Former Winnipeg high school football coach sentenced to 20 years for sexually abusing players

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Peggy

A former Winnipeg high school football coach who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing nine players has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Kelsey McKay, 54, pleaded guilty last year to nine counts of sexual assault and two counts of luring.

CBC News is not naming the players because of a publication ban.

McKay was a prominent figure in Winnipeg’s football community and was still actively coaching and teaching when he was first arrested in 2022.

He was promoted to head coach at Churchill High School in 2003 before going to Vincent Massey Collegiate in 2009.

Court heard McKay invited players to his home, where he showed them pornography, massaged them and touched their genitals. McKay also texted the players and drove them to school.

Some of them had troubled home lives and viewed McKay as a role model or father figure, court heard.

Crown attorney Katie Dojack said he had an “intimidating presence” and “old-school coaching style.”

Dojack asked during sentencing arguments earlier this year for McKay to be sentenced to 25 years in prison, saying each of his victims had been “sentenced to a lifetime of harm and suffering.”

She also proposed that McKay be required to stay at least 200 metres away from schools and daycares, be prohibited from contacting his victims and be forbidden from using the internet or any other technology to access images or videos of minors.

McKay’s lawyers, Josh Weinstein and Lisa LaBossiere, said a sentence of just over 13 years would be more “meaningful” for McKay, given his age and the fact that he pleaded guilty.

At McKay’s sentencing hearing in March, some of McKay’s victims and their family members delivered victim impact statements in court, including the mother of a man who took his own life nearly two decades after McKay’s abuse.

A man wearing sunglasses is pictured walking into a building. — Kelsey McKay is seen on his way into a Winnipeg court in March. (Jeff Stapleton/CBC)

Crown prosecutor Dojack said McKay created a “psychologically dangerous” environment for the high school players and had opportunities to stop his abuse at any time.

All of the evidence has shown that McKay was “in control of his thoughts and actions” throughout the years of abuse, she said.

“He has no history of mental health challenges, no cognitive limitations, no history of substance abuse issues, and he regularly used psychological manipulation,” the prosecutor said.

McKay also read an apology at that sentencing hearing to the victims and their families, taking responsibility for what he did and saying he was sorry for the “hurt, grief, shame and sorrow” he caused them.

“I know this hurt and betrayal will affect them all for the rest of their lives,” he said, not turning around to face the audience as he spoke.

Weinstein told the court McKay “is not a lost cause,” since the former coach has several times expressed remorse about the abuse.

“This is a journey and it is not an easy, straight line,” said Weinstein. “He recognizes where he is and where he needs to get to.”

Dr. Jonathan Rootenberg, a forensic psychiatrist based in Toronto who spoke with McKay, testified that McKay acknowledged he was attracted to boys in their late teens, but claimed he was no longer attracted to them.

He said how likely McKay is to reoffend will depend on how he responds to any psychiatric treatment he gets.

Former Winnipeg high school football coach sentenced to 20 years for sexually abusing players

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