Long Beach State and Hawaii are the two best men’s volleyball teams in the country\u2014but as they head into this week’s sold-out championship tournament at the Walter Pyramid, both are beset by a cloud of sexual misconduct allegations against team coaches.<\/p>\n
LBSU assistant coach Scott Touzinsky resigned<\/a> from his position last Friday after a report<\/a> by the Orange County Register detailing an allegation involving an underage girl at a camp or clinic in Canada in 2013. Touzinsky, who at the time was a player on the USA National Team, was suspended from USA Volleyball on July 19 and\u00a0received a \u201cformal warning\u201d from a nonprofit charged with investigating such claims.<\/p>\n The coach was later deemed eligible to return to USA Volleyball events. Officials from SafeSport, the organization that investigated, found the suspension sanction was \u201csufficient,\u201d according to the Register report.<\/p>\n Long Beach State had been aware of the complaint since late March, had investigated it, and decided no further action was required, officials told the Register.<\/p>\n In an interview, Long Beach State Athletic Director Andy Fee defended the university’s actions. Touzinsky passed the university’s background check as well as a LiveScan background check, and there have been no complaints against him since.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel we did our due diligence to protect our student-athletes, our campus, and our staff,\u201d Fee said.<\/p>\n He also praised Touzinksky for stepping down, putting his program first. The coach wanted to avoid being the center of attention ahead of this week’s matchup, Fee said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe decision was his,” Fee said. “He came to us and said that was what he wanted to do and I respect it.”<\/p>\n Touzinsky declined comment.<\/p>\n Long Beach State coach Alan Knipe, who hired Touzinsky and also coached Touzinsky as an All-American player at Long Beach State, said it’s a difficult situation.<\/p>\n “We respect Scott and his decision to step aside and allow our fans and the players to focus on the week ahead,\u201d Knipe said.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Hawaii head coach Charlie Wade held a press conference in his home state vehemently denying any wrongdoing surrounding an incident alleged to have occurred between 1986 and 1995 while he was club coach in Southern California.<\/p>\n Wade has not stepped down; he will coach the top-seeded Rainbow Warriors this week\u2014and will likely spend a good portion of a Wednesday evening banquet fielding questions about the allegations.<\/p>\n The American Volleyball Coaches Association is hosting the banquet, a gathering of the top coaches and players in the NCAA that will take place in Downtown Long Beach. The banquet usually features the announcement of the AVCA\u2019s major awards, but AVCA spokesman David Portney said that won\u2019t happen with the Coach of the Year award, in a statement that implies Wade was going to be the recipient of the honor.<\/p>\n \u201cThe AVCA Division I-II Men\u2019s Awards Committee has postponed making the decision on the 2019 National Coach of the Year pending the conclusion of an investigation by the U.S. Center for SafeSport. The announcement of the AVCA\u2019s coaching awards for Division I-II Men will be made when the investigation is complete,\u201d said Portney.<\/p>\n Tournament lineup<\/strong><\/p>\n The tournament itself begins Thursday, beginning with No. 1 Hawaii facing Illinois’ Lewis University at 5 p.m. No. 2-seeded Long Beach State will play Pepperdine later that day at 7:30 p.m.<\/p>\n The semifinal winners will meet on Saturday at 5 p.m. to decide the national championship. LBSU and Hawaii have a good chance of facing each other in that final game. The teams have played three, five-set matches already this season, with LBSU winning a pair at the Pyramid, and Hawaii winning one on the islands.<\/p>\n \u201cThere hasn\u2019t been this much separation between the top two teams and the rest of the field in a very, very long time,\u201d said national men\u2019s volleyball reporter Vinnie Lopes of Off the Block.<\/p>\n Tickets for Thursday and Saturday are both sold out, with Saturday\u2019s tickets selling on the resale market for $125 to $300. The university will host a free watch party on the lawn behind the Pyramid, with large screens showing the action inside the building.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LBSU assistant coach Scott Touzinsky resigned after a report surfaced he had been disciplined by USA Volleyball for a 2013 allegation of sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":16389,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","pmpro_default_level":0,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","footnotes":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,4],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6007,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions\/6007"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}