Women’s CBB Player Ashley Scoggin Sues Nebraska over Relationship with Coach | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors

Former Nebraska basketball player and current UNLV player Ashley Scoggin filed a civil lawsuit against Nebraska women’s basketball head coach Amy Williams, Nebraska athletic director Trev Alberts, the school’s Board of Regents and former assistant coach Chuck Love regarding a sexual relationship she had with the latter.

Eric Olson of the Associated Press reported Scoggin feared retaliation if she did not engage in the relationship when she was a player for the Cornhuskers and is seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages.

The lawsuit alleged Williams and Alberts did not take appropriate action or set proper rules when it came to training staff members about sexual relationships with athletes to the point things were “so reckless that misconduct involving sexual misconduct by coaches was inevitable as of September 2021.”

Scoggin was dismissed from Nebraska’s women’s basketball team in February 2022. Love, who was married at the time, was also suspended with pay at the same time, but he eventually resigned three months later.

Their absences were each reported on the same day, although Williams did not confirm if there was a connection in place at the time. Instead, she praised her team for fighting through adversity during a win over Penn State in its first game without them.

“It’s a very troubling and serious subject of predatory coaches that pursue sexual relationships with student-athletes,” Maren Chaloupka, who is Scoggin’s attorney, said. “There’s an enormous imbalance of power between the professional coach and student-athletes. This is something that was well known in 2022.

“Certainly Division I universities that operate at the top level are well aware of the harm that comes from this kind of a predatory situation, and there’s a strong onus on the university and on the coaches to prevent this from happening and, heaven forbid it does happen, to address it correctly.”

Olson noted the lawsuit explained the relationship, which started in 2021 when Scoggin was an intern in the athletic department hoping to become a coach someday. According to the lawsuit, Love invited her to work with him but eventually started pressuring her to go out for drinks.

After Scoggin declined multiple times, the relationship eventually became sexual. The lawsuit said she felt “confused and trapped” and that Love expected her to always be “available and willing” to be with him, including during the team’s road trips in hotels.

The team learned of the relationship when a male practice player lied to a worker at the front desk of a hotel and said he was Love, which allowed him to obtain a room key. Team members then confronted Scoggin when she was found in the assistant coach’s room and told Williams about it.

“Williams cast Ashley in the role of a seducer and a liar,” the lawsuit said. “She allowed the players to berate and accuse Ashley for hours. She did not redirect or counsel the players that what they had seen may be the result of an abuse of power by her associate head coach.”

It also said “NU, Williams and Alberts were motivated to avoid scandal and embarrassment to the Cornhuskers women’s basketball program instead of being motivated to protect its student-athlete, Ashley” and subsequently “allowed the speculation and perception to fester that Ashley was ‘equally to blame’ or otherwise had done something improper when they should have sent a clear message that it is always improper for a professional coach to pursue a sexual relationship with a student-athlete.”

After she was removed from the team, Scoggin transferred to UNLV. She has appeared in 24 games for the team this season.