Former local coach co-defendant in suit
A former Houston-area swimming coach has been sued in a California state court by a former athlete who says he engaged in a sexual relationship with her in the mid-1980s when she was 17 years old.
Scott MacFarland, who coached with the Magnolia Aquatic Club and The Woodlands Swim Team, is listed as a defendant with USA Swimming and the Mission Viejo swim club in California in the suit, filed by Sarah Ehekircher in Orange County Superior Court in California.
Ehekircher, 51, says in the suit that while she was training with MacFarland in Colorado as part of the Mission Viejo team, he had sexual intercourse with her in 1986, when she was 17 years old, at a hotel while the two were attending a swim meet in California.
She says the coach also had sex with her in Arizona and Texas before she turned 18, repeating what her attorneys say is a “culture of United States Swimming that has long condoned adult male coaches having sex with the girls they coach.”
The suit also says that MacFarland instructed Ehekircher to inform school officials in Aurora, Colo., where she lived with MacFarland, that the coach was her guardian.
“In reality,” attorneys wrote, “(MacFarland) was her molester and exploiter.”
The lawsuit alleges sexual abuse of a minor, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress against all defendants and seeks unspecified judgments for economic damages, general damages, loss of earning capacity, attorneys’ fees and punitive damages.
MacFarland, who resigned from his position with the Magnolia club in 2018, did not return a call seeking comment on the lawsuit.
Ehekircher, who currently lives in Dallas, said the lawsuit’s filing offers some degree of comfort in the wake of what she said was at least a 10-year struggle to hold MacFarland responsible for his actions and prevent him from coaching.
“It was like I was punching at shadows,” she said. “I know that this isn’t over, but I do feel some sort of relief.”
Ehekircher said her relationship with MacFarland continued from 1987-93 at a time when he was her swimming coach.
She said she attempted in 2010 to seek sanctions against MacFarland but was rebuffed by a USA Swimming board of review she believes was stacked in MacFarland’s favor. MacFarland acknowledged to the panel that he had a sexual relationship with Ehekircher but said she was of legal age when the relationship took place, the lawsuit said.
With no legal recourse because the statute of limitations for a criminal complaint had expired, Ehekircher said she submitted a complaint against MacFarland in 2018 to U.S. Center for SafeSport, which describes itself as an independent nonprofit organization focused on ending all forms of abuse in sports.
The complaint, however, was dismissed, according to the lawsuit, after USA Swimming did not provide documentation to SafeSport that would have confirmed Ehekircher’s presence at the 1986 meets where she said MacFarland had sex with her when she was not of legal age.