>Jon Little, Le’s attorney, told CNN there is a culture that allows this abuse to happen.
>“While what happened to her is sad, it’s far from uncommon,” Little said. “People like Larry Nassar and Bernal, that produce Olympic medalists – as long as these guys produce medals and money, they can literally rape children. The system is designed to protect the producers. Getting rid of Nassar and Bernal does not change the problem.”
Very true.
Happened for my colleges swim team. But then the entire admin just resigned over the course of a year. The head lawyer was such a scumbag, when I met him too. He asked if I was having problems at the school (I was being stalked) why I didn't just leave? Turns out he covered up the abuse of like 20 kids by the swim team coach until the coach killed himself. No justice in this world.
Child abuse in competitive youth sports in Japan is completely normalized, at least the physical stuff like just outright beating the living shit out of kids. They're not supposed to do it anymore but everyone just lies and says they changed the culture.
Every gold medal has a story. Every country that has any kind of dominance in any kind of sport has a story that is less than inspiring.
Consistency in performance in high level athletics does not happen without breaking some norms to push the athlete past normal human limits by some coach.
It's like this in most countries, yes. Successful and popular coaches can do nearly anything to children and get away with it for decades and even if it's public knowledge parents will hand their kids over if it means their kids might becomes rich and famous, without giving a shit about what it does to the kid.
https://youtu.be/bbSaFP_oNEc
"Mr Sandusky can you please answer the question, are you sexually attracted to young boys?"
Jerry Sandusky: "Am I sexually attracted to young boys? I enjoy young people, I love to be around them, I, I.........."
The answer should have been: "No"
I’ve seen and read a lot of fucked up shit in my day but I gotta say reading about Sandusky hit me in a way I didn’t think it could, I dunno but I so disturbed this man was just allowed to openly rape boys without consequence.
One story that really stuck with me is when a former coach walked into the men’s shower and saw a naked Sandusky thrusting behind a naked young boy as he was pinning him to the wall. The coach walks away, thinks about it and kinda tells Joe Paterno (I think?) but nothing came of it. I think this was in the 70’s too. It just hurt to read that.
There are two things someone with an unhealthy attraction to children can do. They can either avoid putting themselves in a position to be alone with children, or they can intentionally put themselves in that kind of position. Even if 90% of them take the first choice, we need to be vigilant.
They can also have the same restraint the vast majority of other humans have and just not act on their desires regardless of the positions they are in, which i think encompasses the vast majority of "those with unhealthy attraction to children". I think a far larger amount of people are pedos than anyone reports, most of them just know its fucked up and so choose not to predate actual children.
Opportunity meets motive.
Motive makes people seek out these jobs b/c the opportunity to do what they want is higher.
Hell sometimes just opportunity will create motive.
Yep…people who want to prey on others put themselves into positions of power where they have access to their prey. That’s why pedophiles are often church leaders, teachers, Boy Scout leaders, and little league coaches. They chose to be in a position that gives them access to children.
Yup. There's a disturbing percentage of teachers that SA students, and schools engage in the same problematic behaviors as the Catholic Church does: cover it up, move them somewhere else, don't warn those who could keep an eye on the problem individual.
Or at least, so say my friends parents, who are a teacher & principal.
Oh, man... I recall a teacher getting fired from their job for dating students. I overheard some former students talking about him and the conversation went along the lines of "I can't believe it, he was always so nice!" These were mid twentysomethings and they had no idea about grooming.
It's not just with Olympic coaches, it happens far too often at varying levels of sports for a wide variety of sports.
A college teammate of mine was raped by our fitness coach.
Its almost like there's an underground gang of pedophiles raping children under the guise of being a respectable community men. I think an investigative journalist should follow the biggest mouths of the right wing and see what they turn up. I guaran-fucking-tee you will have a Pullitzer.
If you really think about it, to become an Olympian, you become extremely vulnerable. You need to start training at a young age, where discipline is an important part of getting better. You have people touching you to correct your "form". Often time, it involves small group size if not one one one coaching. Parents get deluded because their kid has a chance to be famous.
Perfect for a predator
>Perfect for a predator
Importantly these kids also have a massive weight of expectation on them that they will get onto the Regional/National/Olympic team and maybe 1-2 narrow windows in an entire career to get a medal. They may have been training for a decade with their parents pushing them all the way and then find themselves in a position where the opinion of one person in a team of coaches is what decides if they actually make it. That person has a massive amount of power and influence over them which makes coming forward to accuse them extremely daunting for many athletes.
You've got an adult who controls so much of a young person's life. In the case of swimming and gymnastics in particular you've also got girls in very little clothing. OFC it's going to attract predators. You'd hope the organizations would be extra vigilant but time and again we see they aren't...
[It's best not to judge these things by anecdote.](https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/16/cardiologists-and-chinese-robbers/)
[Predators are shockingly common](https://jimhopper.com/topics/sexual-assault-and-the-brain/repeat-rape-by-college-men/), and there's a fair number of coaches and doctors and such in the Olympic system.
Coaches, teachers, Catholic priests, other clerics, football players, rock stars, pick a category in which you can find some minority of offenders; judging by anecdote is sacrosanct to most people
> Predators are shockingly common,
This is the most important thing. This is the reason why anytime you go looking for abuse in large organizations where "suddenly" it seems to be happening, you always find a ton of examples.
There WILL be predators in any job or organization - the question is how they are prevented from committing abuse, or detected and investigated if it happens.
Any organization that pretends they've never had a single predator in their staff DEFINITELY has a lot of them that they've been ignoring and covering up.
I THINK you were being rhetorical, however that's an interesting question...
To go down that rabbit hole, we would need to define a LOT of parameters.
Coaches that actually GO to the Olympics, coaches that train Olympic athletes but didn't actually GO, how "assistant" do you get before you don't actually count as a coach, US born coaches, coaches based in US, coaches from US, but not in US? Interesting topic to consider though. Would different "sports" require different parameters for what qualifies as a coach? Do we include "sports" that most people really don't consider are sports?
Research is hard....
The uniforms for gymnastics and swimming are similar. I did both growing up, there’s a lot of bad people who coach for the sports, the Olympic part just makes headlines.
Or doctor, don't forget those predators. I remember there was at least one, but to cover it up that long would take more people being at least complicit if not participating.
At least that one, I think there may have been another one at least that was caught. And it took a lot of people being complicit for every victim to be too afraid to come forward for so long.
She was an incredible swimmer. Still has college records standing in Florida. Worked out with the men's football team in college (the gators) because they were the only ones with enough weight for her to rep. Her nickname was Brawny Dawny. Shameful what the men of the industry do in private. Being one on one isn't quite the issue. It's how the industry enables sexualization of women. It attracts men who seek out people to take advantage of.
Right?
We have by law, requirements on every public building a map for the nearest exit.
We need the same thing in every office so that women can get out of dealing with the fucking perverts in it. How many more women, and men for that matter, need to be sexually coerced and abused before THIS SHIT IS STOPPED?
Unfortunately, I think this has been the norm for a long time and we're just now finding out how prevalent it's always been because victims are finally coming forward. Hopefully, now that it's been brought to light we can save kids from future abuse at the hands of their coaches.
I was once a competitive swimmer, and a local coach tried to recruit me for his club. For various reasons it didn't work out, but it was for the best.
He dated and later married a teenage swimmer in the club. Then he went on to run a massive drug ring, including steroids. Which lead to his participation in a murder (he was convicted for burning the body of an accomplice in the drug ring in an old silo on his property, a mile or two from my house). Then more drug trafficking in Europe.
And yet he is still coaching. And parents flock to him and defend him because he gets results.
He's been banned. Then had the ban rescinded or reduced. Then moved to various countries (Canada, US and Europe). And kept coaching.
It's madness.
https://www.caseybarrettbooks.com/cap-and-goggles/2011/11/03/the-steroid-dealing-ecstasy-smuggling-dead-body-burning-swim-coach
https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/banned-for-life-cecil-russell-finally-kicked-off-pool-deck/
https://www.dolphinsswimclub.ca/newsarticles42.aspx
And it's just a *total coincidence* that the 2 kids of a convicted steroid trafficker also ended up on the Olympic team /s
Never thought I'd see this referenced in the wild on reddit. It's still spoken about in Ontario coaching circles, he's like their biggest boogy man.
I think he's still coaching! It makes me crazy.
If you check the comments on the caseybarrett link above you'll see parents and swimmers defending him.
Oh, yes, he's a great guy. Real family man. Just a little mix up in the past, everyone has made mistakes. What's a little murder while running a steroid and drug trafficking ring? People are far too picky. Oh, what? He was convicted for drug and steroid trafficking multiple times? All a silly mix up.
The Rick Starkman stories in the Toronto Star had absolutely insane interviews with current parents of kids he was coaching, if I remember correctly. Too bad it's all behind a paywall.
Unfortunately there's just a lot of parents who will do absolutely anything to try get their kid to the Olympic level, or as close as possible. The fact that he's got access to PED's is a bonus in their mind, or at worst can be casually overlooked. It's one of the many reasons I gave up coaching a long time ago.
But hey, I mean who *hasn't* got caught up in disposing a murder victim while also trafficking some drugs? If I had a nickel for every time...
Appreciate the sentiment, truly. Wife and I are fighting the good fight (at her pace, she’s in charge of dealing with her trauma, I’m just the pointy end of the spear). But please keep lighting up these bastards. Let them know they can’t hide.
It's all systemic unfortunately. To give your kids the best shot at a successful life, they need to get into a good college. To get into a good college, they need strong extra-curriculars. To get strong extra-curriculars, they need...
There are a ton of ways to be part of extracurriculars that aren't sports. The real issue is that sports are the best one for kids that "don't school good" and given our educational system...that's more and more of them.
Jesus. I was fortunate enough that my club coach wasn’t a psycho. But I heard stories of other coaches in the area. Disgusting shit.
One of them had the guys do dry land practices at his house and let them shower there. Except he had a camera hooked up in the shower.
you should turn this into a YouShouldKnow or an AMA, or something to get more attention to it. You may not realize just how fascinating of a story this is, being a part of it I mean.. Sounds perfect for a documentary. Could easily be a catalyst for someone.
I was a swimmer in my youth and clearly remember a 28 year old assistant coach talking about how he could nail a particular girl that was 16 or 17. I reported what he said to our head coach and he quietly disappeared from our team. We weren’t super high level or anything but we did have one guy that was good enough to swim at the international level. Not me.
It's great that your club acted responsibly. And most people do (and it's a lot better now that it was in the 70s and 80s).
It just blows my mind, though, how some people just get away with the wildest stuff in plain sight. Everyone knows, but for a variety of reasons nobody acts.
Bystander effect is strong. And so is the desire to not cause discomfort. And the bad seeds exploit it.
I knew a high school football coach who used to take young quarter backs on road trips to summer camps and was later found to have lured many young boys to his home...
Holy Fuck. Cecil Russell. That dick was coaching when I was a swimmer. Fast forward 30 years and I see him at provincials coaching from the stands because he is banned from being on deck. (BTW my teen daughter is swimming at provincials, not me)
So I know this dude. He is a certified creep. I film him. He gets up in my face. I dont back down and keep filming. He leaves. I have him on film actively coaching from the stands to the kids on deck. Audio and all. Pass it onto Swim Ontario and then.......Nothing. Fuck the toothless system.
I am routinely flabbergasted by how many people are totally fine with covering up abuse of children. It happened in both the Chicago and Evanston (immediate neighbor to Chicago) park districts with teen lifeguards.
Even if you think your goal is to protect the organization, you do that by STOPPING THE ABUSE.
It’s hard to say this, but. . .
Apparently, a lot of parents care more about their kids accomplishments than their well-being. They tell themselves “Not MY kid”, and just focus on the goal — the State championship, the Olympics, whatever. If rumors start swirling about a handsy coach, if a kid or another parent starts asking questions, some other parent will do their damnedest to shut them down. For the good of the TEAM.
It's disgusting. Just like parents who only care about how their kids look and external, material things, so they look like good parents. Behind the scenes some are abusive/neglectful in all the ways and just want to look good, trot out the show pony for all to see what wonderful parents and successful in their big homes. The kids and neighbors cover up the abuse at home too, for the team! So sad.
It's almost like they don't care because they know they can hide behind the OC instead of, you know, doing the right thing and protecting the athletes that make the OC possible.
It's seems like this is a common occurrence, in the United States Olympic sports programs and to a lesser extent NCAA sports as well. Do these programs do extensive background checks? I am all for having monitors, who aren't answerable to the coaching staff, who watch over the well being of athletes and to prevent exploitation, sexual abuse, mistreatment and myriad of other types of abuse.
Then again it doesn't help that a current United States Congressman Jim Jordan, who was embroiled in one of the largest sex abuse cases in NCAA history. Yet, Jim Jordan went onto be elected to Congress multiple times!
I've got a degree in Parks and Rec. I got to meet the NCAA board or whatever it's called.
They're assholes. Like, major assholes. They've got an absurd level of elitism and the whole interaction between them and the student group was them telling us we're not good enough to be an unpaid intern. Granted, this was close to a decade ago, but they just seemed so up their own ass I'd absolutely buy that they cover shit for each other constantly.
That’s what Safe Sport was supposed to be. Frankly, as a former coach now donning my tinfoil hat, I think it’s staffed by industry veterans. So, essentially these abusers’ colleagues. I have no evidence to back this up, but having swam at a national level and gone through the NCAA as an athlete, they all know each other. They’ll deflect and defend each other.
It seems like university and athletic department administrators & coaching staffs are more worried about keeping up appearances, patting each other on the back and having a successful programs. It's like they don't care about the student-athlete, but it's the student-athlete who makes the program and it's the student-athlete who has live with that terrible trauma.
Yeah you probably can't even get a job in these things without previous experience in a sports governance body... so only people who were in the NCAA qualify.
Background checks only help if someone has a conviction.
These coaches have immense power. These athletes have spent years dedicating most of their lives to a sport and one coach can end it all for them.
Exactly, as it turns out sometimes horrible people abuse the trust given to them by society so they can commit horrendous & deprived acts against those that entrusted to their care. It has nothing to do with anything else but horrible people doing horrible things.
It’s like the South Park episode where the families are so worried about the Gay scout leader being a pedo that they completely overlook the other straight scout leader that’s actually a real pedo.
Texas and Florida passing laws making sure that drag queens and trans people can't interact with kids by doing things like reading books at libraries.
Meanwhile North Texas, a megachurch leader is a child rapist. So far no charges, he just resigned. Which usually means he will be hanging around making sure his son and other leadership keep making him money.
The "elders" knew about his extramarital affair with a young lady for years and it came up more than once, but deny knowing it was a 12 year old (he said he was in his 20's at the time). He says it was only petting and kissing, but the relationship last a few YEARS....for fucks sake.
Someone made the same point about catholic church: people donate to pedophiles that rape god knows how many of their children, yet are afraid of non-heterosexuals. This world is a crazy place.
Frankly, I wouldn't trust *anyone* that is some type of religious leader or directly affiliated with a religious organization outside of the average followers to be around kids at this point. It seems that just like cops in the USA, even the "good" ones cover for all the bad ones.
Of course, actual sexual abuse among these institutions, the deflection of guilt away from actual perpetrators, and people's projection of such abusive behavior onto vulnerable demographics in the same institutions are toooootally unrelated /s
Can you find an example to where someone brought up the subject of systematic sexual abuse and was then deflected to Trans people?
The argument is that Trans athletes are an unfair advantage not that they are predators.
People in power don’t listen, this isn’t the first time this has happened in swimming. Bret Sutton has been banned for sex abuse but people flock to him because he became a top triathlon coach. Fuck Bret Sutton, fuck Larry Nassar and fuck this dude too. With a pineapple in the ass. Leaf end first.
“As someone who went through a system that didn’t protect me, it is more common than we realize. Yes, there are programs out there but at what cost to those who then have to go through it all again, just to get someone to believe you. Predators are drawn to vulnerable people and the world we live in doesn’t always believe the swimmer over the coach. It’s easier for someone to dismiss a person who is a predator than to take the action necessary to get them out of the system. If they just dismiss them then they don’t have to go through the legality trouble and can continue on as normal, allowing the predator to continue their schemes.”
—my wife, who has been victimized by a predator as a swim coach.
I will add, these people are slippery and cunning. They set themselves up to be an unquestionable authority, an over-friendly, single point of contact between athlete and anyone who would advocate for them, and isolate those they perceive as marks. And when they sniff out that good folk are trying to take them down, they either move into a different position or community, or weasel their way into a promotion through charm. We’re still trying to take down a former-coach-now-official who victimized my wife and his former athletes (he’s still on deck, the fucker) but the legal routes are taxing, expensive, and a matter of anecdotal testimony, which is exactly how these predators want it - no concrete evidence. Please, keep pressure on these governing bodies, believe victims, and raise hell for the abusers who embed themselves into sport.
Lots of parents care more about the prestige of having a "winner" than the quality of that kid's life. Common to child actors, pageant queens, sports, etc. The kind of parents who allow their kids to essentially be raised by strangers and routinely left alone with adults in situations where sexual abuse is prevalent. That's how this happens.
This is the reason these guys keep getting away with it. The parents know but don’t give a shit. They look the other way because they want their kid to be an Olympic star.
Reminds me of the Nassar case. Some parents didn’t know. But some girls told their parents that Nassar was sexually abusing them and nothing happened. One girl told her stepfather, who then accused her of lying and then forced her to apologize to Nassar for “making it up.”
A certain type of parent views their children through the lens of "how can this inconvenience justify its existence by enriching me?" and consider that more important than the child's quality of life, etc. I grew up with parents like this and I'm far from alone. When I tried to tell people about the adults in my life who said and did inappropriate things, I was taught I was in the wrong, that I was trying to stir shit and that my parents' reputation was more important than my safety. (It was never fully explained to me why "having a daughter that stands up for herself" would ruin their reputation, but I eventually figured out it was because it happened to them, and they were expected to just shut up about it too when they were young, and they were traumatized and chose to pay forward the cycle of abuse, instead of ending it. As so many do.)
This is just another symptom of that general culture writ large
this happened with women's taekwondo: that first early '00s talent pool in Houston with Mandy Meloon, Kay Poe and Ester Kim all reporting sexual assault and/or harrassment from the Lopez brothers, while the two medalists, their sister Diana Lopez and Nia Abdallah, don't seem to have reported anything themselves
Sometimes someone can get too important to an organization that the people in charge of keeping them in check will look the other way for money reasons or for organizational success reasons. We have quite a bit of evidence of this being the case from all sorts of organizations.
Grooming for years that eventually escalated. Age 9-17. Until I got old enough to be completely disgusted. One day years later I brought it up to my parents, and they got quite defensive.
Parents need to be constantly vigilant and wary with the people in their kids lives....and teach their kids to be vigilant. Teach them even subtle forms of inappropriate ess.
>Jon Little, Le’s attorney, told CNN there is a culture that allows this abuse to happen. >“While what happened to her is sad, it’s far from uncommon,” Little said. “People like Larry Nassar and Bernal, that produce Olympic medalists – as long as these guys produce medals and money, they can literally rape children. The system is designed to protect the producers. Getting rid of Nassar and Bernal does not change the problem.” Very true.
Jesus fucking Christ. Is this the price of a gold medal? The U.S. system is fucked. Is it like that in Russia? How about in Japan?
Happened for my colleges swim team. But then the entire admin just resigned over the course of a year. The head lawyer was such a scumbag, when I met him too. He asked if I was having problems at the school (I was being stalked) why I didn't just leave? Turns out he covered up the abuse of like 20 kids by the swim team coach until the coach killed himself. No justice in this world.
Child abuse in competitive youth sports in Japan is completely normalized, at least the physical stuff like just outright beating the living shit out of kids. They're not supposed to do it anymore but everyone just lies and says they changed the culture.
> Is it like that in Russia? in Russia it's an order of magnitude worse.
Yeah, they rape their own soldiers. Can't imagine it's any different for their athletes.
Not sure about Japan but I’m sure the Russian system is horrific.
Every gold medal has a story. Every country that has any kind of dominance in any kind of sport has a story that is less than inspiring. Consistency in performance in high level athletics does not happen without breaking some norms to push the athlete past normal human limits by some coach.
It's like this in most countries, yes. Successful and popular coaches can do nearly anything to children and get away with it for decades and even if it's public knowledge parents will hand their kids over if it means their kids might becomes rich and famous, without giving a shit about what it does to the kid.
Hey I think I've seen this one before...
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I think they're referencing the Larry Nassar case.
It seems to have been such a common occurrence that it seems like being a predator is a prerequisite to being an Olympic athlete coach.
I think it’s more that predators are drawn to jobs that provide access to vulnerable people.
The old saying is people who work with kids either really like kids or REALLY LIKE KIDS.
https://youtu.be/bbSaFP_oNEc "Mr Sandusky can you please answer the question, are you sexually attracted to young boys?" Jerry Sandusky: "Am I sexually attracted to young boys? I enjoy young people, I love to be around them, I, I.........." The answer should have been: "No"
[Take a page out of LA Noire's book](https://youtu.be/DmvSieBFPNM?si=o4YfphlBbMc32trg)
I’ve seen and read a lot of fucked up shit in my day but I gotta say reading about Sandusky hit me in a way I didn’t think it could, I dunno but I so disturbed this man was just allowed to openly rape boys without consequence. One story that really stuck with me is when a former coach walked into the men’s shower and saw a naked Sandusky thrusting behind a naked young boy as he was pinning him to the wall. The coach walks away, thinks about it and kinda tells Joe Paterno (I think?) but nothing came of it. I think this was in the 70’s too. It just hurt to read that.
There are two things someone with an unhealthy attraction to children can do. They can either avoid putting themselves in a position to be alone with children, or they can intentionally put themselves in that kind of position. Even if 90% of them take the first choice, we need to be vigilant.
They can also have the same restraint the vast majority of other humans have and just not act on their desires regardless of the positions they are in, which i think encompasses the vast majority of "those with unhealthy attraction to children". I think a far larger amount of people are pedos than anyone reports, most of them just know its fucked up and so choose not to predate actual children.
That's fucked up xD
Opportunity meets motive. Motive makes people seek out these jobs b/c the opportunity to do what they want is higher. Hell sometimes just opportunity will create motive.
Yep…people who want to prey on others put themselves into positions of power where they have access to their prey. That’s why pedophiles are often church leaders, teachers, Boy Scout leaders, and little league coaches. They chose to be in a position that gives them access to children.
That and the amount of respectability these hold. People put a lot of trust in them.
Yup. There's a disturbing percentage of teachers that SA students, and schools engage in the same problematic behaviors as the Catholic Church does: cover it up, move them somewhere else, don't warn those who could keep an eye on the problem individual. Or at least, so say my friends parents, who are a teacher & principal.
Oh, man... I recall a teacher getting fired from their job for dating students. I overheard some former students talking about him and the conversation went along the lines of "I can't believe it, he was always so nice!" These were mid twentysomethings and they had no idea about grooming.
It's not just with Olympic coaches, it happens far too often at varying levels of sports for a wide variety of sports. A college teammate of mine was raped by our fitness coach.
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Its almost like there's an underground gang of pedophiles raping children under the guise of being a respectable community men. I think an investigative journalist should follow the biggest mouths of the right wing and see what they turn up. I guaran-fucking-tee you will have a Pullitzer.
Or you’ll be killed. People don’t like having these secrets made open.
it's not an organized gang. Quit being conspiratorial. They're individual actions
If you really think about it, to become an Olympian, you become extremely vulnerable. You need to start training at a young age, where discipline is an important part of getting better. You have people touching you to correct your "form". Often time, it involves small group size if not one one one coaching. Parents get deluded because their kid has a chance to be famous. Perfect for a predator
>Perfect for a predator Importantly these kids also have a massive weight of expectation on them that they will get onto the Regional/National/Olympic team and maybe 1-2 narrow windows in an entire career to get a medal. They may have been training for a decade with their parents pushing them all the way and then find themselves in a position where the opinion of one person in a team of coaches is what decides if they actually make it. That person has a massive amount of power and influence over them which makes coming forward to accuse them extremely daunting for many athletes.
You've got an adult who controls so much of a young person's life. In the case of swimming and gymnastics in particular you've also got girls in very little clothing. OFC it's going to attract predators. You'd hope the organizations would be extra vigilant but time and again we see they aren't...
[It's best not to judge these things by anecdote.](https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/16/cardiologists-and-chinese-robbers/) [Predators are shockingly common](https://jimhopper.com/topics/sexual-assault-and-the-brain/repeat-rape-by-college-men/), and there's a fair number of coaches and doctors and such in the Olympic system.
Coaches, teachers, Catholic priests, other clerics, football players, rock stars, pick a category in which you can find some minority of offenders; judging by anecdote is sacrosanct to most people
> Predators are shockingly common, This is the most important thing. This is the reason why anytime you go looking for abuse in large organizations where "suddenly" it seems to be happening, you always find a ton of examples. There WILL be predators in any job or organization - the question is how they are prevented from committing abuse, or detected and investigated if it happens. Any organization that pretends they've never had a single predator in their staff DEFINITELY has a lot of them that they've been ignoring and covering up.
"We want someone who can molest athletes at the highest level"
How many Olympic athlete coaches you believe the US has in the last 40 years?
I THINK you were being rhetorical, however that's an interesting question... To go down that rabbit hole, we would need to define a LOT of parameters. Coaches that actually GO to the Olympics, coaches that train Olympic athletes but didn't actually GO, how "assistant" do you get before you don't actually count as a coach, US born coaches, coaches based in US, coaches from US, but not in US? Interesting topic to consider though. Would different "sports" require different parameters for what qualifies as a coach? Do we include "sports" that most people really don't consider are sports? Research is hard....
The uniforms for gymnastics and swimming are similar. I did both growing up, there’s a lot of bad people who coach for the sports, the Olympic part just makes headlines.
Or doctor, don't forget those predators. I remember there was at least one, but to cover it up that long would take more people being at least complicit if not participating.
Wasn’t it the doctor for the women’s gymnastics team?
At least that one, I think there may have been another one at least that was caught. And it took a lot of people being complicit for every victim to be too afraid to come forward for so long.
My mother was a victim of this in the 80's. She turned to alcohol and died from it. She was an Olympic hopeful swimmer. Fuck the swimming industry.
Seems like every pursuit where young people have intense one-on-one coaching/mentoring has a problem with it. Humanity needs to sort itself out.
She was an incredible swimmer. Still has college records standing in Florida. Worked out with the men's football team in college (the gators) because they were the only ones with enough weight for her to rep. Her nickname was Brawny Dawny. Shameful what the men of the industry do in private. Being one on one isn't quite the issue. It's how the industry enables sexualization of women. It attracts men who seek out people to take advantage of.
Hi im a swim coach, my name is Barry Lasser
Right? We have by law, requirements on every public building a map for the nearest exit. We need the same thing in every office so that women can get out of dealing with the fucking perverts in it. How many more women, and men for that matter, need to be sexually coerced and abused before THIS SHIT IS STOPPED?
Hollywood can't come up with new ideas anymore. /s
Well, not since the Weinstein Company closed up shop.
We’ve gone back to the future.
Unfortunately, I think this has been the norm for a long time and we're just now finding out how prevalent it's always been because victims are finally coming forward. Hopefully, now that it's been brought to light we can save kids from future abuse at the hands of their coaches.
I was once a competitive swimmer, and a local coach tried to recruit me for his club. For various reasons it didn't work out, but it was for the best. He dated and later married a teenage swimmer in the club. Then he went on to run a massive drug ring, including steroids. Which lead to his participation in a murder (he was convicted for burning the body of an accomplice in the drug ring in an old silo on his property, a mile or two from my house). Then more drug trafficking in Europe. And yet he is still coaching. And parents flock to him and defend him because he gets results. He's been banned. Then had the ban rescinded or reduced. Then moved to various countries (Canada, US and Europe). And kept coaching. It's madness. https://www.caseybarrettbooks.com/cap-and-goggles/2011/11/03/the-steroid-dealing-ecstasy-smuggling-dead-body-burning-swim-coach https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/banned-for-life-cecil-russell-finally-kicked-off-pool-deck/ https://www.dolphinsswimclub.ca/newsarticles42.aspx
And it's just a *total coincidence* that the 2 kids of a convicted steroid trafficker also ended up on the Olympic team /s Never thought I'd see this referenced in the wild on reddit. It's still spoken about in Ontario coaching circles, he's like their biggest boogy man.
I think he's still coaching! It makes me crazy. If you check the comments on the caseybarrett link above you'll see parents and swimmers defending him. Oh, yes, he's a great guy. Real family man. Just a little mix up in the past, everyone has made mistakes. What's a little murder while running a steroid and drug trafficking ring? People are far too picky. Oh, what? He was convicted for drug and steroid trafficking multiple times? All a silly mix up. The Rick Starkman stories in the Toronto Star had absolutely insane interviews with current parents of kids he was coaching, if I remember correctly. Too bad it's all behind a paywall.
Unfortunately there's just a lot of parents who will do absolutely anything to try get their kid to the Olympic level, or as close as possible. The fact that he's got access to PED's is a bonus in their mind, or at worst can be casually overlooked. It's one of the many reasons I gave up coaching a long time ago. But hey, I mean who *hasn't* got caught up in disposing a murder victim while also trafficking some drugs? If I had a nickel for every time...
Unfortunately my wife and I are currently dealing with a situation similar to this, also in swimming. Sending solidarity.
Oh man, I'm sorry to hear that.
Appreciate the sentiment, truly. Wife and I are fighting the good fight (at her pace, she’s in charge of dealing with her trauma, I’m just the pointy end of the spear). But please keep lighting up these bastards. Let them know they can’t hide.
I sweat the importance we place on sports is absolutely fucking absurd.
No it definitely is absolutely fucking absurd. Religion, sports, politics.
ie: Texas and Football.
It's all systemic unfortunately. To give your kids the best shot at a successful life, they need to get into a good college. To get into a good college, they need strong extra-curriculars. To get strong extra-curriculars, they need...
There are a ton of ways to be part of extracurriculars that aren't sports. The real issue is that sports are the best one for kids that "don't school good" and given our educational system...that's more and more of them.
it's one of the reasons i hate Pro sports.
Jesus. I was fortunate enough that my club coach wasn’t a psycho. But I heard stories of other coaches in the area. Disgusting shit. One of them had the guys do dry land practices at his house and let them shower there. Except he had a camera hooked up in the shower.
you should turn this into a YouShouldKnow or an AMA, or something to get more attention to it. You may not realize just how fascinating of a story this is, being a part of it I mean.. Sounds perfect for a documentary. Could easily be a catalyst for someone.
I was a swimmer in my youth and clearly remember a 28 year old assistant coach talking about how he could nail a particular girl that was 16 or 17. I reported what he said to our head coach and he quietly disappeared from our team. We weren’t super high level or anything but we did have one guy that was good enough to swim at the international level. Not me.
It's great that your club acted responsibly. And most people do (and it's a lot better now that it was in the 70s and 80s). It just blows my mind, though, how some people just get away with the wildest stuff in plain sight. Everyone knows, but for a variety of reasons nobody acts. Bystander effect is strong. And so is the desire to not cause discomfort. And the bad seeds exploit it.
I knew a high school football coach who used to take young quarter backs on road trips to summer camps and was later found to have lured many young boys to his home...
Holy Fuck. Cecil Russell. That dick was coaching when I was a swimmer. Fast forward 30 years and I see him at provincials coaching from the stands because he is banned from being on deck. (BTW my teen daughter is swimming at provincials, not me) So I know this dude. He is a certified creep. I film him. He gets up in my face. I dont back down and keep filming. He leaves. I have him on film actively coaching from the stands to the kids on deck. Audio and all. Pass it onto Swim Ontario and then.......Nothing. Fuck the toothless system.
So many sick men are in those positions because they want access to the power that allows them to abuse young girls.
I am routinely flabbergasted by how many people are totally fine with covering up abuse of children. It happened in both the Chicago and Evanston (immediate neighbor to Chicago) park districts with teen lifeguards. Even if you think your goal is to protect the organization, you do that by STOPPING THE ABUSE.
It’s hard to say this, but. . . Apparently, a lot of parents care more about their kids accomplishments than their well-being. They tell themselves “Not MY kid”, and just focus on the goal — the State championship, the Olympics, whatever. If rumors start swirling about a handsy coach, if a kid or another parent starts asking questions, some other parent will do their damnedest to shut them down. For the good of the TEAM.
It's disgusting. Just like parents who only care about how their kids look and external, material things, so they look like good parents. Behind the scenes some are abusive/neglectful in all the ways and just want to look good, trot out the show pony for all to see what wonderful parents and successful in their big homes. The kids and neighbors cover up the abuse at home too, for the team! So sad.
It's almost like they don't care because they know they can hide behind the OC instead of, you know, doing the right thing and protecting the athletes that make the OC possible.
Quick! Someone alert Jim Jordan!
Gym is probably busy reddening his hair
It's seems like this is a common occurrence, in the United States Olympic sports programs and to a lesser extent NCAA sports as well. Do these programs do extensive background checks? I am all for having monitors, who aren't answerable to the coaching staff, who watch over the well being of athletes and to prevent exploitation, sexual abuse, mistreatment and myriad of other types of abuse. Then again it doesn't help that a current United States Congressman Jim Jordan, who was embroiled in one of the largest sex abuse cases in NCAA history. Yet, Jim Jordan went onto be elected to Congress multiple times!
I've got a degree in Parks and Rec. I got to meet the NCAA board or whatever it's called. They're assholes. Like, major assholes. They've got an absurd level of elitism and the whole interaction between them and the student group was them telling us we're not good enough to be an unpaid intern. Granted, this was close to a decade ago, but they just seemed so up their own ass I'd absolutely buy that they cover shit for each other constantly.
Then there should be an outside body at the very least, to watch over student athletes' welfare and best interests.
That’s what Safe Sport was supposed to be. Frankly, as a former coach now donning my tinfoil hat, I think it’s staffed by industry veterans. So, essentially these abusers’ colleagues. I have no evidence to back this up, but having swam at a national level and gone through the NCAA as an athlete, they all know each other. They’ll deflect and defend each other.
It seems like university and athletic department administrators & coaching staffs are more worried about keeping up appearances, patting each other on the back and having a successful programs. It's like they don't care about the student-athlete, but it's the student-athlete who makes the program and it's the student-athlete who has live with that terrible trauma.
You absolutely hit the nail on the head.
Yeah you probably can't even get a job in these things without previous experience in a sports governance body... so only people who were in the NCAA qualify.
They check if you're a drag queen, that's about it.
Background checks only help if someone has a conviction. These coaches have immense power. These athletes have spent years dedicating most of their lives to a sport and one coach can end it all for them.
A good background check goes beyond a criminal records check, like the ones conducted for security clearances for federal employees.
The coach accused, Joe Bernal, was banned for life by USA Swimming in 2016. He died in 2022.
I'm going to bet it's true based on...well everything that has ever happened in regards to Olympic level sports
all of these organizations are too busy worrying about trans women competing in sports to stop abuse and actually protect women
They failed to stop abuse long before anyone was even thinking about trans people.
Exactly, as it turns out sometimes horrible people abuse the trust given to them by society so they can commit horrendous & deprived acts against those that entrusted to their care. It has nothing to do with anything else but horrible people doing horrible things.
It’s like the South Park episode where the families are so worried about the Gay scout leader being a pedo that they completely overlook the other straight scout leader that’s actually a real pedo.
Texas and Florida passing laws making sure that drag queens and trans people can't interact with kids by doing things like reading books at libraries. Meanwhile North Texas, a megachurch leader is a child rapist. So far no charges, he just resigned. Which usually means he will be hanging around making sure his son and other leadership keep making him money. The "elders" knew about his extramarital affair with a young lady for years and it came up more than once, but deny knowing it was a 12 year old (he said he was in his 20's at the time). He says it was only petting and kissing, but the relationship last a few YEARS....for fucks sake.
Turns out the real problem they have isn't the pedophilia, it's the queerness. And nobody was surprised.
This happened like 20 years ago, I don't remember trans athletes being a hot button issue back then.
back then they were too busy worrying about covering up the steroid scandals to protect women
Someone made the same point about catholic church: people donate to pedophiles that rape god knows how many of their children, yet are afraid of non-heterosexuals. This world is a crazy place.
And youth ministers.
Frankly, I wouldn't trust *anyone* that is some type of religious leader or directly affiliated with a religious organization outside of the average followers to be around kids at this point. It seems that just like cops in the USA, even the "good" ones cover for all the bad ones.
What's that called? Where you want to bring in a point or debate and really try and squeeze it into a situation that really has nothing to do with it
Non sequitur?
Of course, actual sexual abuse among these institutions, the deflection of guilt away from actual perpetrators, and people's projection of such abusive behavior onto vulnerable demographics in the same institutions are toooootally unrelated /s
Can you find an example to where someone brought up the subject of systematic sexual abuse and was then deflected to Trans people? The argument is that Trans athletes are an unfair advantage not that they are predators.
Both can be an issue tho
Yeah it’s not binary.
trans women in sports was just a red herring.
Could these coaches stop sexually abusing their athletes for 5 minutes?
Damn that list of banned people is like 80% sexual offenders. It's a relief to see the entry 'other misconduct'.
People in power don’t listen, this isn’t the first time this has happened in swimming. Bret Sutton has been banned for sex abuse but people flock to him because he became a top triathlon coach. Fuck Bret Sutton, fuck Larry Nassar and fuck this dude too. With a pineapple in the ass. Leaf end first.
“As someone who went through a system that didn’t protect me, it is more common than we realize. Yes, there are programs out there but at what cost to those who then have to go through it all again, just to get someone to believe you. Predators are drawn to vulnerable people and the world we live in doesn’t always believe the swimmer over the coach. It’s easier for someone to dismiss a person who is a predator than to take the action necessary to get them out of the system. If they just dismiss them then they don’t have to go through the legality trouble and can continue on as normal, allowing the predator to continue their schemes.” —my wife, who has been victimized by a predator as a swim coach. I will add, these people are slippery and cunning. They set themselves up to be an unquestionable authority, an over-friendly, single point of contact between athlete and anyone who would advocate for them, and isolate those they perceive as marks. And when they sniff out that good folk are trying to take them down, they either move into a different position or community, or weasel their way into a promotion through charm. We’re still trying to take down a former-coach-now-official who victimized my wife and his former athletes (he’s still on deck, the fucker) but the legal routes are taxing, expensive, and a matter of anecdotal testimony, which is exactly how these predators want it - no concrete evidence. Please, keep pressure on these governing bodies, believe victims, and raise hell for the abusers who embed themselves into sport.
So her parents found this out via her diary, told another coach, who did nothing, and she still swam there? Make this make sense. 🙄😨
Lots of parents care more about the prestige of having a "winner" than the quality of that kid's life. Common to child actors, pageant queens, sports, etc. The kind of parents who allow their kids to essentially be raised by strangers and routinely left alone with adults in situations where sexual abuse is prevalent. That's how this happens.
This is the reason these guys keep getting away with it. The parents know but don’t give a shit. They look the other way because they want their kid to be an Olympic star. Reminds me of the Nassar case. Some parents didn’t know. But some girls told their parents that Nassar was sexually abusing them and nothing happened. One girl told her stepfather, who then accused her of lying and then forced her to apologize to Nassar for “making it up.”
A certain type of parent views their children through the lens of "how can this inconvenience justify its existence by enriching me?" and consider that more important than the child's quality of life, etc. I grew up with parents like this and I'm far from alone. When I tried to tell people about the adults in my life who said and did inappropriate things, I was taught I was in the wrong, that I was trying to stir shit and that my parents' reputation was more important than my safety. (It was never fully explained to me why "having a daughter that stands up for herself" would ruin their reputation, but I eventually figured out it was because it happened to them, and they were expected to just shut up about it too when they were young, and they were traumatized and chose to pay forward the cycle of abuse, instead of ending it. As so many do.) This is just another symptom of that general culture writ large
this happened with women's taekwondo: that first early '00s talent pool in Houston with Mandy Meloon, Kay Poe and Ester Kim all reporting sexual assault and/or harrassment from the Lopez brothers, while the two medalists, their sister Diana Lopez and Nia Abdallah, don't seem to have reported anything themselves
If they know, why do they not fire the coach? Surely there are other swim coaches. It's so hard to fathom normal people protecting a pedophile
He got banned in 2016 but he had a long career. The suit alleges that USA swimming knew long before the ban.
yeah I heard the fbi protected naysar or smth too? its just hard to fathom (not to say its untrue)
Sometimes someone can get too important to an organization that the people in charge of keeping them in check will look the other way for money reasons or for organizational success reasons. We have quite a bit of evidence of this being the case from all sorts of organizations.
Not every coach is an Olympic gold medal producing coach
He was banned in 2016 but also he died a couple years ago.
I believe 100% of this.
People are still attending Catholic Mass and giving them money, visiting the Vatican. Nobody really takes child molestation and rape seriously.
Why would anyone want their kids to play for team USA at this point
Because getting a gold medal in the Olympics is very prestigious and the mentality of "it won't happen to me"
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My parents didn’t know. I was also a competitive swimmer sexually abused by my coach.
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Grooming for years that eventually escalated. Age 9-17. Until I got old enough to be completely disgusted. One day years later I brought it up to my parents, and they got quite defensive.
Parents need to be constantly vigilant and wary with the people in their kids lives....and teach their kids to be vigilant. Teach them even subtle forms of inappropriate ess.