Staff report
SALISBURY — Several people who worked at Catawba College at the time a former soccer coach is alleged to have molested a young boy say they don’t recall hearing anything about the accusations.
Authorities have charged Ralph Wager with multiple sex offenses stemming from what they say was ongoing abuse of a boy between 1987 and 1989, near the end of Wager’s tenure at the college.
At least some of the crimes happened on campus in Wager’s house and office, investigators say in a court filing. A prosecutor said at a bond hearing that the boy’s mother notified college officials when she learned of the abuse.
The initial response from college officials was to ban Wager from the campus pool where he met the boy, the prosecutor said.
Robert Knott, Catawba’s provost from 1982 to 1989, said Monday that he didn’t know anything about the allegations of abuse.
“I don’t know of anyone who did,” he said.
When a Post reporter asked Knott if he knew Wager’s access to the pool had been restricted, he said, “That was such long time ago, I don’t have any kind of accurate memory of anything that went on.”
Knott, who left the college in 1989 before returning as president in 2002 and retiring in 2008, said news of Wager’s arrest caught him “very much by surprise.”
“From everything I knew about him, he was a fine young man,” he said. “As far as I know, the young men were very pleased with Ralph; they came to play under him.”
Dr. Patricia Whitley, professor emeritus of physical education and recreation at Catawba College, was a coach and faculty member at the school from 1964 to 2009.
Whitley said Monday she didn’t hear anything about allegations against Wager while he was at Catawba College.
“He was just a good coach, is all I knew,” Whitley said.
Dennis Davidson, Catawba’s current athletic director, was sports information director during Wager’s tenure at the college. He declined to be interviewed about Wager, telling a Post reporter that only a college spokeswoman has been authorized to discuss the matter.
David Wood, who was athletic director at Catawba in the 1980s, is now dean and senior vice president for academic affairs at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C. He did not answer specific questions about the matter. He told a Post reporter this would be his only statement:
“I’ll be as helpful as I can in working with the college and others authorities in following up on this.”
If anyone did know about the allegations, Capt. Sheila Lingle with the Salisbury Police Department said it doesn’t appear they reported them to police in the 1980s.
“We don’t have anything in our computer system at all that has been reported to us,” Lingle said. “That would have been in here.”
Rowan County District Attorney Brandy Cook said it’s unclear whether anyone at the college would have been required by law at the time to report the accusations to authorities.
“I don’t know that answer right now,” she said.
Reporters Sarah Campbell, Mark Wineka, Shavonne Potts and Nathan Hardin contributed.