A former Arizona Wildcats All-American track and field athlete opened up to ESPN about a toxic affair between herself and one of her coaches at UA.
Baillie Gibson, a two-time NCAA Outdoor All-American and 2011 NCAA Indoor All-American, told ESPN that former UA assistant track coach Craig Carter, who's married with four children, blackmailed her into having an affair that lasted almost three years.
She said Carter took sexually explicit photos of her following a party in 2012 and used those photos to blackmail her into a relationship. She said Carter threatened her with death and rape through phone calls and text messages.
One of those text messages, according to Gibson, read, "If the cops are called it won't matter. I will pull my gun on them so they kill me but not before I let every (expletive) person that you know what you have done to me."
"He was going to post all of the pictures online so everyone could see what a whore I was ... He just said that I would lose my scholarship and I would have all these pictures out and it was going to be bad if I said anything," Gibson told ESPN.
Carter, who joined UA in 2007 and was named the National Women's Assistant Coach of the Year in 2011, resigned from UA weeks after he was arrested in 2015 on suspicion of domestic violence, aggravated assault and several other charges. He claims the relationship with Gibson was consensual.
Gibson filed a lawsuit against Carter, head track coach Fred Harvey, former UA athletic director Greg Byrne, The University of Arizona and the Arizona Board of Regents in late 2015, according to tucsonnewsnow.com. Carter and his wife filed a countersuit early last year.
Read the entire ESPN story here.
