UC Davis baseball coach resigns after report details team hazing, excessive drinking

According to a confidential investigative report, the UC Davis baseball team engaged in long-standing hazing rituals for new players that included drinking competitions and scavenger hunt-style challenges that culminated in lap dances from teammates, then professional strippers.

UC Davis announced Friday that coach Matt Vaughn has resigned.

The 34-page report, obtained by The Times through a public records act request, is the culmination of an investigation that began in July and was conducted by the university office of compliance and police. UC Davis investigations director Wendy Lilliedoll authored the report.

The evidence established that Vaughn — identified as Coach A in the report — knew or should have known about the initiation since at least 2018 and failed to take reasonable steps to address it. He also exhibited a “lapse in judgment in telling an anecdote to his players in 2021 that involved excessive drinking and naked women.”

However, the report did not conclude that Vaughn’s “behavior established gross misconduct and improper governmental activity under the University’s Whistleblower Policy.”

Vaughn was the Aggies head coach for 10 years and part of the program since he was a pitcher from 1989-92. UC Davis struggled in 2021, posting an overall record of 14-43. The Aggies were 8-32 in Big West Conference play.

The report stated “evidence was insufficient to establish that assistant coaches [Brett Lindgren and Lloyd Acosta] knew or should have known about the initiation tradition.”

All three coaches were placed on administrative leave when the investigation was launched in July. The team was prohibited from practicing until about five weeks ago.

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Sexual contact was implied by veteran players before and during initiations, which dated back to at least 2009, but there wasn’t evidence that sexual contact actually occurred as part of the initiation. The report stated, “For example, upperclassmen made comments, telling rookies to shave their ‘buttholes,’ trim their nails, and not wear underwear to initiation. Some 2020 rookies who stated they had heard similar comments claimed they knew they were a joke.”

According to the report, the initiations sometimes ended with new players barely coherent from binge drinking getting blindfolded and receiving lap dances from veteran players and then from strippers.

In addition to the initiation rituals, the report concluded that “the baseball players established a team culture of alcohol use and pressure to use alcohol.” High school players on recruiting trips were pressured to drink and excessive drinking was central to the initiation rituals. Initiations included a game called “beer boxing,” which required two players to drink beer until one player vomited.

And although the report stated “the evidence did not establish a team culture of drug use,” witnesses did express “credible accounts of multiple players using drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, Molly, LSD and mushrooms.”

The investigation included interviews with 18 current and former players, all three coaches, assistant athletic director Josh Flushman and five other UC Davis employees

“Many [players] framed the initiation as an overall positive bonding experience, but with negative elements in terms of certain undesirable activities or excessive intoxication for a couple of teammates,” the report read.

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