Report: Southern Utah, run by ex-Nevada AD Doug Knuth, investigated for Title IX issues
The Southern Utah athletics department, run by former Nevada athletic director Doug Knuth, is under investigation for potential Title IX violations in multiple sports, per Action Network's Brett McMurphy.
Knuth ran into Title IX issues at Nevada where he was the athletic director from 2013-22 with the Wolf Pack cutting ties with Knuth with 14 months remaining on his contract.
Knuth was hired by Southern Utah in December 2022 and has served in the athletic director post since then. The Thunderbirds compete in the WAC except for its football program, which plays in the United Athletic Conference, an FCS conference.
"It's toxic," McMurphy quote an unnamed source saying. "Absolutely toxic."
In a response tweet issued later Friday, Knuth wrote: "False reporting. Brett is a good reporter but this is wrong."
Knuth's mishandling of Title IX at Nevada was part of an investigative report by USA Today last May. That report cited interviews with more than two dozen Nevada athletes and employees and thousands of pages of emails and other documents obtained via public records requests.
According to the report, Knuth was the subject of four Title IX investigations that looked into inequities in facilities, recruiting, meals, travel, equipment, publicity and access to medical treatment; alleged disparaging comments about pregnant women (those claims were not supported after an investigation by a Las Vegas law firm); and allegations of an inappropriate relationship with Nevada's assistant cheerleading coach (two investigations did not find Knuth had violated school rules). Wolf Pack staffers also allege Knuth hired a disproportion amount of men for major roles and paid them more than equally qualified women.
The specifics of Southern Utah's potential Title IX violations were not outlined by McMurphy, who was the first to report the news.
Nevada was Knuth's first athletic director job. During his nine-year tenure, the Wolf Pack won 10 Mountain West championships, including four in men's basketball, three in baseball, two in men's tennis and one in women's swimming and diving. All of those titles came under coaches Knuth hired. He made several notable and successful hires, including Eric Musselman (men's basketball), Jay Johnson (baseball), T.J. Bruce (baseball) and Jay Norvell (football), although those Title IX issues, among other concerns, eventually cost him his job at Nevada.
