Sep 02, 2015 01:16 PM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

A former student of Oregon State University (OSU) claimed the school's former head football coach Mike Riley fostered an environment on his team that led to her being raped by one of his players.

According to The Oregonian, the anonymous female filed a federal Title IX lawsuit against Riley and the school for not doing more to help her after she reported the incident. In her suit, she said she was raped in 1999 when she was a freshman at OSU.

She claimed the cousin of a football player offered her a beer at a party and she quickly "became woozy and fuzzy-headed." Before out of consciousness, she said she wound up at the player's apartment, where he raped her.

The unnamed female former student said in her lawsuit she saw story about Brenda Tracy published in The Oregonian in Nov. 2014, the newspaper reported. In the story, Tracy said was raped in 1998 by four men, and that two were football players. The woman claims one of those football players, Calvin Carlyle, is the cousin of her rapist. The woman also noted Tracy was raped in the same apartment complex.

Riley coached OSU's football team from 1997 to 1998 and then returned in 2003 and left again at the end of last season. He is now coaching Nebraska's football team. In a statement obtained by The Lincoln Journal Star, Riley denied he intentionally ignored the incident in question.

"Yesterday, I was made aware of a complaint filed in the State of Oregon concerning a previously unknown incident to me in October 1999," he said in his statement. "I cannot comment on any matter in the legal process. However, I am committed to a harassment-free culture in our football program and I am continually seeking ways to expand our student education program. Sexual assault is a horrendous crime and has no place in our society."

The woman who sued Riley claimed to have reported her rape no more than two days afterward and was essentially turned away by a sexual assault counselor, The Oregonian reported. She did not pursue it any further, calling OSU's handling of her report "hostile."

Through a spokesman, OSU denied responsibility for what the woman claimed happened to her and for what Tracy claimed to have happened to her. The woman is seeking $7.5 million in damages.

"We're not responsible for her very unfortunate sexual assault," Steve Clark, OSU's vice president of university relations, said in a statement. "We disagree and refute her claim that the university's actions in the Brenda Tracy matter led to her assault a year later by a non-student relative of one of Ms. Tracy's assailants."

(Source: The Oregonian)

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