USA Gymnastics failed to report abuse allegations against coaches

[Chip R]

http://www.espn.com/olympics/gymnastics/story/_/id/17218257/usa-gymnastics-reportedly-failed-report-allegations-sexual-abuse-coaches

[Boston Red]

Why did the people making sexual abuse allegations send those allegations to USAG?!?

[Chip R]

Why did the people making sexual abuse allegations send those allegations to USAG?!?

Probably the same reason why the people making allegations in the PSU case reported them to PSU and not the cops.

[Boston Red]

Probably the same reason why the people making allegations in the PSU case reported them to PSU and not the cops.

It's not even remotely similar, though. My daughter is a USAG gymnast and spends 20+ hours a week at her gym. The absolute LAST people I would think to contact if I suspected sexual assault would be USAG. It would be like someone in the Penn State situation calling the NCAA.

That's not to say the USAG shouldn't have reported the issues. It's just strange that these reports would get to the USAG in the first place. Parents, coaches and gym owners would seem much more likely candidates to have the information and report it to authorities.

[Boston Red]

By way of example, from the Indy Star article:

•USA Gymnastics received at least four complaints about coach William McCabe as early as 1998. One gym owner warned the organization in 1998 that McCabe “should be locked in a cage before someone is raped.” USA Gymnastics never reported the allegations to police and, according to federal authorities, he began molesting an underage girl in 1999. McCabe continued to coach children for nearly seven more years, until Lisa Ganser went to the FBI with concerns about emails to her then-11-year-old daughter. McCabe was charged with molesting gymnasts, secretly videotaping girls changing clothes and posting their naked pictures on the internet. He pleaded guilty in 2006 in Savannah, Georgia, to federal charges of sexual exploitation of children and making false statements. He is serving a 30-year sentence

Fair enough. the guy is clearly a scuzz. But why is the USAG under fire for not reporting McCabe to the police? They probably should have, but personally I'd say the bigger issue is with the gym owner who had personal knowledge that McCabe “should be locked in a cage before someone is raped” and didn't alert authorities. The USAG isn't this gym owner's employer. Why on earth would the gym owner think the USAG is the right person to tell this to? The USAG should certainly have looked at keeping McCabe out of coaching, but if anyone should have been reporting McCabe to the police it was the gym owner.

[Chip R]

By way of example, from the Indy Star article:

•USA Gymnastics received at least four complaints about coach William McCabe as early as 1998. One gym owner warned the organization in 1998 that McCabe “should be locked in a cage before someone is raped.” USA Gymnastics never reported the allegations to police and, according to federal authorities, he began molesting an underage girl in 1999. McCabe continued to coach children for nearly seven more years, until Lisa Ganser went to the FBI with concerns about emails to her then-11-year-old daughter. McCabe was charged with molesting gymnasts, secretly videotaping girls changing clothes and posting their naked pictures on the internet. He pleaded guilty in 2006 in Savannah, Georgia, to federal charges of sexual exploitation of children and making false statements. He is serving a 30-year sentence

Fair enough. the guy is clearly a scuzz. But why is the USAG under fire for not reporting McCabe to the police? They probably should have, but personally I'd say the bigger issue is with the gym owner who had personal knowledge that McCabe “should be locked in a cage before someone is raped” and didn't alert authorities. The USAG isn't this gym owner's employer. Why on earth would the gym owner think the USAG is the right person to tell this to? The USAG should certainly have looked at keeping McCabe out of coaching, but if anyone should have been reporting McCabe to the police it was the gym owner.

All true. But I still think it's similar to the PSU case. Sandusky is caught abusing a kid. He had been suspected of it for decades before that. McQuarry reported it to JoePa and JoePa reported it to the AD and president. Anyone along the line could have reported it to the police but no one did anything because they didn't want the program to get hurt. It appears that no one wanted USAG to get hurt. This will make for negative publicity for the USAG and USOC. Even a lowly gym owner doesn't want that. Thank God Lisa Ganser went to the FBI.

[Boston Red]

This will make for negative publicity for the USAG and USOC.


I'm sure that's the intent of the sensational headline. The intent is surely to make people think of the US National team, when this is essentially about kids getting abused by their little league gymnastics coach. That's obviously a bad situation, but this is clearly timed to hit right at the start of the Olympics for maximum effect, but it has about as much to do with the Olympics as a high school football player getting abused by his coach at Moeller high school has to do with the Super Bowl.

[Chip R]

I'm sure that's the intent of the sensational headline. The intent is surely to make people think of the US National team, when this is essentially about kids getting abused by their little league gymnastics coach. That's obviously a bad situation, but this is clearly timed to hit right at the start of the Olympics for maximum effect, but it has about as much to do with the Olympics as a high school football player getting abused by his coach at Moeller high school has to do with the Super Bowl.

Sure. But it'd be like if the PSU or Baylor scandals broke before the BCS championship game. Those scandals don't have anything to do with the game but it would get the media and people all upset at the NCAA. NBC will be in a difficult position now when they are covering the gymnastics. Do they ignore it or just mention it once and not cover it at all? Do they start interviewing girls on the team and ask them if they have been abused? Now this is right up there with Zika and the literal crap in the water.

[Boston Red]

Sure. But it'd be like if the PSU or Baylor scandals broke before the BCS championship game.

Kinda. It would be more like a Little League scandal breaking right before the World Series if MLB ran Little League, though.

[Larry Schuler]

There is a real sense of guilt when reporting a crime that you are going to ruin an institution or a program or a group of people's lives that can make someone choose to report the crime in a lower stakes way, like 'passing off' the responsibility of investigating and reporting to the institution/program. I wish that it was easy for us to naturally know exactly what to do without hesitancy or having unexpected feelings/blocks/emotions/reactions. That is why I am super hesitant to blame victims and add to that shame.

[Dom Heffner]

Always good to see the blame the victim crowd showing up...Boston Red never fails to come through.

[Chip R]

http://www.espn.com/olympics/gymnastics/story/_/id/21825575/usa-gymnastics-struck-agreement-mckayla-maroney-keep-larry-nassar-abuse-quiet-lawyer-says

[Boston Red]

http://www.espn.com/olympics/gymnastics/story/_/id/21825575/usa-gymnastics-struck-agreement-mckayla-maroney-keep-larry-nassar-abuse-quiet-lawyer-says

That Nassar dude is a real POS.

[traderumor]

I really hope folks keep to the current trend of no longer covering up for sexual predators. This is so needed and will hopefully help deter it going forward.

[WrongVerb]

His victims have been giving their impact statements in the last week or so. Over 150 of them. Mattie Larson have hers today, and it's a doozy (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5303959/Larry-Nassar-abused-national-champ-USA-rep-present.html):


Larry, I trusted you, I believed you were a kind person,' said Larson.

'Your kindness was simply a ploy to molest me every chance you got.'

Larson then looked right at her abuser and said: 'Larry, I can't even put into words how much I f***ing hate you.'


Larson said that when she dislocated both ankles Nassar did not wrap them, but instead assaulted her while her friends watched TV oblivious to what was going on behind them.

'No matter what Larry was supposed to be treating on me - usually ankles or knees --his fingers always seemed to find their way inside me,' said Larson.

[WrongVerb]

Nassar gets 40 to 175 years in prison (http://www.espn.com/olympics/gymnastics/story/_/id/22198997/larry-nassar-sentenced-40-175-years-prison-michigan-judge?sf180145197=1)

[Raisor]

Nassar gets 40 to 175 years in prison (http://www.espn.com/olympics/gymnastics/story/_/id/22198997/larry-nassar-sentenced-40-175-years-prison-michigan-judge?sf180145197=1)

Not long enough

[Sea Ray]

He's already getting 60 yrs in fed prison so this doesn't change much. He's done

[Chip R]

The MSU president is going to resign.

https://t.co/dstUvhKYuN?amp=1

[15fan]

He's already getting 60 yrs in fed prison so this doesn't change much. He's done

May he live to be the oldest inmate in the history of incarceration and experience the most unspeakably awful existence of any prisoner 24/7/365.

[Assembly Hall]

The MSU president is going to resign.

https://t.co/dstUvhKYuN?amp=1

To me, that aint good enough.

[WrongVerb]

13193

[15fan]

We have a neighbor and good friend who was an elite gymnast. She spent some time on the national team and competed in many of the marquee international competitions. I had hoped, irrationally it turns out, that she somehow managed to avoid the filth that was endemic to the national program. Learned the other day that sadly she didn't.

She has a fantastic husband, an adorable son, what seems to be a very good relationship with her parents, and is currently crushing it in a grad school program.

A couple of other women who are very close to me have similar scars. Though a lot of time has passed and they have amazed me with their resilience, I know that those scars never ever go away. They are always there. It is a constant challenge to look beyond the pain of the past.

If anything good can come from all of that has been displayed in the national media these past few weeks, I hope it is that our awareness as a society gets us to a place where this kind of abhorrent behavior vanishes because we become hyper-vigilant in looking out for those who are most at risk. The perpetrators, the enablers, and those who are simply to busy to be bothered with intervening all should all be judged alike, both in this realm and whatever may exist in the beyond.

And (insert the name of your preferred deity here) forbid I should ever catch a lowlife in the act. It will only end one way.

[Bourgeois Zee]

I guess I lived most of my life under a rock, but with accusation after accusation (and almost all being proved true), it seems as if there are truly predators everywhere.

Basically, men suck. (And I truly had no idea until all the #MeToo and Nassar stuff how bad we are as a gender.)

[Chip R]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/08/politics/aly-raisman-coach-allegations/index.html?adkey=bn

[WrongVerb]

Ex-Olympic swim coach accused of sex abuse faces home search (http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/swim-coachs-home-searched-amid-sexual-abuse-allegations-52922297):


Investigators have searched the Seattle home of a former U.S. Olympic swimming coach amid allegations that he sexually abused and took explicit photos of an Olympic swimmer when she was underage.

U.S. Homeland Security task force investigators and police in Washington state recovered electronic devices they say may contain evidence from Sean Hutchison's Seattle apartment Tuesday, the SeattlePI reported .

He is accused of taking nude photos of Ariana Kukors when she was 17 and faced an investigation more than a decade ago, but its outcome is not clear. Hutchison, 46, who was an assistant coach on the 2008 U.S. Olympic team and resigned the position two years later, didn't respond to an email seeking comment Wednesday.

[Chip R]

USA Swimming looks to be as nad as USA Gymnastics.

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5a8ad81fe4b004fc3194c4b2/amp?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=dlvr.it&__twitter_impression=true

[Chip R]

The USOC has moved to decertify USA Gymnastics .

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/sports/usa-gymnastics-usoc.html

[Boston Red]

The USOC has moved to decertify USA Gymnastics .

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/sports/usa-gymnastics-usoc.html

Time to hit Chalk Bucket and see how this will affect my Level 8. I suspect (and hope) the USOC wouldn't change much in the organization of competitions, etc., since that obviously isn't the issue that's leading to this. It's hard to believe the USAG was so rotten at the top that it's come to this.

[Chip R]

Ex-President of Michigan State Charged with Lying about Nassar Case
https://nyti.ms/2zjVC7p

[Assembly Hall]

Ex-President of Michigan State Charged with Lying about Nassar Case
https://nyti.ms/2zjVC7p

#me too......

[Kingspoint]

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-gymnastics-britain-abuse/british-gymnastics-steps-aside-from-review-into-abuse-allegations-idUKKCN24H1TT

A number of ex-gymnasts have come forward and described abusive behaviour from coaches and staff. “It’s vital the review is unequivocally independent with full resources to effectively deal with concerns raised by gymnasts,” CEO of British Gymnastics Jane Allen said in a statement. “In the past week, the complexities have increased and it is clear to retain the trust of the gymnastics community we have decided to recuse ourselves from any management of the review. “Our priority is to learn the lessons and ensure the welfare of all those within gymnastics. By stepping aside, we hope the review can now proceed unimpeded.”

[Kingspoint]

...

[Chip R]

https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/30964459/ex-usa-gymnastics-coach-john-geddert-kills-felony-charges