DAYTON, Tenn. (CN) – Just before Christmas, the National Association of Christian Athletes’ interim president sent a letter to the trustees of Bryan College, a Christian school in Tennessee, in an effort to head off a legal fight between the two organizations.
“We are a sister Christian organization,” John Ballinger wrote in the 13-page document, “with a mission to use sports camps, retreats and tournaments as a platform to evangelize the lost and encourage the body of Christ.”
Christian schools from across 20 states have sent students to attend NACA programs at Fort Bluff Camp, a 72-acre property that sits on the edge of the Cumberland Plateau in Dayton, Tennessee.
For days, Ballinger pieced together the narrative on his vertically stacked dual-screen monitor in his office in Harrison, about 30 miles from Dayton, citing more than 50 documents including minutes of board meetings, emails and financial reports.
After analyzing thousands of companies, the risk management consultant said the situation NACA found itself in was one of the most egregious he had ever seen. And now, as interim president of the organization, Ballinger says he is trying to help NACA get out of deals set up by a former board of trustees that he believes had a conflict of interest,making deals detrimental to the organization.
Primarily, Ballinger wants Bryan College to return a $6 million camp he said its officers took from NACA.
The story began in 2009, when a Rhea County grand jury indicted NACA’s founder Mike Crain for sexually battering a 14-year-old girl and her mother, who worked at the camp.
In the 1970s, Crain made a name for himself as a traveling preacher who plied crowds with martial art demonstrations. Sports Illustrated profiled Crain as he ran a camp in Kentucky in 1973 and he even released a gospel album called “Karatist Preacher - God's Power.”
Crain and his wife established Fort Bluff Camp and NACA. They lived on a house facing east, overlooking the bluff.
Two days after the Rhea County Sheriff’s Department filed its incident report, Naomi Crain submitted her resignation from the organization she and her husband founded. In its severance agreement, NACA offered to pay her $60,000 over two years at $5,000 a month, although $5,000 a month paid out over two years totals $120,000. But Naomi did not sign the agreement, according to documents NACA provided to Courthouse News.
She approached Stephen Livesay, the president of Bryan College, and asked the college to oversee NACA.
Formed after the 1925 Scopes Monkey trial that was held in Dayton, Bryan College was named after the celebrity prosecutor at the trial: Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.
At a special meeting on Dec. 12, 2009, NACA’s executive committee agreed the organization needed to borrow money to continue operating for the next few months and that it would not borrow the money unless Livesay authorized it.
Almost a week later, on Dec. 18, NACA’s board of trustees met at the offices of Bryan College in Chattanooga. NACA said it would purchase the life estate of the Crains, including their house overlooking the bluff. After it paid the Crains $150,000, it would pay Naomi $5,000 a month for 20 years.
The NACA board then agreed it would elect nine trustees that Livesay picked from Bryan College’s administration and board so that the majority of NACA’s board was also involved with the college.
Besides being Bryan College’s president, Livesay became the chairman of NACA’s board. Vance Berger, who is currently listed as the college’s controller in the finance and enrollment office, became NACA’s president.
On Jan. 1, 2010, Livesay signed a contract with Naomi for consulting services because of her contacts and experience as the organization’s co-founder. The agreement would only end if NACA filed bankruptcy, liquidated or she died. By the time NACA broke the contract, Naomi was being paid $1,500 a month.
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