Viral video details alleged locker room assault, inaction by coach at Napa High School
The Napa Valley school district has forwarded to local police a report of claims made by a man in a viral video who said he was brutally attacked by other boys in a locker room at Napa High School 30 years ago as a student, and that a renowned coach who saw the assault unfold did nothing to intervene.
The allegations, made in a video posted May 18 on TikTok, are aimed at an unidentified group of more than a dozen boys involved in the assault, the man said, and at the school’s longtime boys’ basketball coach, Denny Lewis, who has since retired but was a PE teacher at the time.
Napa police confirmed they have been in touch with officials from the Napa Valley Unified School District about allegations made in the video, which had about 720,000 views and more than 9,000 comments by Friday afternoon. It has roiled the Napa community and prompted a closed-door meeting this week of the district’s school board.
“One of the school resource officers got the information, documented the report and watched the video,” Napa Police Sgt. Mike Walund said, confirming receipt of the district’s notice. “But no individual has made any reports to us. We may attempt to track him down.”
The video was posted in response to a widely circulated prompt on the short-form video sharing app TikTok. That prompt: “Tell me about an experience you had with a teacher when you were younger that permanently scarred you.”
In his reply, the man, who identified himself in the comment section only as Travis, described being attacked at Napa High by a large group of boys. The assault came about, he said, after he’d been ostracized by other boys at the school because they suspected he was gay.
An athletic coach, whom he subsequently said was Lewis, responded to their derision by insisting Travis couldn’t change into and out of his gym clothes until the rest of the class had done so separately.
“Well, that just gave them a reason to be alone with me, and the coach knew that,” Travis says in the video.
One day, he added, “about 15 boys dragged me into the back bathroom, with the coach watching, spread my legs apart, and kicked me in the genitals until I passed out.” He continues to describe other aspects of the assault in graphic detail.
He was left briefly unconscious and deeply terrorized, he said in the video, posted under the handle @saucy.opath. Neither the coach nor any of the perpetrators were ever punished, he said.
Lewis, 79, reached by phone Friday, said he was aware of the allegations but immediately rejected the claims he’d witnessed any such violence and failed to intervene.
“Most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard,” he said. “I feel very genuinely for the gentleman. I have no idea why he has used me as part of this story.”
Lewis coached boys basketball at Napa High for nearly 30 years and is a member of the school’s athletic half of fame. His adult daughter is still employed at the high school.
Travis did not identify any of his assailants. But referring to the link to a 2012 Napa Valley Register story on a reunion of the 1992 boys’ basketball team, he wrote, “Some of the players mentioned in that article were the perpetrators.”
Travis’ post has rocked a school community that was clouded four years ago by a troubling hazing scandal at Napa High, which tore apart the football team, led to the resignation of the successful varsity coach, pitted families against one another and contributed to the departure soon after of then-principal Annie Petrie.
The fresh allegations of student abuse on campus, though dated, have unleashed renewed grief, outrage and suspicion among Napa High’s students and alumni, and raised the specter of a possible through-line of toxic locker-room behavior over many more years.
“On one hand, I feel loyalty to my old school and my community,” said Kevin Reid, who was in Travis’ grade at Napa High and eventually served as class president. At the same time, I have compassion for this guy, especially to put that out there. My heart goes out to him and his pain.“
Reid added, “I don’t know the truth of this.”
It’s another hot-button issue for Napa Valley Unified, which has contended with the 2017 hazing news, heated community reaction to its decision to change the name of the Napa High mascot from Indians to Grizzlies in 2018, and now Travis’ allegations.
“NVUSD is shocked, horrified, and saddened to hear of this past abuse that, if it had happened today, would be considered a hate crime,” the district said in a statement that was signed by superintendent Rosanna Mucetti and student services director Mike Mansuy. “The trauma the victim discussed is incomprehensible and unacceptable.”
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