A team of journalists from ESPN will be honored for an exhaustive investigation and series of stories about a track coach who molested dozens of boys and young men over a period of nearly 40 years, concluding when that man was arrested in 2021.

Reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Mike Kessler, leaders of the ESPN team, earned the Award for Excellence in Coverage of Youth Sports for their work. The nationally competitive prize is presented annually by the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State.

Fainaru-Wada and Kessler followed an initial tip about a former Olympian, Conrad Mainwaring, said to have molested a young boy in the 1970s and who had reportedly molested dozens more through the years. They found him still coaching, and eventually uncovered more than 50 men who described being physically abused and mentally manipulated by Mainwaring.

The allegations covered activities in the United Kingdom and at least four U.S. states. Despite competing in the 1976 Summer Olympics and then later training a two-time Olympic gold medalist, Mainwaring stayed one step ahead of his accusers and the law – until ESPN’s reporting led directly to his arrest in California. He currently faces more than a dozen charges, and has pleaded not guilty.

“We’re proud to honor the ESPN team, who have done the kind of work that shows why smart, hard-nosed journalism on all platforms is so important,” said John Affleck, director of the Curley Center.

Fainaru-Wada and Kessler published a major piece in August 2019 and continued interviews with additional accusers through 2020. They covered Mainwairing’s 2021 arrest and continue to follow civil lawsuits against organizations that employed the coach, as well as multiple criminal cases.

In addition to identifying scores of accusers, the investigation raised serious questions about how Mainwaring was able to avoid legal action even as his alleged conduct drew complaints at multiple universities. 

ESPN conducted dozens of interviews with accusers who ranged in age from 22 to 59. Each was interviewed multiple times and over hundreds of hours in total. Every possible effort was made to corroborate their stories, including speaking with family members, friends and spouses they’d confided in over the years, and reviewing letters, journals, photos, official documents and news articles. 

Fainaru-Wada, Kessler and additional members of the ESPN team — producer Greg Amante and editor Mike Drago — will be presented with the award April 12 at Penn State. The award presentation at 7 p.m. April 12 in Foster Auditorium is free and open to the public. Also, members of the team will visit classes and meet with administrators and faculty to discuss their work during their campus visit.

Fainaru-Wada, a member of ESPN’s investigative unit, is the co-author of two New York Times best-sellers, “League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth” (2013, Crown Archetype) and “Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports” (2013, Gotham). “League of Denial,” written with Fainaru-Wada’s brother/colleague Steve Fainaru, won the 2014 PEN Award for Literary Sports Writing. The brothers, who reported dozens of exclusive stories on the topic for ESPN, also served as reporters and writers on a companion documentary for PBS’s award-winning program “Frontline.” The documentary earned the prestigious George Polk and Peabody awards.

Kessler is host of “The Running Man” podcast, which chronicles the Mainwaring story. The television version of that story, also reported with ESPN, won an Emmy in 2020 for Outstanding Sports Journalism, and the written/web version is anthologized in “Best American Sports Writing 2020,” where Kessler’s work has twice appeared on the Notable list. From 2019 to 2021, Kessler was Senior Editor of Investigations and Projects at the Los Angeles NPR affiliate KPCC and its website, LAist.com, where edited or served as an adviser on a number of high-profile stories. A two-time finalist for the National Magazine Award (2008, 2012), his work has appeared in Outside, Wired, GQ, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, and Los Angeles magazine, where he was contributing writer for several years.