Local gymnastics coach suspended amid misconduct allegations

BAY CITY, Mich. (WNEM) - Allegations leading to a suspension. A gymnastics coach at Bay Valley Academy has been suspended for two years by the U.S. Center for SafeSport for what they call physical and emotional misconduct.

Attorney Russell Prince said the allegations against his client, Nanci Moore, a gymnastics coach at Bay Valley Academy, are “100 percent false.”

Moore has been suspended by the U.S. Center for SafeSport for what they call physical and emotional misconduct. According to the U.S. Center for SafeSport’s website, the suspension is subject to appeal/not yet final.

“Not only can she not coach anywhere in the country in the sport of gymnastics for two years, but she can’t receive a membership or coach underneath the Olympic Movement,” Prince said. “So 83 or more national governing bodies of sports.”

Prince believes the U.S. Center for SafeSport treats allegations as fact.

“It’s an organization that’s got a very, very significant problem with the ease at which people can manipulate facts and circumstances within the sport in order to essentially effectuate these types of outcomes,” he said.

For its part, the U.S. Center for SafeSport had no comment citing the ongoing investigation.

TV5 learned some of the allegations against Moore include not following concussion protocol and forcing a gymnast to compete with a broken arm.

“Your concussion thing is from a family that refused to actually provide a concussion, come back to the gym. Your complaints regarding a broken arm, and mistreatment, and being forced to compete, is from an ex-employee who effectively forced her own daughter to participate in a meet for the sole purpose of being able to manipulate an insurance issue with USA gymnastics. We could do this all day, but again, it’s better suited for the courts,” Prince said.

Which is exactly where he is planning to go.

“We have hundreds of pages of documentation and we have hundreds of pages of messages. And we have an entire history of connections to these people, and dozens of witnesses that are going to stand up against them when we have the opportunity to actually defend ourselves,” he said.

Prince said Moore is not facing any criminal charges related to these allegations.

Prince also said his client plans to exhaust every legal remedy to make every single aspect of what’s happened completely public.

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