NOTE: It is KRBD’s policy not to identify victims of assault without express permission. The victim in this story gave permission through their attorney to be included in KRBD’s reporting.
A jury convicted a Ketchikan high school volleyball coach and teacher of misdemeanor assault and harassment on Friday, after an incident where he grabbed a then 17-year-old female player by the wrists at a volleyball scrimmage.
The courtroom was packed and tense. The families and friends of the victim, Reilly McCue, and the defendant, Kevin Johnson, huddled together on opposite sides of the courtroom. This case divided Ketchikan when the charges were filed two years ago and had become increasingly contentious in the month leading up to the trial.
Reilly McCue, now 19, plays NCAA Division II volleyball at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Before that, she was a varsity player at Ketchikan High School. Kevin Johnson was her coach.
Assistant Attorney General Daniel Shorey represented the state. He told the jury during his opening statements that McCue missed a serve during an August 2022 scrimmage. The charges stem from an event captured on video during the scrimmage.
Shorey showed the jury the video – the team records all of their scrimmages to improve their game. In the video, Johnson and McCue walk towards each other from opposite sides of the net.
“He grabs her by her wrists. He pulls her towards him,” Shorey narrated for the jury as the video played. “At this point, Riley is not only in physical pain by being grabbed and by being pulled, but she’s also in fear of what else this much larger, much older man may do to her. She asks him to let her go, but he doesn’t at first. Finally, he pushes her back, where she stumbles.”
The state said Johnson’s actions recklessly hurt the teenage girl, both physically and emotionally, which it said constitutes both assault and harassment.
Johnson’s defense attorney Rex Butler said that that interpretation of the video takes it out of context.
“What you’re going to see in the course of this case is a good passionate coach who brings that passion to the practices. We expect the evidence to show he brings that passion to the games, just like many other coaches that you may have seen on television in organized sports. Coaches – passive coaches – oftentimes don’t win,” Butler said in his opening statement.
McCue was the state’s first witness. She told the courtroom that being back in Ketchikan was difficult for her.
“Honestly, even just getting out of the plane and going across on the ferry. It was a lot. I have a lot of negative emotions about being here,” she said.
She spoke fondly about volleyball though.
“I love it. It’s – I love to get better every day. I go to practice focusing on wanting to improve, wanting to learn, wanting to better myself. It means so much to me,” McCue said. She described discovering the sport in middle school, attending camps during the summers, and what it’s like to play in college.
Then Shorey asked her about the incident and how it made her feel.
“I’m scared. I’m aggravated. I’m annoyed. I feel violated. I feel disgusted. It’s just – it was very difficult. And then I had to just keep going on like, nothing happened,” she said.
Defense attorney Butler questioned McCue’s testimony about the impact of the incident.
He painted a picture of a coach deeply invested in the success of the girls he had coached for their entire four years at the school. And he portrayed McCue as a star athlete not keen on accepting criticism.
“And you had issues with Coach Johnson criticizing your serve on that particular day, didn’t you?” He asked, cross-examining McCue. “In fact, you felt like ‘he must not have been watching my performance for him to come in and criticize me that way.’ Right?”
“Yes, sir,” McCue responded.
The trial continued like this, with the state prosecution laying out its argument for the fear and hurt the incident instilled in McCue, as well as her teammates. While the defense countered that Johnson was a good, effective coach with no criminal intent.
On the second day, Johnson declined to testify, and the parties moved straight to closing arguments.
“I submit to you that you can’t take that five seconds there and turn it into a crime,” Butler told the jury. He said that this wasn’t a case of a stranger grabbing a girl on the street. It was a coach trying to inspire one of his athletes.
The prosecutor paced in front of the jury during his rebuttal.
“What? Like this is an ego trip for her to come up here?” Shorey asked, taking exception to what he called the defense’s insinuation that this was all about ‘poorly received criticism.’ “Sit down and look at the man who hurt her? Crying? An ego trip? No. This is the worst thing that probably happened to her.”
He then gestured across the room at Johnson.
“Grabbing a girl in that manner is wrong. It is criminal,” the prosecutor said “Adults don’t get to do that. People hold themselves out as coaches as if that’s some excuse. ‘He coached.’ No he didn’t! He hurt!”
The jury deliberated for about an hour before returning to the courtroom with a verdict.
Guilty, on two counts of fourth-degree assault and one count of second-degree harassment. After the verdict was read, Kevin Johnson spoke for the first time in the trial.
“I believe that I stood tall, and maybe I didn’t get the outcome that I wanted. But that’s a part of the process. And for that, I’m thankful, I’m thankful to you, I’m thankful for the prosecuting attorney. I’m thankful for the families that are here. This is a community and this is a part of the process. So whatever God has in store for me is what I’ll face,” Johnson told the judge.
Judge Daniel Doty issued his sentence directly after the verdict. He said he had to weigh the lasting impact the events would have on McCue and her family.
Doty said, regardless of people’s feelings on the case, it was a crime according to an impartial jury. He said the unique nature of the case forced the community to ask hard questions, like, “What is tolerable from a coach in the name of winning?”
“It was because kids and people who were more vulnerable in our society were all expected to shape ourselves around the conduct of people who were more forceful, more physical, more aggressive than the rest,” Doty said, recalling an experience with an aggressive coach from his own childhood.
He told the courtroom how he thought a coach’s role – and the way a case like this is heard – had changed.
“So I do think that, you know, we’re not necessarily reaffirming societal norms here, but we’re demonstrating what those new norms are and what’s expected of our coaches and people in positions of authority going forward,” the judge remarked.
Johnson won’t serve any time in jail unless he violates the terms of his 18-month probation. The judge didn’t ban him from coaching minors again. He said youth sports programs can police themselves and he didn’t think Johnson was a danger to the community.
