By: Justin St. Peter

A sense of inner turmoil haunts former UW-Whitewater wrestling Coach Tim Fader.

On April 18, the mother of a student contacted Fader to report a sexual assault with a recruit who was visiting the campus and her daughter. Fader immediately contacted the Whitewater Police Department to report the call and then met with the recruit.

“It’s a difficult situation to go in and tell that recruit that you need to go to the police,” Fader said. “I am certainly not the police. I am not trained to be a police officer.”

Two days later, the mother called Fader back, saying she was wrong to call him. Fader refused to elaborate.

When the Royal Purple attempted to receive the police report of the incident, was told that the report was still open and no details could be released.

A week after the incident, Fader met with Athletic Director Amy Edmonds and Chancellor Richard Telfer who he said were very supportive of him throughout the process. In the meantime, he was placed on suspension on May 13 as the university investigated what had transpired.

“I was not allowed to go on campus,” Fader said. “I was not allowed to talk to my wrestlers, but there were a lot of contacts of people that reached out (in support) to me once I was suspended.”

During the process of the investigation, two recruiting violations were discovered. Fader described them as being “secondary” and said he and Assistant Coach Chris Heilman developed a plan to fix the mistakes so they would not happen again.

“They have not told us specifically what our recruiting violations were,” senior team captain Elroy Perkin said. “From what I heard, somebody got a ride from one of our alums to the campus. The other one was they said we were holding open tryouts in our practice room because we were wrestling in our room.”

Despite their plans to fix the violations, the three-time Division III Coach of the Year and Assistant Coach of the Year were fired in August according to Fader in an interview with the Royal Purple.

UW-Whitewater Director of Marketing & Media Relations Sara Kuhl told the Royal Purple in an email that Fader was not fired but was not offered a contract for 2014-15. Kuhl also confirmed that Heilman resigned and was not fired. Heilman in an email to the Royal Purple provided his letter of resignation dated Aug. 1, 2014

When contacted, Edmonds said she could not speak about any personnel issues.

Fader said he will struggle to find a good job at this point in the offseason.

“I’m trying to make my decision now on what my next step should be,” Fader said. “I really want to get back into coaching, and I think I can be successful. I think I can instill character, passion, commitment and all those things that the sport of wrestling embodies.”

Meanwhile the UW-Whitewater wrestling team has dealt with its own struggles.

Perkin said they are behind on their summer training program, and they never did their summer camp or kids’ camp.

“It’s actually been really hard (to focus) because it’s taken all of the organization that we usually have out of our summer,” Perkin said. “I definitely feel that as a team, we are separated at this moment. I don’t think it will take much for us to get back.”

UW-Whitewater has moved on from both Heilman and Fader. On August 25, the university announced the hiring of Ned Shuck to spearhead the ’Hawks wrestling program. As of publication, he had not hired an assistant coach.

Perkin still believes the ’Hawks can win a national championship despite all of the distractions.

“I don’t think any amount of coaching or anything like that can deter our strides we have made to the national title,” Perkin said. “We are definitely on our way to get a national championship.”

Fader grew passionate about how the team can count on him being in their corner. He said he was ecited for the the upcoming year.

“I am proud of what I did,” Fader said. “I can look in the mirror and know that I did the right thing. At the same time, I wish I could go back and have done more. I really question what I did was worthy of being terminated.”

University Police Lieutenant Fey Schouten explained the process of reporting a sexual assault to a university employee:

“If you want to report a sexual assault to the university, all you have to do is tell a full-time university employee,” Schouten said. “They will have information and a form that needs to be filled out and sent to Mary Beth Mackin, the dean of students, office called the Clery report.”

For more information on how to report a sexual assault, stop in the campus police building or visit: www.uww.edu/sexual-misconduct-information.

Editor’s Note: Chris Heilman’s name was edited to reflect the correct spelling post-publication.

On Sept. 5, 2014, the article was updated to reflect the details surrounding Heilman’s resignation and Fader’s contract not being renewed.