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Originally posted by SHICD
i actually have heard tea that coaches do this. a mess
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Okay, lets not get it twisted. This is not common.
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So let me give you
ALL the real tea here.
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A 12-year-old gymnast molested by an Olympic coach during “therapy” sessions.
A coach having almost daily sex with a 14-year-old at one of the country’s most prestigious gyms.
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The first incident is currently in trial now (guy is Dr. Larry Nassar - easy conviction though) and the second case resulted in the gym owner killing himself (Marvin Sharpe - coach of Olympians Sam Peszek and Bridget Sloan).
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At least 368 gymnasts have alleged some form of sexual abuse at the hands of their coaches, gym owners and other adults working in gymnastics. That’s a rate of one every 20 days. And it's likely an undercount.
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What this doesn't tell you is this is gymnastics in every form in the USA. Not just those with USA Gymnastics. There are several different gymnastics organizations in the US - you have USAIGC, and AAU, as well as several other smaller state wide organizations such as TAAF. You also have recreational gymnastics at unregistered clubs like local YMCA's and other city recreational centers and then those gymnastics programs in middle schools and high schools. Each organization is responsible for it's own requirements for hiring coaches and it can not all be traced back to USA Gymnastics. But the Indy Star is notorious for hating USA Gymnastics, which it's headquarters is also located in Indianapolis.
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IndyStar previously reported that top officials at USA Gymnastics, one of the nation’s most prominent Olympic organizations, failed to alert police to many allegations of sexual abuse that occurred on their watch and stashed complaints in files that have been kept secret. But the problem is far worse. A nine-month investigation found that predatory coaches were allowed to move from gym to gym, undetected by a lax system of oversight, or dangerously passed on by USA Gymnastics-certified gyms.
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USA Gymnastics requires police reports to take action. There is nothing legally that they can do when they hear a claim - what they tell EVERYONE is "please make a report with the police so we can ban these coaches". USA Gymnastics has a public list of permanently ineligible members (that you can find here -
https://usagym.org/pages/aboutus/pag...e_members.html).
The system is not as lax as this article makes it seem. Coaches that are registered with USA Gymnastics are required to get a background check every two years. This is for a coach to accompany any gymnasts to competition or host a competition. If a coach is not registered though USA Gymnastics, then the business itself should do it's own background check, and if they don't there is nothing that USA Gymnastics can do to stop that business from hiring a dangerous person.
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Gym owners have a conflict of interest when it comes to reporting abuse. Some fear harm to their business. When confronted with evidence of abuse, many quietly have fired the suspected abusers and failed to warn future employers. Some of those dangerous coaches continued to work with children.
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If a gym owner fails to take action on a sexual predator due to a fear of harm to their business, then that is on the business and not USA Gymnastics.
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Some coaches are fired at gym after gym without being tracked or flagged by USA Gymnastics, or losing their membership with the organization. USA Gymnastics often has no idea when a coach is fired by a gym and no systematic way to keep track. Ray Adams was fired or forced to resign from six gyms in four states. Yet some gym owners hired Adams, believing his record was clean
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Like I said before, if the gyms do not register their coaches with USA Gymnastics and do not do their own background check, then what is USA Gymnastics supposed to do? The organization is currently discussing requiring all coaches in a gym to be registered (similar to daycare facilities) which would also prevent this issue from happening.
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Victims’ stories have been treated with skepticism by USA Gymnastics officials, gym owners, coaches and parents. Former gymnasts Charmaine Carnes and Jennifer Sey said they felt pressured by Penny not to pursue allegations of abuse by prominent coaches Don Peters and Boger. Carnes said she thought Penny tried to keep the claims about Boger quiet for as long as possible to protect the sport’s image and win championships, a characterization that USA Gymnastics disputes.
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While Steve Penny (the president of USA Gymnastics) is disgusting for comments he has said about these issues, the Jennifer Sey case happened in the early 80s before a lot of these other requirements like background checks were in play. For anyone that knows a thing about gymnastics knows that the 80s and early 90s were an AWFUL time for gymnastics. Children were called fat, got eating disorders, were emotionally abused, and unfortunately situations like this were more common. Read the book "Little Girls in Pretty Boxes" if you want to hear more about gymnastics at this time.
And while I'm not discrediting ANY of these incidents and the people who take advantage of children in these environments are absolutely sick - it's wrong to generalize the USA Gymnastics organization as one that does this regularly.