Gymnast Crossing

Sunday, March 24, 2019

Sunday Funnies

Labels: cartoon, politics

Sunday, December 09, 2018

Sunday Funnies

Labels: cartoon, politics

Tuesday, February 06, 2018

Some perspective: Baby and the Bathwater?

Amidst the Larry Nassar scandal, and in wake of Valeri Liukin's resignation, I left this comment on a post by Mary Lee Tracy:

I respect the motive behind your words; it comes from a good place.  Well-meaning.  But so too, do those who are saying that Liukin has been doing an enormous amount of positives for the sport; and who claim that he has changed.  His coaching methods and leadership in more recent years have evolved.   

Without discounting the validity in some of the claims about him, there are also two sides of a story; plus the truth that might lie somewhere in between.    

A number of well-respected coaches who have been working alongside Valeri in recent years are worth listening to as well as the voices of his critics.   

At the moment, there is a media firestorm that has thrown USA gymnastics community into chaos.  Lots of finger-pointing, pitchforks and torches mob-mentality that has seen fit to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Some on the USAG board weren't even around when Nassar had been charged.  Did they all really need to resign?  To what ends and to what purpose?   

As bad as even having one victim of child abuse is within our community, take things into perspective that society as a whole should do better; that the sexual, physical, verbal, and emotional abuse is a societal problem and not unique to USA gymnastics.   

I don't know all the actual figures; nor is there solid record-keeping to begin with.  But in 2016, there were around 5.36 million 6 and over children doing gymnastics in the U.S.  Of that number, how many were abused by adults in the industry?  What does that figure compare with in other sports?  How about within the education system as a whole?  Each week I read or hear of some news report about another school teacher abusing a student.  There are what?  Around 50 million children of school age?  I read somewhere a figure that 7.2 million children were abused in 2017.   

"Around one in 10 students said they had been the victim of one or more such things from a teacher or other school employee, and two-thirds of those reported the incident involved physical contact. If these numbers are representative of the student population nationwide, 4.5 million students currently in grades K-12 have suffered some form of sexual abuse by an educator, and more than 3 million have experienced sexual touching or assault. This number would include both inappropriate romantic relationships between teachers and upperclassmen, and outright pedophilia." 

 Some figures are claiming that 1 out of 3 girls and 1 out of 5 boys will be sexually abused before they reach age 18. 

How about the medical profession as a body?  How is the "first do no harm" profession looking when the microscope and the light are shined upon their industry?   

"An Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation in 2016 identified more than 2,400 cases of doctors across the country who had sexually assaulted their patients. The investigation found that half of these physicians were still licensed to practice medicine. One pediatrician assaulted as many as 1,000 young patients before being sent to prison. 

"The medical profession has failed these victims, too. Hospitals ignored reports of sexual assaults and encouraged offending physicians to resign rather than reporting them to medical boards or law enforcement. State medical boards aren’t always a good solution — they are often run by physicians who support their peers without oversight from nonphysician members to help ensure independent accountability." 

https://www.statnews.com/2018/02/05/larry-nassar-doctors-sexual-assault/ 

And as far as stranger danger goes and the fear of putting things online and having stalkers come kidnap a kid, more than 90% of juvenile sexual abuse victims know the offender; and 68% are abused by a family member. 

If it bleeds it leads; and right now USA Gymnastics is bleeding and leading in the media headlines, spearheaded by the outrageous abuses of so many abused children AND adults, by one man.  Yes, there are coaches and others within our industry who have also preyed upon children and have abused them. And even having one in our midst is one too many.  But amidst the hyperbole and hysteria, in relation to what?  To the rest of society, how are we doing?  Is it a uniquely USA Gymnastics problem?  A youth sports problem?  An education system problem?  Or a societal problem as a whole?

A friend of mine not far removed from the Liukin scene claims that Liukin is changed; evolved from whoever he was....however he was coaching years ago. That in recent years he's done nothing but good for USA Gymnastics and our community. I believe him.

*UPDATE*

Tom Forster:

Ten years ago Martha Karolyi asked me to be on national staff for bars at the Elite Development Camps. I thought the concept was terrific - helping coaches to develop athletes for the elite level. It turned out to feel more like a way to spot talent, which isn’t a bad idea, but I wanted to teach. I quit after two years. Valeri Liukin was given the program and he asked me to come back. I was excited to learn from him. On the first day of his leadership I knew I made the right decision. I don’t remember his speech word for word but the gist of his first speech to the coaches was this; “Show us your problems. Don’t hide your mistakes. All coaches make mistakes. Our job is to help you fix them so your gymnasts can become the next generation.” The entire national staff was smiling. This is what we wanted: an environment of learning without intimidation and judgement. We were all inspired again. One of the little girls in that camp was from a club I had never heard of. She wore black rimmed glasses and had a big smile. You know her as the current World Champion we knew her as little Morgan. Another little girl, also from a club I had not heard of, would become our current Junior Elite all-around champion, twice: Maile O’Keefe. We discovered you can have success in a positive environment of cooperation. Amazing! The National Team Director is an extremely complex job. As we have recently learned they will be blamed for everything, a mistake made years ago and even mistakes made by others. There is an extremely small list of people that are qualified for this job and even fewer that are willing to do it. Add the current climate of blame and revenge and that list is … well there probably isn’t a list any more. Our sport is not like the regular corporate world where you post a job and select the perfect candidate from a long list of good applicants. The last five years working with Valeri have been the most positive of my career. All of us are horrified by the trauma so many girls suffered under Larry Nassar and hope the independent investigation will uncover who specifically was responsible for not responding immediately to a complaint about him. We have to learn from the past because we can’t change it. To move forward we should also be listening to the current athletes and coaches that have worked under Valeri’s leadership and see what they say. Valeri has been in charge since September 2016 so they should be able to give an honest comparison of his current system to the “old regime”. I’m curious to hear what they have to say.

Labels: politics