SAN ANTONIO – An athletic trainer at Legacy of Educational Excellence (LEE) High School resigned this summer after she said district administrators failed to protect her from the school’s head football coach.
The trainer, who asked that KSAT Investigates conceal her identity, formally complained earlier this year about comments from Coach Wendell Harris that she described as sexually inappropriate and harassing.
Harris denied the accusations during a formal Title IX investigation conducted by the North East Independent School District this summer and via an attorney late Monday night.
The investigation determined there was not a preponderance of evidence to support the woman’s accusations, even though a second trainer at the school who witnessed the incidents confirmed Harris made the comments.
‘Like an episode of Baywatch this morning’
The trainer claimed the first incident happened in September 2023 in the school’s athletic training room.
The woman, a second trainer and an assistant coach had a conversation about someone the woman previously dated.
“Not even two minutes later Coach Harris walked in, looks me up and down and says ‘I heard you’re for the streets. I have tricks, too,’” the woman told KSAT.
She told KSAT Harris’ intent was clear.
“That he was calling me a hoe,” the woman told KSAT.
In a written statement included in the district’s Title IX investigation, the second trainer confirmed that Harris made the comment.
“I looked at (redacted) surprised because it came out of nowhere,” the witness wrote in a February statement on the incident.
The assistant coach wrote in February that he had never witnessed any inappropriate discussions between Harris and the trainer and that Harris had been “unfairly accused of things throughout the year,” records show.
The assistant coach also told an investigator that he himself had made the “for the streets” comment about the person the trainer had dated but that he had not told Harris about the “lighthearted” conversation.
The trainer told KSAT she and the assistant coach were friends and that comment made by the assistant coach was about her ex-boyfriend, not her.
“We hadn’t had that conversation. We hadn’t had that friendship,” the woman told KSAT about Harris.
An attorney hired by Harris shared with KSAT a text message purportedly sent by the trainer to Harris days after the incident.
In it, the woman told Harris that if his family needed anything to let her know and that she was able to give rides to his children, if needed.
An attorney representing Harris told KSAT late Monday night, “This text message from (redacted) to Coach Harris was sent 5 days after she alleges that Coach Harris, in her words, ‘called me a hoe.’ No one would send a text like this to a person they claim had just harassed them at work 5 days before.”
Note, the statement included the woman’s name and was altered by KSAT to replace her name with the word “redacted.”
The woman told KSAT Monday night she sent the message after Harris had been placed on administrative leave for an unrelated incident, since his children had been staying late at school while he was not on campus.
“What he did, I do NOT hold his boys or family at fault for, that’s why I was being nice to them,” the woman told KSAT via text message.
Less than two months later, in mid-October, the trainer ran onto the practice field to tend to an injured player.
When she and the other trainer went to brief Harris on the incident, she said the coach directed another inappropriate remark at her.
“Coach Harris made a comment ‘that it was like an episode of Baywatch this morning.’ And did the gesture of my boobs bouncing as I was running out to the field,” the woman told KSAT.
“I stopped talking right then and didn’t say a word,” said the trainer.
The second trainer, in a written statement included in the district’s Title IX investigation, confirmed that Harris made the comment.
“He then put his elbows to his chest and started swinging his forearms left and right,” the second trainer wrote.
She said that after she confirmed with the other trainer that Harris had been talking about that woman’s chest, she was “confused” and “uncomfortable,” records show.
The second trainer did not respond to an email from KSAT seeking comment for this story.
The same assistant coach from the first incident, told a district investigator this summer that he was with Harris during the second incident but did not recall any comments referencing Baywatch and did not recall any inappropriate comments about body parts.
An attorney representing Harris told KSAT late Monday night, “As to the ‘Baywatch’ allegation, there was another coach sitting with Coach Harris on a Gator ATV during a game when (redacted) alleges Coach Harris made that comment. The other coach sitting on the Gator with Coach Harris told investigators that he was sitting right next to Coach Harris and he did not recall Coach Harris saying anything about Baywatch and did not make any sexually suggestive gestures.”
Note, the statement included the woman’s name and was altered by KSAT to replace her name with the word “redacted.”
‘I’m not letting this happen to the next person’
The trainer formally complained about Harris to LEE High School principal Alejandro “Alex” Escamilla in February, district records show.
She then recorded her conversation with Escamilla late that month.
Escamilla, who told the woman he wished she had brought the allegations to him sooner and that he could not corroborate some of her complaints, said on the recording, “I don’t ever want to discredit what you shared because how you feel is important.”
“This is not going to get swept under the rug. I’m sorry to say this,” the woman said on the recording, before Escamilla responded “absolutely not.”
During a second meeting with Escamilla a week later, which the woman also recorded, she again slammed the district’s handling of her complaint.
“I guess for future reference, anything that happens you can deny it and you’re completely fine with it, even though there is other people who have heard? This is why women don’t report this. You can’t just deny it when there’s a witness who heard it,” the woman said on the recording.
During a meeting with NEISD Director of Athletics Kelly Parker, which the woman also recorded, the administrator suggested that she and Harris have a face-to-face talk.
“What do you want from me?” asked Parker on the recording.
“How many times have you ever sit down with him and had a face-to-face talk? What’s happened is this has just festered, festered, festered, festered, festered until we’re here today,” said Parker on the recording.
In May, after a teachers’ union attorney contacted the district on behalf of the trainer, NEISD opened a formal Title IX investigation into Harris’ actions, records show.
Title IX is a federal civil rights law in place for more than 50 years that prohibits discrimination in education and in educational activities on the basis of sex.
The investigator assigned to the case conducted various interviews and gathered written statements on the incidents, as well as other accusations made by the woman about her tenure as a trainer at the school.
Harris, in a written statement included in the investigation, said the conversation in the training room did not seem to be private and that he had not made a sexual or inappropriate remark to the woman.
Regarding the Baywatch comment, Harris denied making the comment and wrote that the trainer herself and other coaches jokingly mocked the way she ran.
The woman told KSAT she resigned her position and left the district in late June because she was near the deadline to commit to another year working for the school and had determined the district was going to side with Harris.
Weeks later, in mid-July, the Title IX investigator determined there was not a preponderance of evidence to support either allegation against Harris, records show.
Regarding the first incident, the findings stated that three other employees were joking about another person being “for the streets,” but it is not clear that the context was sexual in nature towards anyone.
The findings did not reveal a preponderance of evidence to support the allegation that Harris made a comment about the woman that compared her to Baywatch or that was otherwise “sexual and suggestive of promiscuity.”
“I broke down in tears reading it. I called my parents upset because reading the statements you see someone else corroborated exactly what I said. But then there was nothing found,” the woman told KSAT.
Last month, the investigator provided an addendum to the original report but did not change their findings, records show.
NEISD officials declined to comment for this story since the Title IX process has not concluded and the decisionmaker has not rendered her final decision on the case.
Attorney Nico LaHood released the following statement on behalf of Harris late Monday night:
“Coach Harris is innocent of the false allegations made against him. There have been several investigations, including a mandatory Title IX investigation into (redacted)’s claims. The official findings of that Title IX investigation were given to KSAT and those findings state there was a lack of credible evidence to conclude Coach Harris did anything wrong. (Redacted) is apparently upset about the official findings of the investigation and has now resorted to using the media to smear Coach Harris. The Title IX investigation conducted followed, proper due process, and all parties were interviewed and heard. The findings revealed that Coach Harris did not do what this woman is accusing him of doing.”
Note, the statement included the woman’s name and was altered by KSAT to replace her name with the word “redacted.”
The findings stated information gathered during the investigation did not show that any such comment was a form of sex discrimination defined as unwelcome sexual advances; requests for sexual favors; sexually motivated physical, verbal or nonverbal conduct; or other conduct or communication of a sexual nature.
Harris, who also serves as the school’s athletic coordinator, is in his second season as coach of the Volunteers and remains in his position, footage gathered by KSAT shows.
Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.