Why was there a camera in the Catawba softball team’s locker room for over a year?
Just based on results, it appears everything is going right for the Catawba College softball team in 2021.
A year after the Indians struggled to a 10-12 record before COVID-19 shut down the private college, they’re undefeated after their first six games.
Behind the scenes, though, Catawba’s softball team has spent the past several weeks in turmoil.
It stems from concern over a camera that was installed more than a year ago in the women’s locker room by Indians’ head coach Amanda Harris-Morgan — who did not ask anyone in the Athletic Department or at the school for permission to put up the camera, according to Jared Tice, Catawba College’s senior vice president and dean of students. Harris-Morgan told players she put up the camera because equipment was being stolen.
The school believes the issue is settled.
Tice said internal and external third-party investigations into the matter have determined the camera was not recording or transmitting images. The Salisbury Police Department, meanwhile, conducted its own investigation and determined “that a crime, according to North Carolina law, had not been committed based on the evidence revealed during the investigation,” Chief Jerry Stokes said.
But some team members and their parents don’t think it’s settled for them. They contend the school didn’t act nearly as quickly as it should have, and say they are not satisfied with the findings of the investigations, arguing they’ll never feel completely secure that no one was ever monitoring the camera while players were changing.
They also said there’s a much larger issue to address here: Why would it be OK for anyone, at any time — regardless of what the stated intention is — to put a camera in a women’s locker room?
‘Nobody thought it worked’
Harris-Morgan — who was hired to lead the school’s program in 2018 and lives in Salisbury with her husband, Michael Morgan, and their 5-year-old son — did not respond to phone messages, texts or emails seeking comment for this story.
But players and the school both said the 42-year-old coach originally installed the camera in the locker room more than a year ago, explaining at the time to players that she put it up merely as a deterrent to theft, and that it was not actually operational.
At first, members of the team thought the presence of the device was funny, according to two current players who spoke to the Observer on the condition of anonymity, for fear that speaking out about the situation could negatively impact their experience at Catawba and on the team.
“Nobody thought it worked at all,” one of the players said. “(Someone had written) ‘Smile, you’re on camera’ on the whiteboard. Everybody was joking about it. Then one day last semester, still in the fall, we come in and it’s plugged up and blinking, and making noise. Everybody freaks out and ... people start looking it up and we find out that we’re pretty sure it’s a baby monitor.
“We don’t really know what’s going on at that point, so we unplug it. But we make it look like it’s plugged in. You would have had to really get close to it to see that it wasn’t.”
At some point during winter break, the two players said, team members found that it had been plugged back in.
Soon after that, players complained about it — saying its placement in the locker room where they undress was making them uneasy.
A photograph provided by one of the players shows the camera posted near the ceiling in a corner, above a wall-mounted television, a whiteboard, and multiple lockers. Both players assert the camera had a clear view of every locker.
After complaints were made, Catawba College Athletic Director Larry Leckonby removed the camera, and on Jan. 22, the two players said, several team members met with Leckonby to discuss their concerns about the device.
Four days later, on Jan. 26, a larger meeting was held to discuss the camera — this time with the full team, Harris-Morgan, Leckonby, and other associate and assistant athletic directors.
At that meeting, the two players said, Harris-Morgan apologized for putting it up in the first place and said she acknowledged making an error in judgment.
But, they said, she was not disciplined and went straight into coaching practice like nothing had happened.
“That is when I got upset,” the mother of one of the players told the Observer. “Because I thought, ‘We don’t even know if this recording device worked. We don’t know if it recorded anything. We don’t know if it was streamed to a laptop or to a phone. ... We still don’t really know anything. And every time we try to call, they don’t have to talk to us. Our daughter’s not a minor. She’s an adult.
“But these girls, they’re 18, 19 years old, and they just thought, ‘Hey, we’re gonna report this and they’re gonna do what they’re supposed to do.’”
Matter under investigation
In an email to the Observer, Tice said Catawba College reached out to the Salisbury Police Department about the camera on Jan. 27.
Stokes, the police chief, said at that point the department initiated an investigation. Eight days later — on Feb. 4 — it closed the investigation, having “determined that a crime, according to North Carolina law, had not been committed based on the evidence.”
Stokes said the investigation included interviewing “witnesses and concerned parties regarding the device.”
The two players who spoke with the Observer said they were not contacted by police.
When asked whether any students were among those interviewed, Stokes declined to comment further.
The same day the police told the school it found no wrongdoing in its investigation — nine days after the team meeting in which Harris-Morgan apologized — Leckonby abruptly informed the team that Harris-Morgan had been suspended, according to the two players.
Tice would neither confirm nor deny whether Harris-Morgan had been suspended, telling the Observer that Catawba College “does not publicly speak on personnel matters”; but the two players said assistant coach Shane Prescott started acting as head coach since Feb. 4.
Neither Leckonby nor Prescott responded to multiple messages seeking comment.
Meanwhile, Tice did say the college initiated its own investigation, which has included interviews with student athletes and “involved athletic employees” regarding the camera; an internal review of its system and network by its IT department; and a review by an external third-party IT consultant.
He said the internal review “confirmed the device was not on the college’s wireless or wired network over the last two years,” and that the external review “verified the device neither stored or transmitted video or images during the time in question.”
The administration’s conclusion, he said, was that the camera was not recording or transmitting.
Last week, Tice said, the school closed its investigation. On Thursday, one player and two of the parents told the Observer that Harris-Morgan had been reinstated.
It’s all about trust, they say
North Carolina law prohibits secretly peeping into a room occupied by another person.
The state also recognizes the tort of invasion of privacy by what’s called “intrusion into seclusion,” involving cases in which someone who “intentionally intrudes, physically or otherwise, upon the solitude or seclusion of another or his private affairs or concerns ... if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.”
It’s unclear how a court would rule on a surveillance camera in a locker room that was said not to be working, according to several privacy-law experts who spoke to the Observer.
But the bottom line, the two players and their parents said, is that this particular camera has created a heightened anxiety they never should have had to deal with in the first place. After all, they say, how can the school be so sure that no one was ever watching while they were undressing?
Asked to speak to that type of worry, Tice said in an email:
“The safety and comfort of our students is our top priority and a commitment we make to all of our students. The College has support systems in place on and off-campus if students need additional resources, and ... the College will meet with the team to present our action steps and findings. The College feels this level of transparency is needed and deserved to help alleviate any player concerns related to this matter.”
The two players and their parents said they are struggling, though, to feel completely reassured, and aren’t sure how they’ll be able to trust Harris-Morgan again.
Said one player: “I’m not sure how the investigation works, but it was up for over a year and it could have very well recorded at some point.”
Said the other: “Yes, there is stress and anxiety that someone could have videos of all of us changing. The thought of that makes me sick to my stomach. And to know that we expressed those feelings and got an ‘I’m sorry, we make mistakes’ answer back, is disheartening.”
Tice said information about the investigation will be disseminated to the team as soon as possible.
But one of the players’ mothers said it is already too late.
“It concerns me,” she said in an email, “that it took the college (so long) to suspend the coach and the college has not communicated with girls and/or parents about the action steps they are taking to protect their privacy and safety. Their lack of communication and transparency concerning the matter concerns me immensely. ...
“I will have a hard time with my daughter continuing to play for Catawba softball.”
This story was originally published February 17, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
