Parents of college runner from Eagan who died by suicide settles suit with her coach and school

The Eagan parents of a college runner who died by suicide has settled their lawsuit that alleged their daughter’s cross-country coach at the time tormented her with demeaning comments in emails and texts about her weight and learning challenges.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Florida in June 2023 by Ray and Lynne Pernsteiner, the parents of Julia Pernsteiner, 23, who died in her Jacksonville University dorm room on Nov. 8, 2021. Her death came two months after the coach kicked her off the team, the suit contended.

The lawsuit named as defendants the university and former cross-country coach Ronald E. Grigg Jr., who coached women’s track and cross-country at the Division I school from 1998 until his sudden resignation in July.

The family’s attorney, Robert Spohrer, said that the case went to mediation, and there was “an amicable resolution of all issues” that led to the suit’s dismissal.

Spohrer said a strict confidentiality agreement among the parties prevented him from disclosing terms of the settlement.

Attorneys for Grigg and the university did not respond to messages left Thursday by the Star Tribune.

The defendants have yet to file any response in federal court to the allegations. The university said in a statement that it does not comment on pending litigation.

The suit contended that Pernsteiner’s constitutional rights were violated under the Americans with Disabilities Act and under Title IX because of discriminatory acts based on her gender.

Pernsteiner took her problems with Grigg to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office about 2½ weeks before her death, but no charges were filed.

In a recorded interview with an officer, obtained by former Jacksonville TV reporter Samantha Mathers, Pernsteiner said Grigg “would make these off-hand statements like asking me, ‘Why do I keep you around if you’re not smart and you’re not fast?’ ... He was telling me like, ‘Go kill yourself. You’re awful.’ ”

The lawsuit laid out the following sequence of events in the months before her death:

Pernsteiner ran cross-country at Rosemount High School and graduated thanks to an individualized education plan that took into account her dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other learning disabilities.

After high school, she studied and ran for the University of Pikeville in Kentucky before Grigg began recruiting her. She enrolled at Jacksonville for the spring 2021 semester.

School officials recognized Pernsteiner’s need for a specialized learning plan but failed to provide her various accommodations, the suit alleges, and her grades suffered. She became depressed and wanted to drop her summer courses, but the school refused.

At the same time, she was training with the cross-country team being led by Grigg under a “toxic atmosphere of humiliation and intimidation [created] by belittling, disparaging and ridiculing runners who did not meet his standards.”

Grigg at times “‘fat shamed’ women runners by mocking them as members of a ‘fat club.’ He conducted weekly weigh-ins using a ‘bod pod’ and demanding a [body mass index] of 10% or less. ... All of this prompting eating disorders in certain young, impressionable women on the team.”

Being among the less talented runners on the team, Pernsteiner was targeted by Grigg for ridicule, including calling her “the slowest [expletive] runner on the team.”

Pernsteiner and others on the team complained about Grigg to school leadership, but they “closed ranks around Grigg and refused to take any action...because of his success as a track coach.”

The suit noted, “As long as Grigg’s teams were successful, JU tolerated his outrageous behavior toward team members.”

Pernsteiner reached out to her teammates and former JU runners and learned of Grigg making “inappropriate sexual comments and gestures to certain girls on the team.”

Grigg dismissed Pernsteiner from the team in September 2021. She wrote to athletic director Alex Ricker-Gilbert in the following month of being “heartbroken to learn that I am no longer able to be on the track team, because my GPA is too low and I’m not fast enough to compete at this level. My coach knew my times when he recruited me to come to JU, and he knew about my grades at UPike.”

Pernsteiner’s pleas went unanswered and depression soon set in. She turned to various social-services outlets for help in the time leading up to her suicide.