Consequences of Ker Story Hit Home

Editor’s Note: Times staff writers have provided a personal reflection on the 1993 area sports scene, chronicling the events and people that most affected them and offering an inside look at how reporters do their jobs. Today is the third of three days of those remembrances.

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The pain in Walt Ker’s voice jarred me into a sudden realization. This was not simply another story going into the next day’s newspaper like so many others I had edited. This time, I was hearing pain firsthand.

Editors need these reminders. At least I do.

Walt Ker was a big story in 1993. The veteran women’s volleyball coach at Cal State Northridge resigned abruptly in January, citing a desire to enter the business world.

His reason for leaving was puzzling. At 39, he was stepping down as one of the most successful women’s volleyball coaches in the country and probably the most highly paid.

Shortly after his resignation, The Times received an anonymous tip that Ker was guilty of sexually harassing his players. A month after pursuing that tip, The Times ran a story stating that two players had formally accused Ker of sexual harassment one month before he resigned.

Ker denied the report and said he resigned to spend more time with his wife, Cathy Miceli, a Northridge All-American whom he coached in 1979-80, and their three sons.

Six weeks later, The Times published another story that painted two portraits of Ker.

According to many former players and colleagues, he used his magnetic personality and coaching acumen to become one of the most successful women’s volleyball coaches in NCAA Division II history.

The testimonials were impressive. Former players described him as a gregarious, self-confident coach who went the extra mile for his players.

Although other former players acknowledged those strengths, they also asserted that since the 1980s Ker had consensual sexual relations with players, abusing a trust players had granted him and causing psychological damage to a number of former players.

The charges spelled career death for Ker. He drove players from the program because of unwanted sexual advances, some claimed. Players felt hurt, used, betrayed. One former player said she had repressed painful memories of her encounters with Ker, but those memories surfaced when she learned of the charges against her former coach.

The day before the Ker profile was published, The Times sought his response. Because we feared that Ker would not return calls from staff writer Theresa Smith Munoz, whose dogged reporting had uncovered the story, the task of reaching Ker fell to me.

As an assignment editor, I had given the story to Theresa and monitored the reporting closely. Although she needed little prodding, I pressed to get the story in the paper. That’s what editors are paid to do.

But it’s easy to push when you’re working behind the scenes. When I heard Ker’s voice on the phone, suddenly I was reminded of the consequences of our stories.

I talked to Ker three times that day, waiting while he and his wife prepared a statement. It had to be one of the roughest days in his life.

He compared the story to the twisting of a knife in an open wound. Had The Times considered the reaction of his friends and family before running the story, he asked.

His wife wanted to make sure the story included examples of her husband’s positive influence on his players.

Did we have that in the story, she asked.

My answers seemed pretty weak.

If Ker had screamed, cursed and threatened as other angered sources have in the past, it would have been easy to dislike him. He could have been dismissed as a coaching tyrant, a manipulator of young women who was getting what he deserved.

But Ker is not that simple. He never raised his voice that day. He simply wanted me to know how much the story hurt.

After he issued a statement denying the charges, the story was filed and for a moment I doubted my instincts. Maybe the story didn’t need to run.

But it was a compelling story that reported the facts as best as we knew. It was the kind of story journalists champion.

I congratulated Theresa for a job well done. But as I went home that day, I had no desire to celebrate.

The pain in Walt Ker’s voice had reminded me of that.