Complaints About Santee Gym Came And Went — SafeSport Took No Official Action

By Tigist Layne and Will Huntsberry, the Voice of San Diego

July 25, 2024

In 2021, a coach at Champion Gymnastics and Cheer in Santee filed a disturbing complaint with the U.S. Center for SafeSport, an organization congressionally mandated to investigate abuse in youth Olympic sports.

The coach reported seeing JJ Ross, one of the gym’s owners and a coach, inappropriately touch two girls, according to the complaint obtained by Voice of San Diego.

On one occasion, the coach wrote to SafeSport, a girl was sitting on the ground with her knees against her chest. Ross placed his fingers on either side of her vagina and slid her backwards by pushing against her crotch.

Another time, a girl around 8 years old was hanging from a bar by her hands. Dangling there had given her a wedgie. Ross stuck his fingers inside the girl’s leotard and undid the wedgie, the coach wrote in the complaint.

Ross vigorously denies that these events took place.

Multiple coaches, however, say they saw Ross inappropriately touch athletes. Five former coaches from Champion told Voice they witnessed Ross inappropriately touch female gymnasts on the butt. Three of those coaches also say they saw Ross touch girls on their chests. And two, including the coach who filed a report, say they saw Ross touch girls in their crotch area.

Since 2021, at least five people — two parents and three of the former coaches — have filed similar complaints to SafeSport about inappropriate touching. The parents and former coaches say SafeSport did little to follow up on their complaints. SafeSport has taken no official action against the gym or any of its coaches related to the complaints.

Four of the former coaches also say they witnessed Ross pervasively sexually harass female employees and touch their butts. Some of them said he referred to two coaches by the nicknames of “Spit” and “Swallow.”

Ross denies all of these allegations and says that some of the former coaches are out to get his gym shut down. He says nothing is more important to him than the safety of his athletes. Many parents at Champion support Ross completely. They say Champion is safe, welcoming and wide open. If anything inappropriate were happening, it would be obvious for all to see.

The former coaches and parents who made complaints describe a much different atmosphere. They say Ross has not only inappropriately touched athletes, but has also hired coaches who have hurt children.

In 2016, a Champion coach was sentenced to a year in jail for having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl from the gym. Then in May 2024, police detained a coach for two days for allegedly committing lewd acts with a minor in the 1990s, as Voice previously reported. The alleged incident did not happen at Champion, however, and the San Diego County District Attorney’s office is still reviewing the case to decide whether it can bring charges.

“According to TikTok, we are submitting our children to molestation,” Darcy Cusimano, a Champion parent, said.

Cusimano was referring to an angry online debate that has erupted in the last two months. Public posts and DM’s — both defending Champion and alleging wrongdoing — have shot back and forth between parents and even athletes.

A woman in a hoodie on May 21, 2024, in San Diego. / Photo by Ariana Drehsler for Voice of San Diego

Many pro-Champion parents do not believe the allegations. Many of them spend a great deal of time at the gym and witness practices. If inappropriate, or even weird, things were happening, they would know it, they say.

“I am there physically with my daughter almost 100 percent of the time,” said Cusimano. “If I’m not there, my husband and or mother are there.”

Champion is very large. It is a warehouse-like space, with one massive room, where different groups of children practice. There are several roll-up doors surrounding the gym. All of the doors are usually open and parents sit at the openings, watching their children practice.

Several other parents who spoke to Voice agreed with Cusimano, but wished to remain anonymous, because the controversy surrounding the gym has grown so intense.

“The safety and well-being of our athletes is always our #1 priority at our facility. In addition, at our facility coaches and employees are not allowed to have one on one unsupervised actions with any athletes,” Ross wrote in an email. “We pride ourselves with the safety and transparency we offer our athletes and families.”

Kailey Doan and Sarah Brown, both former Champion coaches, said the openness of the gym is not the problem. The problem, they said, is that Ross normalizes inappropriate touch with parents, athletes and coaches from the moment they step foot into Champion.

Doan said the majority of inappropriate touching she witnessed occurred during private lessons — with parents there watching.

Kailey Doan on May 18, 2024, in San Diego. / Photo by Ariana Drehsler for Voice of San Diego

“[Ross] would hold them up in the air, whether it was on their chest or their [crotch] and he would talk the parents through it like, this is why you need to do x, y or z,” she said. “I’ve been doing this my whole life. I’ve never witnessed that as something you need to do. I’d taken all these SafeSport questionnaires that ask if you’ve ever witnessed something like that. I was like, ‘Oh my god, it’s happening in front of my eyes. It’s happening in front of parents.’”

“I have never inappropriately touched female gymnasts on the chest and crotch while spotting them,” Ross wrote.

According to some pro-Champion parents, the spotting at Champion is more hands-on than at other gyms. Many parents say they like this. They want their children to be as physically safe as possible and believe hands-on spotting ensures it.

One difference of opinion among parents who support Champion and those who have concerns about Ross’s behavior is about what constitutes acceptable touch.

“There is a difference between touching someone’s butt and groping someone’s butt,” said one parent, who wished to remain anonymous.

Another pro-Champion parent agreed. She said she had seen, on some occasions, coaches touch athletes on the side of their breasts and butt. But, she said, for the skills she was watching that was the level of spotting required.

The five former coaches we spoke to, however, said the spotting at Champion is irregular and inappropriate. Unless someone is catching a falling athlete, they said, there is virtually no reason to touch an athlete on the butt, chest or crotch. Instead, coaches can touch gymnasts’ stomachs, legs or back.

At Champion, they said they witnessed Ross routinely touch girls in areas that weren’t necessary and in ways they had never before seen at other gyms.

USA Gymnastics, a governing body, does have guidelines for proper spotting. A gymnasts’ breasts, crotch or butt should never be touched repeatedly, according to those guidelines.

“Unnecessary touching should not be used, particularly when the spotter is male, and the gymnast is female. Gymnasts and parents/guardians should be aware that from time to time a slip may occur and the gymnast will be touched on the buttocks, crotch, or chest,” the guidelines read. “The instructor or coach and gymnast should understand that such touching is accidental, and it should not occur repeatedly.”

In April and May 2021, a parent made two separate complaints to SafeSport regarding Ross. The parent — who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation — said that SafeSport never responded to the first complaint and that SafeSport’s response to the second complaint was wildly insufficient.

One day at practice, the woman’s daughter told her that she had seen Ross “spank” another girl gymnast three times. The girl was confused about the incident and told her mother she didn’t think the girl was in trouble. The mother says that she grabbed her daughter and left the gym with her as soon as she heard this.

A few days later, the girl told her mother that she had seen Ross play spank with two other girls.

“He plays the chase and pretend spanking game with some of the girls, mostly the bigger girls,” the girl said, according to the mother’s complaint. (Ross denies that any games like this have ever taken place.)

The mother reported what her daughter said to police, as well as SafeSport. Police investigated the allegations, but ultimately did not have enough evidence to proceed, they told the mother.

SafeSport was designed for exactly such situations. In 2017, Congress made a law that SafeSport would have sole jurisdiction over investigating sexual abuse in amateur sports.

SafeSport, by design, has a lower evidentiary threshold than the courts. SafeSport only needs to find that a “preponderance of evidence” supports an allegation — rather than guilt beyond a reasonable doubt — in order to issue sanctions, such as permanently or temporarily suspending a coach from the sport or ordering additional training.

And yet, a SafeSport official told the parent that because police had closed their investigation, SafeSport would also close its investigation. It would not look into the alleged incidents further.

At least two parents and three coaches have made complaints to SafeSport about Ross inappropriately touching athletes. But the parents and coaches have either heard nothing about their complaints or heard that the cases cannot move forward.

Recently, the mother was in touch with a SafeSport official again, the mother said. The official told the mother that indeed it would have been incorrect for the investigation to have stopped, simply because police stopped their investigation. The official told the mother that it was more likely the investigation stopped because the daughter was a “witness” and not a “claimant.”

We asked SafeSport officials a series of questions, but they would not comment on specific investigations. They did acknowledge, however, that they have a harder time moving forward with investigations involving witnesses, who did not directly experience abuse themselves.

“When there is sufficient evidence, the Center moves forward with investigations without the participation of claimants i.e. those who experienced the alleged misconduct,” wrote Hilary Nemchik, a SafeSport spokesperson, in an email.

She added: “As you know, the first-hand account and evidence that only a claimant can provide can be invaluable.”

The three coaches who made complaints to SafeSport, as well as one of the parents, also included instances of sexual harassment of employees in their complaints.

The five former coaches — including two who did not make official SafeSport complaints — who worked at Champion said Ross created a pervasive environment of sexual harassment.

He frequently referred to two women coaches as “Spit” and “Swallow,” according to three of the coaches.

Several of the coaches said Ross would regularly slap women’s butts.

Ross denies all of these allegations.

Sarah Brown, a former coach, told Voice that when some of the coaches complained to Ross, they were told they were just being emotional women. On multiple occasions, she remembers Ross saying women were emotional because they “bleed once a month.”

A different coach – whose name we are withholding because she wants to distance herself from the gymnastics world – also said that Ross often touched female coaches’ butts, as well as several children’s butts. She told Voice that within her first week of working at Champion, Ross began to slap her butt.

A woman’s shadow can be seen on the wall of a home on May 17, 2024, in San Diego. / Photo by Ariana Drehsler for Voice of San Diego

Some of the coaches said Ross seemed to turn against them if they complained or didn’t go along with his actions or behavior. Ross would become suddenly critical of their work performance, or he would talk negatively about them to other coaches behind their backs, they said.

Ross said the people making allegations against him stand to make money by recruiting his athletes to their gyms — though two of the former coaches, including Kailey Doan, no longer work in gymnastics.

“As for the former employees you spoke to, none of them made these allegations during their employment, or stated that these allegations had anything to do with no longer working at our facility,” Ross wrote. “They are just surfacing now, years later, when they may benefit financially if athletes leave our facility and relocate to different gyms where they currently coach.”

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