Colton Joint Unified School District in San Bernardino County, Calif., has paid $19.5 million to settle lawsuits by 12 former Colton High football players who alleged they were sexually abused by the school’s former athletic trainer, the daughter of the team’s renowned football coach.
The Mercury News in San Jose reported this week that the Southern California News Group just learned of the settlements even though the high-profile litigation was quietly resolved from June through August 2025. According to the settlement agreements obtained by SCNG, each plaintiff received $600,000 to $2.4 million.
"Attorney Morgan Stewart, who represented nine of the 12 plaintiffs, did not explain why the settlements were not publicly disclosed earlier, except to say the final defendant in the litigation, Riverside-based Clover Enterprises Inc., did not settle until February," Joe Nelson of The Mercury News wrote Monday. "Clover is the sports medicine service that contracted with the district to provide athletic trainers at the time of the alleged sexual misconduct."
Per Nelson's reporting, the scandal broke in the fall of 2022, when the first six alleged victims came forward with allegations against athletic trainer Tiffany Strauss Gordon, now 44, in a lawsuit and series of interviews with the Southern California News Group. They alleged Gordon routinely had sexual intercourse and performed oral sex on them over a six-year period, from 2001 to 2007, when they ranged in age from 14 to 17.
Related: Six Former HS Football Players Allege Abuse by Former Coach's Daughter
The alleged encounters occurred in the school’s locker room, training room, bathrooms, weight room and football trailer, as well as the Bloomington home where Gordon lived with her parents and weekly “Captains Dinners” were held with the coaches and top players, Nelson reported.
The number of Gordon’s accusers subsequently doubled, and more lawsuits were filed in San Bernardino Superior Court, also by former Colton High football players.
Gordon is the daughter of former Colton High School football coach Harold Strauss, who coached many players who went on to play college football or be drafted into the National Football League. He died in December 2019.
Gordon had a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from Cal State San Bernardino and a master’s in education and a teaching credential from the University of Phoenix, according to the district.
Colton Joint Unified spokeswoman Katie Orloff said that from the moment the district was made aware of the “more than 20-year-old allegations” in the summer of 2022, it immediately placed Gordon on administrative leave and contacted police, triggering a criminal investigation, Nelson reported.
Police learned that the district had investigated Gordon more than a decade earlier on similar allegations after a former teacher reported to then-superintendent Jerry Armendarez and Colton High School principal Robert Verdi that Gordon allegedly sexually abused Colton High football players in the training room from 2002 to 2008, according to a police report obtained by the Southern California News Group. The 2022 investigation lacked cooperation from some of the former players as well as the district, and ended, per Nelson's report.
Under the current administration, the district requires annual mandated reporter training for all employees, as well as training on appropriate adult/student boundaries, and additional mandated reporter training during management team meetings, Orloff said, according to Nelson.
"Additionally, the district has an ongoing 'see something, say something' campaign to encourage students to report concerns and make sure they feel safe doing so, and students also are trained on sexual harassment prevention each year in grades 4-12," he wrote.
