LOGAN, Utah — A former Utah State University football player is suing the school claiming he experienced retaliation from coaches and teammates when he tried to speak out against sexual assault and misconduct happening on the team.
Senior Patrick Maddox is no longer with the team after playing with the Aggies since 2019. He says his concerns fell upon deaf ears within the school administration.
“They don’t care. They’ve made that very clear. It’s just the reality of the situation and it sucks to hear but they just don’t care,” said Maddox.
Last December, Maddox released recordings from Utah State football team meetings meeting where head coach Blake Anderson and the campus police chief at the time made controversial comments on sexual assault. After releasing the recordings, Maddox said everything changed.
"People want to win games and they’ll do anything to win games and they keep it that way, but that stuff is what I want to address that needs to stop," Maddox said.
Fellow senior Kaytri Flint, a friend of Maddox's, settled her lawsuit with the school after saying she was raped by a football player and the school did nothing.
"I’ll have a hard time with it for a long time," said Flint. "I wish that it didn’t impact the people in my life the way that it did.
"She showed me everything that happened, and for it to be swept under the rug and not taken seriously once again was just disgusting. As a player and as a man, I couldn’t let that slide," said Maddox.
Maddox's lawsuit says teammates threatened to come to his home and assault him if he did not apologize to Anderson, and that the coach told other players to “handle Patrick however they saw fit.”
Patrick left the team in February following the retaliation he faced from teammates and coaches, as well as the hostile environment left behind.
Maddox says he stands by his actions.
"I knew at the end of the day, if I took those recordings, my football career would probably be done. I have no regrets about what I did.
School officials said they are limited in what they can say about the lawsuit, but in a statement, said “USU does not tolerate sexual misconduct or retaliation for reporting it.”
But Maddox believes the school has more to fix.
"I had multiple teammates reach out to me in private. They told me about disgusting things that teammates have done to people that they love and they just have to suck it up, and they’re still at that team right now," Maddox shared. "They have to suck it up to stay on that team and just try and get through it, and that’s honestly, that’s bull____, it shouldn’t be like that."
Maddox knows there are people who won't believe what he says, but asks why he would jeopardize his own career to shed light on the truth.
"I didn’t betray the team. The reality is the people that are betraying the team are the people in power at this institution that continuously want to sweep things under the rug for the sake of making sure nothing gets out, keep people quiet.
"That’s not my burden to carry."
