What if these were your children?
- 13 & 14-year old boys on an elite travel team went to Amsterdam for a tournament. The coaches were accused of inappropriately touching the boys and taking them to have sex with prostitutes in the red light district. Not long after allegations surfaced from this incident and charges were filed against the coaches, the head coach was found dead of an apparent suicide.
- A 15-year old girl went to an out-of-state tournament with her soccer team. Her 42-year old coach was convicted of getting her intoxicated and sexually assaulting her in his hotel room. He served 3 and 1/2 years in prison and is now a registered sex offender.
- Girls on a U14 soccer team were told by their coach that he was sick and might die of a voodoo curse unless the girls had sex with him. He was arrested in 2005 on six counts of sexual molestation.
- An 11-year old boy was sexually molested by his coach during a sleepover at the coach's house. The football league was surprised to learn that the coach was a convicted sex offender, even though they routinely did criminal background checks on their coaches. This coach's background check had apparently "slipped through the cracks" and was apparently never reported to the league.
- Young players on a high school boys team were being hazed by the older boys on a bus trip home from an out-of-state tournament. According to allegations, two of the coaches got involved in holding down one boy and abusing him with gloved fingers in front of the others. Both coaches have been charged with rape and a third has been convicted of witness intimidation.
These are real life stories that have come across my desk over the past few years in the form of liability lawsuits against sports associations. Tragic and scary incidents like these are happening in today's world of competitive sports and they are putting kids in real danger. As a mom, I would like to be in denial about the existence of sexual abuse in sports. But in my day job in the sports insurance industry, I am privy to the sad fact that this kind of abuse in sports is on the rise. And I am shocked by how little parents know about this problem.
Sports organizations provide a good cover for predatory behavior, as well as opportunity for those with malicious intent to get close to children. The boom in youth sports has created a huge need for coaches and, unknowingly, leagues are welcoming these potential abusers with open arms.
Parents are blissfully ignorant that certain situations set the stage for a coach to take advantage of players. I can tell you that athletes have been sexually molested in each of the following situations:
- Team sleepovers at the coach's house
- Overnight tournaments, whether down the road or, increasingly, far away in other countries
- Driving home alone with the coach from practices or games
- One-on-one coaching sessions
- During personal interactions with the coach outside of team activities
What can be done? Parents need to be more vigilant, nosy and protective of their kids. Make sure your child's team or league requires full criminal background checks on coaches. Be present. As one sports director told me, "No one ever gets molested when mom, dad and grandma are sitting in the stands." That's an oversimplification of the problem, but the reasoning behind it is right on the mark.
See my page "Ten Steps to Abolish Abuse in Sports" for more ways to combat this ugly problem. I hope that getting the word out on abuse in sports will be the first step in stopping predators before they start and, most of all, to putting an end to abuse of our young athletes.
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