy made about "seeing an athlete naked in the team's locker room." Harrison called Murphy's comment "not appropriate" and wrote that "it should not be common practice for staff to be in the team locker rooms while [student-athletes] are getting dressed."
Harrison later told investigators that he spoke to Murphy about his "massage techniques and different things and to make sure that if someone from the outside is looking in, that they're comfortable with what they see in your training room."
Title IX office 'preached' reporting after Jerry Sandusky's crimes at Penn State
The failure of Harrison and his bosses to report the memo's concerns to the Title IX office appeared to infuriate Lee, who told investigators that her office had "preached" to all athletic staff about reporting protocols, especially after Jerry Sandusky's crimes of sexual abuse at Penn State came to light in 2011.
"I know in 2019, we were very clear in our expectations of what staff should do. Any staff, whether you're an athletic trainer, whether you're a sports supervisor, whether you're a coach, we've been very clear in what... the expectations are for staff to share and report information," Lee stated.
The memo wasn't the first warning that failed to reach Lee's office, according to the documents. Michael Lipitz, who was the school's deputy athletic director, said he received information about "a comment made about a men's soccer player [who] maybe felt uncomfortable with a treatment that Rob had conducted," sometime in 2014 or 2015, according to the documents.
"My recollection is there wasn't any substance to it," Lipitz stated. "There wasn't any, I guess, proof."
Lipitz also stated that he trusted Murphy's medical judgment and described him as a "by-the-book detail person" who is "really good at what he does."
Lipitz said in a statement to ESPN: "As a former college athlete who has dedicated his professional life to the development of young people through sports, I have an unwavering commitment to their well-being."
Yow, who was retiring from her role as athletic director at the time, was noncommittal when investigators asked whether she recalled reading it. "I don't remember getting it. But I'm not suggesting I didn't. I would turn it over to Michael [Lipitz] since Raymond reported to Michael and asked Michael to go investigate it."
An organization chart obtained by ESPN shows Harrison reported directly to Yow.
Asked by investigators whether she recalled being told of questionable behavior by Murphy, Yow responded: "I do. That's what's odd. I don't remember getting this [memo]."
Yow referred ESPN to NC State for comment.
Former trainer remains in jail after grand jury indictment
Last September, more than seven years after Yow received the memo and more than a decade after Lipitz first became aware of concerns, a North Carolina grand jury indicted Murphy on charges of sexual abuse. The charges include nine felony counts of sexual contact under the pretext of medical treatment and 23 misdemeanor counts of sexual battery against 14 former athletes. Murphy is in jail awaiting trial.
The indictment came three months after a state court judge dismissed a civil lawsuit filed by 31 male former student athletes on procedural grounds. The men have appealed. A separate case is pending with the state's Industrial Commission, which hears civil claims against state agencies.
An attorney for the men, Kerry Sutton said in a statement to ESPN that her clients were "victimized by Rob Murphy and harmed by the negligence of NC State and others. They stand by the truthfulness of those allegations."
Harrison's 2019 memo came to light when the university launched a Title IX investigation in January 2022, after former men's soccer player Benjamin Locke filed a complaint with campus police.
Locke was 17 when he first received treatments from Murphy. He played on the men's soccer team from 2015 to 2017. He told investigators that Murphy "touched, cupped, held, and flicked" Locke's penis as many as 100 times over a two-year period, during medical treatment that often involved having Locke remove his underwear, according to documents reviewed by ESPN.
Investigators reported that, "While Murphy admits to touching Locke's genitalia with the back of his hand, Murphy denied Locke's allegations that Murphy cupped or flicked Locke's or any athlete's genitalia." The investigation could not determine the exact number of times the alleged unwanted touching occurred.
ESPN spoke with 15 former student athletes, 13 of whom are plaintiffs in the civil case. Two others say they plan to join. They described Murphy touching their genitals during medical treatments, entering the locker room while they were in various states of dress, entering the open shower area while they showered, or subjecting them to intrusive observation when he required them to give urine samples.
Murphy's alleged behavior during massages was such common knowledge that it became a locker room joke. Some former athletes told ESPN the massages were nicknamed "the Rob Murphy special," because, no matter the injury, Murphy would find a way to massage the groin area and touch their genitals.
Harrison's 2019 memo also repeatedly raised concerns over Murphy's "inability to remove himself from men's soccer" after Harrison had ordered him to. Harrison wrote he first requested that Murphy remove himself in July 2017 as part of a broader organizational change but also noted that coaches were worried about Murphy's closeness to the players.
"Instead of slowly distancing himself," Harrison wrote. "Rob continued to insert himself."
While many of the athletes alleging sexual abuse or harassment are former soccer players, they include men who participated in eight different sports.
According to the documents, Harrison told investigators that staff members continually brought him "unsolicited" information regarding concerns they had about Murphy's behavior until it reached a "tipping point" where Harrison felt he needed to act. "And that's kind of where this memo, where it came from," he stated.
It is unclear from the documents what that tipping point was.
Lee told investigators that, had she seen the memo, she would have had a "million questions" because it was "too vague to put in this kind of memo and not do anything about it."
"I believe that my role as Deputy Title IX coordinator, as senior woman administrator, with Debbie [Yow] as athletic director, was minimized at various opportunities," said Lee, according to the transcripts. Lee appeared to cite that as the reason she was cut out of any conversations surrounding Murphy.
Yow told investigators she didn't recall annual student-athlete surveys ever revealing any issues related to the sports medicine team, according to the transcripts.
Asked if athletic staff or administrators raised concerns, Yow said there were no allegations of "any type of sexual abuse," but there were concerns about Murphy "massaging too close" to athletes' genitals.
Asked who was responsible for following up on the memo, Lipitz told investigators: "It's a group discussion a lot of times." But he did not specify what, if any, follow-up occurred, according to the documents. Lipitz also appeared to blame the lack of follow-up on a transition that was occurring within top athletic department leadership due to Yow's retirement.
Murphy's behavior 'blurred the line,' seemed like 'grooming'
Kelly Findley, who served as the men's soccer coach from 2011 to 2016, told investigators he warned two different athletic department officials about Murphy.
Harrison told investigators that Findley had raised concerns in 2016 about Murphy. Findley said he also had voiced his concerns to Harrison's predecessor. Findley said he asked for Murphy to be reassigned because the trainer "blurred the line." But the soccer coach said he never witnessed anything inappropriate.
Civil court filings allege Findley flagged concerns about Murphy to school officials as early as 2012. Findley did not specify a time period for when he first raised concerns about Murphy in his interview with investigators.
"There was a couple guys he would pick out on the team that he was kind of grooming," Findley said, according to the transcripts. "There were certain guys that he kind of gravitated towards, and I felt like he was too friendly with them. ... I just felt like there was something a little, like, you're 40 years old. You should have your own life, and he never had his own life. He was just too attached to the players."
Findley told investigators his entire coaching staff felt uncomfortable with Murphy's relationship with the soccer team and that there was "an undertone" in Murphy's behavior. He said he warned his successor, George Kiefer, about Murphy but didn't give specifics.
"We had more guys have sports hernias than I've ever had anywhere else I've ever been," Findley told investigators. "We had more guys that needed pregame massages"
Several of the student-athletes ESPN spoke to say they were abused during treatments for sports hernias or massage treatments.
Asked why he didn't report his concerns to the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity, which led the Title IX investigation, Harrison cited other cases in which trainers had used a straddling technique.
"Nothing that I shared with [Lipitz] took us to the point where we felt the need to report" to the Equity and Diversity office Harrison said. "Going back to that hindsight piece, maybe that's something we should have taken into greater consideration."