UK: Distance runners accused assistant coach of sexual harassment, stalking
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- UK distance runners accused assistant coach of sexual harassment, stalking.
- Investigators documented favoritism toward female 'favorites,' gifts, intimidation.
- Office recommended he be considered ineligible for rehiring after case dismissal in 2025.
The University of Kentucky released new information on Friday about an assistant cross country and track coach who left his job last year during an investigation into his conduct by the school’s Office of Equal Opportunity.
In March 2025, three women who ran distance for UK made allegations of sexual harassment and, in one case, stalking against then-Coach Hakon DeVries, according to a “notice of outcome” letter signed on Friday by Julia Neal, deputy director of investigations at the Office of Equal Opportunity.
Neal’s letter, sent to DeVries and the three women, was obtained by the Herald-Leader under the Kentucky Open Records Act.
Witnesses and the three women told UK investigators that DeVries “showed preferential treatment towards runners who were his ‘favorites,’” all of them women. The school’s investigation documented DeVries “directing hugs, sexual and romantic innuendos, visits and gifts” to women on the team, Neal wrote in the letter.
DeVries’ actions “were objectively offensive behavior,” Neal wrote. “The reported behavior occurred over a period of several years and was directed at multiple ‘favorite’ female runners including Complainant 1, Complainant 2 and Complainant 3.”
DeVries created an “intimidating environment” for the student-athletes he was supposed to be providing with mature leadership, Neal wrote.
“Due to the power differential of coach and athlete, it is reasonable that complainants did not feel they could speak up or report the conduct without concern for the impact of such reports on their athletic opportunities,” Neal wrote.
DeVries “disputed that his behavior was motivated by sexual or romantic interest,” she wrote.
It’s likely the Office of Equal Opportunity would have recommended DeVries be fired, given the severity of its findings, Neal wrote. However, she said, the coach’s employment contract already wasn’t renewed in spring 2025 for unrelated reasons.
The case was dismissed Dec. 17, 2025, because DeVries doesn’t work at UK anymore, Neal wrote. The Office of Equal Opportunity recommends that he be considered ineligible for rehiring in the future, Neal added.
Documents previously provided to the Herald-Leader show that DeVries’ employment at UK was extended through Aug. 30, 2025, although he was suspended for much of the year. His salary was $112,000.
DeVries did not immediately respond to a call on Friday seeking comment.
UK had no comment, spokesman Jay Blanton said.
A former cross country athlete at Stanford University in California, DeVries joined UK in 2012 as assistant track and field coach under head coach Edrick Floreal, whom he ran for and later worked for at Stanford.
Among the student-athletes whom UK credits DeVries as helping to develop into championship runners are Katy Kunc, Ariah Graham, Cally Macumber and Allison Peare, the last of whom he married after she graduated from UK in 2014. Now Allison DeVries, she is a school administrator in Lexington.
In 2023, the UK Office of Institutional Equity and Equal Opportunity said it investigated and substantiated sexual discrimination and harassment complaints made against DeVries by two student-athletes who ran on UK’s cross country team, according to documents the Herald-Leader obtained through the Open Records Act.
One athlete said the coach made unwelcome body-shaming comments, according to the documents. The other athlete said DeVries made unwelcome and inappropriate comments about the attractiveness of athletes’ bodies in relation to his posting photographs of them on social media, according to the documents.
In a May 30, 2023, letter to the UK’s Title IX compliance officer, Sandy Bell, the Equity and Equal Opportunity office recommended that DeVries receive a two-day unpaid suspension and mandatory training on how to prevent sexual discrimination, harassment and misconduct.
The UK athletics department has been already dealing with one high-profile controversy involving a coach. Former longtime swim coach Lars Jorgensen is accused in a federal lawsuit of sexual abuse by UK swimmers who later worked under him as assistant swim coaches.
Jorgensen has denied wrongdoing and said his relationships with the swimmers were consensual. That suit is pending.
UK paid Jorgensen $75,000 to resign in June 2023 in a deal requiring public confidentiality by all parties while he was under investigation inside the school on allegations of sexual abuse and NCAA training violations. Some of the sexual abuse allegations included those later mentioned in the current lawsuit.
