Former Stanford Football Coach Sues ESPN for Defamation

Troy Taylor, former head football coach at Stanford University, filed a defamation lawsuit against ESPN and a reporter that alleged a story the news outlet published directly led to his dismissal. 

Earlier this year, ESPN reporter Xuan Thai wrote that Taylor was being investigated for harassing female staffers in the Stanford University athletics department. Taylor allegedly made inappropriate comments and was causing undue stress to the women in the department, a situation which was investigated by the university twice, in 2023 and 2024.

Related: Stanford Football Coach Taylor Investigated for Bullying, Belittling Female Staffers

According to The Athletic, Taylor was fired six days after ESPN’s reporting, and now his lawsuit claims the news outlet, “repeated defamatory statements about Taylor, knowing full well that the statements were false, for the purpose of smearing Taylor’s reputation and injuring him in his profession.”

ESPN has not removed any of its original reporting, and no spokesperson commented on the lawsuit.

At the time of his dismissal, Stanford general manager Andrew Luck did not directly address the ESPN reporting on Taylor. “It has been clear that certain aspects of the program need change,” Luck said. “Additionally, in recent days, there has been significant attention to Stanford investigations in previous years related to Coach Taylor. After continued consideration it is evident to me that our program needs a reset. In consultation with university leadership, I no longer believe that Coach Taylor is the right coach to lead our football program.

According to NBC Sports, as Taylor begins the legal process of proving defamation, he’ll need to convince the judge that “ESPN knew the information was false or that it acted with reckless disregard as to the truth or falsity of the information.” Taylor must also prove that ESPN’s reporting directly, negatively impacted his career, which may require him to prove that Luck made the decision because of the report — something Luck has not publicly stated outright