Maryland women’s soccer coach Ray Leone was the head coach of the Harvard women’s program in 2012 when players on the Crimson’s men’s soccer team created “scouting reports” of women’s soccer recruits based on attractiveness and sexual appeal, according to the Harvard Crimson.
Leone declined to comment on the matter.
The six members of the 2012 Harvard women’s soccer recruiting class wrote an op-ed in the Crimson in response to the newspaper’s findings.
“After speaking with my teammates about your request to interview along with other requests we have received, we have decided to decline offers for further comment,” Brooke Dickens, one of the 2012 recruits, said in a statement to The Diamondback. “We remain thankful that our op-ed has been an encouragement to many people, and we hope that people will choose to dwell on our positive messages of strength, unity, and forgiveness instead of rehashing the men’s team’s actions”
Players evaluated each female recruit, who received a numerical score followed by a paragraph-long description, according to the “report.” It also included each recruit’s picture and a designated “hypothetical sexual position.”
Members of the Harvard men’s soccer team shared the reports via email on July 31, 2012, according to the Crimson. Though the emails referenced in the report are from 2012, it seems the practice of ranking women’s soccer recruits was “an annual practice,” according to the “report.”
After the Harvard Office of General Counsel determined the team regularly created “vulgar and explicit documents rating women,” Athletic Director Robert Scalise decided to cancel the remainder of the men’s soccer team’s season, according to the Crimson.
Harvard hired Leone as its women’s soccer coach in 2007, and he spent nine seasons with the Crimson before assuming the same role with the Terps in January. The Severna Park native replaced coach Jonathan Morgan, who the athletic department asked to resign at the end of the 2015 season.
