Ex-Stanford, Sac State football coach Troy Taylor sues ESPN alleging defamation
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Troy Taylor filed a federal defamation lawsuit against ESPN and reporter Xuan Thai.
- Lawsuit alleges ESPN misrepresented findings from confidential Stanford reports.
- Taylor denies bullying claims, citing career record and lack of gender-based findings.
When Troy Taylor wrote his thesis for his teaching-credential master’s degree in 2001, the theme was on bullying.
“I hate a bully,” Taylor stressed then in his writings. It’s a sentiment he has repeated in multiple conversations with The Sacramento Bee over the years, including in recent weeks.
And therein lies the confounding root of how Taylor’s dream rise in football as a record-setting Sacramento-area high school star who became a head prep and college coach in Northern California has hit a sudden pause. ESPN published a story March 19 with the headline: “Reports find Stanford’s Taylor bullied, belittled female staffers.” Less than a week later, Taylor was dismissed as Stanford’s head coach, as also chronicled by the sports news media outlet on March 25.
Taylor is now suing ESPN and the reporter who authored the stories, seeking damages for defamation. ESPN received a copy of two confidential Stanford workplace investigations into Taylor’s interactions with female athletic staffers, which the lawsuit alleges Stanford leaked to ESPN. The civil complaint, filed Wednesday in federal court for the Northern District Court of California, lists Taylor as the plaintiff and ESPN and reporter Xuan Thai as defendants. The complaint seeks a jury trial but does not specify a particular amount sought in damages.
The lawsuit details Taylor’s causes of action against ESPN and Thai, alleging that “they made, published, and repeated defamatory statements about Taylor, knowing full well that the statements were false, for the purpose of smearing Taylor’s reputation and injuring him in his profession.”
Taylor told The Bee in June that his 30-year track record as a coach counters any claims of any such bullying behavior. He said that any notion, including ESPN’s reporting of him being a bully, “is simply not true” and “is destroying my reputation.”
Taylor added, “I don’t know if I’ll get another coaching job.”
Taylor has been a prominent football name since 1985, when as The Bee’s Player of the Year, he quarterbacked Cordova High School to a 14-0 season and then at Cal as a record-setting four-year starter and captain. He later coached the Folsom Bulldogs and was the head coach at Sacramento State and then with the Stanford Cardinal. Taylor’s lawyers from the Los Angeles-based law firm Cohen Williams LLP filed the civil lawsuit against ESPN.
Taylor has told The Bee in interviews that he acknowledged to the university that he could have “improved my tone” while at Stanford. He added that he took the workplace investigations seriously.
Wednesday’s lawsuit details Taylor’s allegation that the first investigative report, of two cited in ESPN’s reporting, concluded that he did not “act unfairly because of gender or any other reason.” The lawsuit contends that Taylor has not received a full copy of either report but that he received a summary of the first report’s findings.
Taylor’s attorneys further wrote that the initial ESPN story misled by taking “snippets of the First Investigation report and mixing them with snippets of the Second Investigation report, all without providing proper context.”
ESPN’s director of communications, Andy Hall, wrote in an email to The Bee about the lawsuit, “we are declining comment.”
Taylor’s lawyer, Paul Salvaty, told The Bee, “(ESPN) had the reports in their hands and yet they repeatedly made false statements about the investigatory findings to paint Troy as a misogynistic bully. We are honored to represent Troy and clear his name so he can get back to coaching football.”
What does the lawsuit say?
The lawsuit quotes the ESPN story that ultimately led to Taylor’s dismissal at Stanford, in which Thai wrote: “the investigations began after multiple employees filed complaints about Taylor for what they called hostile and aggressive behavior, as well as personal attacks” and that “both investigations determined that Taylor’s treatment of employees, particularly of women, was inconsistent with Stanford’s standards.”
In the lawsuit, Taylor’s lawyers wrote that “these statements were false, and ESPN and Thai knew them to be false at the time they were made.”
The lawsuit contends that Thai’s March 19 story, and at least three others by Thai and other reporters between late March and mid-April, contained statements that “were false because, among other things, the First Investigation did not determine that Taylor engaged in gender-based bullying or belittling; there were not ‘two investigations’ that found that Taylor ‘had bullied and belittled athletics staff, especially women;’ the workplace investigations did not begin after ‘multiple employees filed complaints’ against Taylor for ‘hostile and aggressive behavior’ toward female employees or staff; and there was no finding after the First Investigation that ‘allegations regarding belittling . . . behavior toward . . . women were deemed to have merit.’”
ESPN’s last story on Taylor mentioned in the lawsuit was published April 16 and titled “Ex-Stanford coach Troy Taylor takes issue with investigation.” Taylor’s attorneys in the lawsuit wrote that the news outlet in this story “admitted facts that contradicted their prior reporting” but did so without retracting prior reporting, according to court documents. The March 19 story as of Wednesday morning appeared without any appended correction or clarification text.
The conclusion of the lawsuit reads, “Taylor is informed and believes and thereon alleges that the aforementioned acts of Defendants were willful, oppressive, fraudulent, and/or malicious. The conduct of Defendants in publishing these false statements about Taylor, with knowledge of their falsity, for the express purpose of harming Taylor was intentional and despicable. Taylor is therefore entitled to punitive damages.”
UCLA interest in Taylor led to Stanford raise, extension
After coaching at Folsom High, where the Bulldogs emerged as a state powerhouse, Taylor coached Sacramento State to its finest seasons since the program started the sport in 1954. Taylor led the Hornets to Big Sky Conference championships in 2019, 2021 and 2022, which led Stanford to ultimately recruit him to be the Cardinal’s next head coach.
Following his first season at Stanford in 2023, and after the first workplace investigation was completed, Taylor was approached by UCLA about its vacant football post.
Taylor, in interviews with The Bee, said that he informed his bosses at Stanford about UCLA’s interest in him becoming the Bruins next head coach in mid-February. Stanford on Feb. 29, 2024 responded by giving Taylor a raise and extending his contract through the 2030 season.
Within weeks of that signing, a second Stanford workplace investigation on Taylor was launched. This one was rooted in a complaint by a female Stanford compliance officer who, as detailed in the lawsuit against ESPN and the reporter, expressed concern about “the physical speed at which Stanford players participated in a spring football ‘walk-through.’”
According to the lawsuit, Taylor “expressed frustration” on how the officer interpreted NCAA guidelines on the speed of a walk-through warm up.
Taylor’s request to have ESPN produce the two investigatory reports were “respectfully declined” by the media outlet and its reporter, according to the lawsuit. ESPN told Taylor and his lawyers that “as a matter of policy, ESPN does not share unpublished information,” the lawsuit says.
Taylor’s lawsuit argues that “this response is both ironic and absurd, given that ESPN is responsible for having published this otherwise-unpublished information in its reporting, albeit in a false, misleading and distorted manner.”
The filed complaint continues, “Most importantly, it is undisputed that the First Investigation did not find and did not conclude that Taylor ‘bullied’ or ‘belittled’ female staffers based on their gender.”
The lawsuit said that the assertion that Taylor “requested” that Stanford’s athletic administration replace the female football administrator “based on her gender was not substantiated.” The lawsuit explains that Taylor wanted his right-hand, go-to person in football operations to be his hire, which is common in college football circles.
The lawsuit reads, “Not surprisingly, the first investigator concluded, ‘There is insufficient evidence to find that gender was the reason for your request to replace the football administrator. In addition, there were no findings in the First Investigation to suggest that Taylor targeted women with ‘bullying’ or ‘belittling’ statements or conduct. Defendants’ repeated reporting to the contrary is simply untrue.”
ESPN reporting and aftermath
Though frustrated and pained by his Stanford experience, Taylor expressed gratitude to the school for the opportunity to coach the Cardinal. He told The Bee that he embraced the challenge of elevating a program that was in decline before his arrival. Stanford under Taylor had promising moments with some signature victories but injuries and close losses helped lead to three-win seasons in 2023 and 2024.
Taylor’s issue in filing the complaint against ESPN isn’t with Stanford. Taylor’s overriding concern is how media outlets across the country used ESPN’s reporting to label him as bullying and belittling women, which he said is a smear on his reputation.
Taylor said in an April statement that the media’s “portrayal of me is unfair, wrong and contrary to my professional track record and the person I am and have always been.” Taylor added in the statement that Stanford terminated him “without cause,” and, as a result, is “honoring the original payment terms of his contract.’’
Stanford football lead administrator Andrew Luck said in a statement to the media on Taylor’s March dismissal, “Since beginning my role as general manager, I have been thoroughly assessing the entire Stanford football program. It has been clear that certain aspects of the program need change. Additionally, in recent days, there has been significant attention to Stanford investigations in previous years related to Coach Taylor. After continued consideration, it is evident to me that our program needs a reset.”
Taylor told The Bee in June that he was not allowed to meet with his Stanford players on campus after his abrupt dismissal or to even return to his own office. His wife of 27 years, Tracey Taylor, said that she was allowed to drive to Stanford’s football coaching parking lot to load her car with Taylor’s office items.
“That was really hard to do,” she said.
No time to respond?
Because Taylor is a public figure, his defamation lawsuit must meet the so-called “actual malice” standard in order to succeed in court. This means proving that ESPN not only reported untrue information but did so either knowingly or with reckless disregard for the truth.
Taylor’s lawsuit alleges this standard is met because, his attorneys wrote, Thai, the reporter, did not reach out to Taylor for comment until the same day the initial article was published.
“Thai did not reach out to Taylor until the same day that the March 19 article was published, and only did so by voicemail mere hours before the article went live on ESPN.com,” the lawsuit reads. “Rather than making a good faith effort to speak to Taylor or waiting a reasonable amount of time for Taylor to return her call, Defendants published the March 19 article that same day as Thai’s voicemail without speaking to him first. In other words, Defendants decided to publish false allegations about Taylor that were likely to destroy his career without providing a fair or even minimally meaningful opportunity for him to respond.
“There was no breaking news in the March 19 article, and no legitimate reason Defendants could not have held off on publication until they spoke to Taylor first. The central facts being reported in the March 19 article pertained to workplace investigations that had been completed many months earlier.”
On March 25 – the day Stanford announced the decision to terminate him – Taylor wrote a letter to ESPN to inform them that their “reporting about him had been inaccurate and unfair,” the lawsuit alleges. No one at ESPN responded to Taylor, according to the filed complaint.
Cohen Williams LLP, representing Taylor in his defamation lawsuit, describes itself on its website as a “litigation boutique” that specializes in “complex, high-stakes criminal and civil litigation” with attorneys experienced in representing both plaintiffs and defendants in defamation cases.
The lawsuit was filed by firm partners Marc S. Williams and Paul Salvaty. The latter, before joining Cohen Williams LLP earlier this year, represented Fox News and former President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden in defamation cases, news reports and court records show.
Sac State AD, Stanford football staffers react
Sacramento State athletic director Mark Orr, in a Bee interview about Taylor’s time with the Hornets, said with enthusiasm: “Troy was great here. Loved having him here. We did great things.”
Were there any complaints by female staffers about Taylor’s interactions with them?
“None,” Orr said.
The Bee earlier this spring contacted two current Stanford female staffers who work within the football department. Both worked extensively with Taylor: Natalia Chino in the recruiting department and Baleigh McCuskey as the assistant director of football operations. Neither of them said they saw Taylor treat anyone in the athletic department inappropriately.
McCuskey said, “I thought Troy was great to work with. We had a great relationship, and we worked closely together every day. We interacted on multiple things on a daily basis. My desk was outside of his office. We had a great professional relationship and he was incredibly kind to me. I would say, all in all, he was a good mentor and a gracious boss.”
Chino said, “Coach Taylor was always kind to me, and I will always be appreciative to him for being the first head coach to help me get a full-time job in football after graduating college. He took a chance on me at the start of my professional career, and I’ve been grateful ever since.”
Chino added, “I admire his work ethic, because from what I saw, he dedicated hours of focus every day to making sure Stanford football would thrive. I only had positive experiences with Coach Taylor, and he was a nice guy to every employee at every level on and off the field.”
Taylor: ‘I’m struggling with this’
Taylor’s essence is that of a football coach, and he admits to being stir crazy. He is without a football team for the first time since he was 6 years old. He doesn’t golf. He doesn’t fish. He has long focused on family and football.
The pillars of Taylor’s football programs, his building blocks, have been rooted in “love, mindfulness, gratitude and competitiveness,” Taylor told The Bee. He added that “love is the most powerful force in the world”, including in the violent sport of football, where he has recruited players who love the game, love each other and love a challenge.
Of those beliefs, Taylor said that coaching football the right way and treating people the right way, “is who and what I am all about.”
Taylor, his wife and their three children are together in the same house for the first time in years. Noah is a graduate of the University of Utah. Ella will be a sophomore this fall at the University of Santa Clara, and Aaron is preparing for his junior football season at a Bay Area prep powerhouse. The Taylors reside in a quiet neighborhood in Los Gatos in Santa Clara County.
Out front on the tree-lined street rests the only holdover item Taylor has from Stanford, a golf cart that he bought from a previous Stanford coach. He used to zip to his football offices daily in the cart. He’s not sure what he’ll do with the ride now.
The Taylor family is renting, unsure of how long they will be there and when and where Taylor’s next football job might be. He is 57 with no visions of giving up his passion of coaching. In the Taylor home sits a piano, which Taylor has tinkered with for years. Ella during a June visit by The Bee teased him that now is the time to work on his keyboard harmony. Her father rolled his eyes and sighed at the suggestion, and then he gave her a hug.
On the back deck, the Taylors’ beloved Golden Retriever Benny was sacked out, sunning, not a worry in the world. Having a full house of family is a joy for the pooch and the parents, but Taylor admits to being distracted. Taylor said a one-week family trip to Italy in the spring was a nice break, but his mind kept drifting to his football future.
“It’s great to have my family here, but I’m in pain,” Taylor said. “I’m struggling with this.”
Tracey added, “It’s been really hard, devastating and sad. I know Troy, and he’s not anything like the things he’s been described as. He’s not a bully.”
Taylor said the most important person in his life is his wife. He asked her before deciding on any of his football jobs over the decades for her input and approval.
Following his coaching stint at Folsom High School, which included a 16-0 squad in 2014 that is considered the finest team in Sacramento-area history, Taylor was hired by Eastern Washington of the Big Sky Conference to be offensive coordinator. Taylor took a pay cut from his Folsom gig to pursue his lifelong dream of coaching at the collegiate level.
Taylor then worked as the offensive coordinator for the Utah Utes, with Tracey’s blessing, and then Sacramento State, and then Stanford. When Taylor coached at Eastern Washington and at Utah, Tracey and the kids remained together in California so the kids could continue at their schools.
“Had Tracey said no to any of those college jobs,” Taylor said, “I’d still be happily coaching at Folsom High School.”
Will Taylor coach again?
Taylor’s decades-long friend and personal attorney, Craig Staub, said he knows Taylor well, emphasizing, “I’d stand on the highest mountain and shout in defense of his good character.”
“Troy hates bullies,” Staub told The Bee. “Since Day 1, when I first met him when we were students at Cal (in the mid 1980s), I could see he wasn’t a bully and he wouldn’t tolerate bullying as a team captain. Troy is literally the most humble guy I’ve ever met. This has really rocked him. It’s devastating, hurtful and wrong with what’s happened. He’s worked so hard to have a good reputation and for doing the right things. He treats people with respect and has always had a stellar reputation.”
Will Taylor coach again?
“Oh, yes,” Staub said. “It’s in his blood, and he’s great at it.”