Father raised concerns about coach in 1996
Allegations of ‘hazing’ dealt with: officials
The father of a former diver says he raised concerns 17 years ago about inappropriate behaviour by a coach who is now facing charges of sexual exploitation of a teen athlete.
Tony Aldridge said he learned in the mid-1990s about alleged “hazing” incidents, in which he said coach Trevor Palmatier directed other athletes to shave the genitals and buttocks of teenage boys and smear them with toothpaste and shaving cream.
“I feel very strongly that no person who engages in this sort of behaviour should be allowed in a position of authority or care, or any association with young impressionable persons,” Tony Aldridge wrote in an “open letter to diving” sent to provincial and national diving organizations and officials in December 1996.
Diving Canada president Kelly Stark-Anderson said the alleged hazing incidents were investigated at the local, provincial and national level, but were only ever confirmed to involve chest shaving and toothpaste being squirted into bathing suits.
“There’s rumours,” she said. “We don’t deal in rumours. There was no confirmation of anything of that (more serious) nature.”
Stark-Anderson, who was working with Dive BC at the time, said the hazing allegations were investigated over the course of more than a year, and that none of the athletes who were present ever made a complaint, or substantiated the more serious claims.
“At the end of the day, at each level, it was determined there wasn’t enough evidence to warrant formal discipline,” she said. Instead, Palmatier received a verbal reprimand that “indicated that this kind of incident wasn’t to happen and it shouldn’t happen again.”
Palmatier, 43, had been working as a coach in Edmonton when he was arrested last week and charged with two counts of sexual exploitation and one count of procuring the sexual services of a person under the age of 18. The charges relate to alleged offences in Saanich, B.C., between 2004 and 2006 involving a teenage male.
Palmatier was released on bail Friday, and is expected to return to Edmonton.
Aldridge said he heard in early 1996 about a hazing that occurred in a hotel during a dive meet, and he later obtained a sworn statement from a diver who claimed to have been present for three incidents.
In the declaration, the unnamed athlete said that he observed three initiations which involved teens being tied up and having their bodies and genitals shaved with the coach’s electric razor, their bodies smeared in toothpaste or Tiger balm, and toothpaste being “squirted up the buttocks.”
“I know all of this because I was present at the three initiations,” the statement reads.
“The only reason why I was present was because I would have been told that I didn’t want to be part of the team, that this is a “guy thing” and that I wasn’t being supportive of the things we did as a team.”
The document is sworn before a notary but the name of the athlete has been blanked out of the document. StarkAnderson said Aldridge would not identify the athlete for those investigating the allegations, and that the athletes they spoke to did not support the claims made in the sworn statement.
She said she confronted Palmatier about the more serious hazing allegations herself, and he denied them.
“I took a deep breath and said, ‘Tell me straight up, did this happen?’ and he said no,” she said. “The (athletes) we spoke to said around the lines of — and again, it’s 17 years later — ‘There wasn’t anything sexual or anything. It was chest shaving and toothpaste being squeezed into bathing suits.’ ”
She said the athletes who were present didn’t think there was a problem, and didn’t file any complaints.
Penny Joyce, chief operating officer of Diving Canada, said the incident “was thoroughly investigated and dealt with at that time.”
But Aldridge strongly disagrees. Instead, he said his concerns were pushed aside, and the situation ultimately escalated to an acrimonious split from the club and the sport.
“I felt very, very strongly that what was going on was illegal, immoral and very harmful for the kids ...,” he said. “I was deeply offended.”
In his open letter in 1996, Aldridge wrote: “Board members have repeatedly attempted to cover up the extent and nature of the incidents and continue to neglect responsibility for ensuring safety of young athletes in the care of the organization. The lesson that the victims, and other young people who were exposed, have learned is that if you see wrongdoing, by a coach or other official, you had better remain silent, because if you do not ... your diving career will be significantly damaged.”
A former diver, Palmatier worked as a diving coach with the Vancouver Aquatic Centre, and took over the Boardworks diving program at Saanich Commonwealth Place in 1996. He left Saanich after losing his job in 2007 and moved to Edmonton, where he had most recently been coaching with his own diving club, Big Dog Diving and Edmonton Diving Academy.
The criminal charges laid against Palmatier last week have rocked the close-knit diving community across the country, where he is wellknown and well-liked by many people. Palmatier has coached Olympic and international-calibre athletes and continues to have many strong supporters.
According to information on Palmatier’s Edmonton Diving Academy website, he was previously named Sport British Columbia’s coach of the year and also won Diving Canada’s senior coach of the year award.
Many people contacted by the Journal declined to comment about the situation on the record.
Dive BC president Rodd McCormick, father of Olympic diver Riley McCormick, said in a statement that the charges were “very unsettling news for the diving community.”
“I have no reason to suspect there will be other complainants in this case; however, should anyone have any information that may be relevant to this case, we are asking them to contact the police immediately,” he wrote.
McCormick also wrote that his son, who had been coached by Palmatier for a period, “is not involved in this case in any way.”
Under the conditions of Palmatier’s release on bail, he is not allowed to have contact with children unless their parent or guardian is there.
He can’t be in places that children frequent, such as day cares, schools, gyms, playgrounds and public change rooms, and must give his bail supervisor a list of all the divers he coaches who are under the age of 18 and contact numbers for their parents or legal guardians to ensure compl i ance with the conditions.
Defence lawyer Bob Aloneissi told reporters last week that Palmatier is “exactly the type of person who should be released” on bail while the charges are investigated and heard in court.
“Mr. Palmatier is a person with no criminal history. He has ties to the community. He has tremendous support from the divers and the parents of the divers at the club here in Edmonton who have stood behind him despite these allegations,” Aloneissi said.
Palmatier’s next court appearance is slated to take place in Victoria on June 12.
Joyce said Diving Canada suspended Palmatier from all diving-related activities when they learned of the criminal investigation in March, and that he had been honouring the suspension.
Asked whether she believes Diving Canada did everything it could after the hazing incident, she said the organization is “totally committed to providing a safe environment.”
“Our coaches are welltrained, they’re supervised, they’re mentored, there’s all kinds of certification programs in place,” she said.
“Overall, we think we’re doing a really good job at protecting our athletes. If we need to take a pause when this is all over and look at if there is something we could be doing even better, we will do that.”