36 USA Swimming Coaches Molested Teen Athletes

Newser.com ^ | 4/9/2010 | Nick Mcmaster

[GreaterSwiss]

(Newser) – USA Swimming has been rocked by the disclosure that 36 coaches have been banned for life for molesting teen athletes over the last 10 years, according to a suit brought by victims' families. Coaches secretly videotaped, fondled, and were otherwise indecent with their charges, court papers reveal. One coach in Indiana set up a camera in a "special" shower room and secretly filmed his athletes while they bathed, ABC News reports.

In some cases, the itinerant coaching lifestyle allowed predators to stay one step ahead of authorities and victims' families. Another coach, who was sentenced to 40 years in prison last year for molesting over a dozen female teens, would switch towns after arousing suspicion. His 30 years of sexual predation highlight the ineffectiveness of background checks by USA Swimming, the sport's national governing body, which cleared him in 2008.

[blu]

My bad. See my tag

[mono]

Maybe they could go to seminary and join the priesthood? Ok, Ok. bad joke.

[OrangeHoof]

I’m not really surprised. I interviewed Greg Louganis one time before he came “out of the closet” and he was tipping the Gaydar pretty strongly even back then. You figure a lot of homosexuals and pedophiles are attracted to trim, fit young bodies in tiny little trunks. Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it.

[Think free or die]

This creeps me out too. Our sons have been involved with competitive swimming over a period of years. I never heard anything like this from them, but another parent told me there was some creepy stuff going on a few years ago. I had the impression it was more in the nature of harassment among the boys on the team than coach on kid. However, the coaches turned a blind eye to it.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

It's just the reverse. In the old days, a coach like that met up with a rope or a shotgun, and the problem disappeared.

Maybe sometimes. The reality is in the old days, at least to the early 1900's, predatory behavior in sweat shops, work houses, with apprentices and on orphans was practically universal. (There wasn't a lot of recreation back then.) Instead of going unreported until 30 years later, it just never got reported in any official way, just as anecdotes that did not lead to laws until the 20th Century. The age of consent was 10 in most states and countries, so it just never came up as an issue unless it involved children of the wealthy or a murder.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

Blame Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz....also blame Summer Sanders....I knew there was a reason she got those TV show gigs /s

[onyx]

LOL.

[onyx]

USA Swimming has been rocked by the disclosure that 36 coaches have been banned for life for molesting teen athletes over the last 10 years........

Is this really all that surprising or shocking?

Pedophiles operate where there are children.

[lonevoice]

Yanno, I don’t think of myself as humor-impaired, not in the least. But, all the joking on this thread is so out of line. Child molestation simply isn’t funny.

[musicman]

( I was so tickled you posted Mutley!! Here's the smaller one for ya also, although I like "Big Mutley" better!!)

[onyx]

I like the bigger guy too and I laugh every time I see that you’ve posted him.
LOL.

[Global2010]

Hah.

I was thinking sarcastically “The Pool Pope Did Nothing!”

Crickets will be chirping from the anti Catholic Goons.

Off topic I was listening to a caller on EWTN ask a question in apologetics tonight....

He said he posts on a forum that has different threads Mormon/Protestants/Catholic and how the P’s were constantly giving the Catholic threads arguement on such and such issues.

The EWTN host said that most Protestants do not think the way these particular ones do about the subject at hand.

All I could think about was I wonder if the caller is a Catholic Freeper.

So keeping my eyes open for a thread on apologetics related to the fellows question/clarity.

[Global2010]

Your tag line caught my eye.

I just discovered GKChesterson a few weeks ago.

Never in my life read any of the classic writers.

GK is my first.

[mdmathis6]

“Strangely enough not one person asked what the strange man was doing taking pictures of the preteen girls.”

So are feeling “out of the limelight” in that no one thinks you are a “strange man”?...heh heh heh!

Seriously, it was probably context....you were taking a pictures of a girl who knew you and there fore knew what you were doing and felt comfortable with that. You probably did get a few stares but then they probably figured it out after you said “okay Sue or Cindy(insert name), look over here and hold still a minute. You probably weren’t the only “strange man” or “strange woman” taking photos of their little heroes that day!

[Eva]

Sad.

[thecodont]

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/swimming-in-sex-abuse/Content?oid=1678180

[Eva]

I’ll never forget, my daughter had a coach, when she was about 12 that divided the girls into groups of girls with big titties and girl’s with little titties, then he used to stand with his foot up on the starting block, wearing swim trunks and no jock strap.

[Eva]

Your wrong, this has been going on for a very long time in swimming. In the old days, the coaches picked girls whose parents didn’t care if the coach was good enough.

[Eva]

Have you seen a list of names? I’d like see the list. Most of the coaches that I heard about were not school coaches, maybe college, but not high school.

[Eva]

Did you click on the link to read the article? Embedded in the article is a link to the original article at ABC sports, that begins:

In a sex abuse scandal that some victims compare to what happened in the Catholic Church, at least 36 swimming coaches have been banned for life by the USA Swimming organization over the last 10 years because of sexual misconduct with teenagers they coached.