USOC FAILED TO HEED WARNINGS
Letters sought guidance on protecting young athletes
Nearly six years before USA Swimming was rocked by sexual abuse accusations against coaches, the national governing body sent two letters to the U. S. Olympic Committee asking it to take the lead in developing policies to protect young athletes across the Olympic movement.
The letters, which were sent in late 2004 and early 2005 and obtained by USA TODAY Sports, echoed a plea made five years earlier by USA Gymnastics. In both cases, the USOC was alerted to a potential crisis by two of the country’s largest and most decorated governing bodies.
USA Swimming executive director Chuck Wielgus wrote to the USOC that it should follow the lead of other national youth organizations, which crafted plans
and programs that were then implemented at the local level.
“The thrust of our question, however, involves whether or not the USOC sees the nature of these subjects as being important enough to offer recommendations or requirements to all ( national governing bodies),” Wielgus wrote in the second letter. “When we look at other national youth organizations ( YMCA, Boy Scouts., etc.) with grassroots constituencies we see national policies that help to guide the locally- based programs … and we think this overarching approach is something that the USOC should seriously consider.”
The issue of sexual abuse by coaches and the responsibility of national governing bodies to protect athletes has been under scrutiny in recent months.
The Indianapolis Star, which is part of the USA TODAY Network, has reported more than 360 cases in which gymnasts have accused coaches of sexual transgressions over 20 years. More than 80 gymnasts have alleged sexual abuse by Larry Nassar, who was the national team physician from 1996 to 2015. He is in custody in Michigan and faces local, state and federal charges related to criminal sexual conduct and child pornography. He’s denied any wrongdoing.
On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony from former gymnasts and officials in regard to a proposed bill that would make it a crime for national governing bodies — there are 47 under the Olympic umbrella — to fail to report child sexual abuse allegations promptly to law enforcement or child welfare authorities.
Rick Adams, who represented the USOC at the hearing, said the sexual abuse cases should have been prevented. “The Olympic community failed and must do better,” Adams said.
However, there are now at least two documented instances in which national governing bodies raised concerns about child protection policies with the USOC.
In the case of the 2004 and ’ 05 letters from USA Swimming, the USOC did not address the idea of creating a policy that could be implemented by all the national governing bodies in its response. Instead, it referred USA Swimming to a company that was doing background checks for a handful of other national governing bodies and said it was in the process of sending out a reminder about their importance.
In 1999, the then- president of USA Gymnastics, Bob Colarossi, made a similar plea. In lodging a complaint against a USOC group that had threatened to decertify USA Gymnastics as the sport’s governing body over its policy of immediately suspending anyone charged with a felony involving abuse of a child, Colarossi warned that the USOC was not doing enough to protect young athletes. “The USOC can either position itself as a leader in the protection of young athletes or it can wait until it is forced to deal with the problem under muchmore difficult circumstances,” he wrote.
The USOC leadership has turned over several times since USA Gymnastics and USA Swimming sent the letters.
On Thursday, USOC chief executive officer Scott Blackmun said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports: “One thing that has been made clear as we learn more and more about the past is that the Olympic community failed to protect its athletes. We are profoundly sorry and wish we had acted sooner and more aggressively.”
Nancy Hogshead- Makar, an Olympic swimming gold medalist who is the founder of Champion Women and advocates for the protection of athletes, says the USOC has a history of failing to act in the best interests of young athletes. “It wasn’t until a series of crises have happened that have pushed ( the USOC) toward acting,” she said. “It’s disheartening that they have not acted, because it’s the right thing to do.”
The swimming scandal was touched off in April 2010 by a report on ABC’s
20/ 20 detailing inappropriate relationships between coaches and underage athletes, which included the revelation that 36 coaches had been banned for life over the previous 10 years. There are now more than 100 names on the banned list, most for sexual misconduct, and USA Swimming was named in at least eight lawsuits accusing it of mishandling abuse complaints.
Wielgus, in particular, was criticized for failing to investigate abuse complaints against a coach who would later plead guilty to 20 counts of child molestation, and he apologized for his handling of sexual abuse complaints years later.
Wielgus was not available Thursday because of medical reasons.
USA Swimming spokesman Scott Leightman said the 2004 letter came as a result of a task force the national governing body created that year to look at requiring background checks, a step it made in 2006.
The swimming scandal prompted the USOC to form a working group in 2010 to evaluate how it could better protect young athletes, and its recommendations would become the blueprint for current policies in the Olympic movement. But it was not until Dec. 31, 2013 — more than nine years after USA Swimming’s letters — that the USOC established minimum standards for how national governing bodies should address sexual abuse.
Colarossi’s letter was sent to thenpresident Bill Hybl and then- executive director Dick Schultz, both of whom announced their resignations in 1999, and Blackmun, who was then the USOC’s general counsel. He left the USOC in 2001 and returned in 2010 as the CEO.
USA Swimming’s initial letter, addressed to then- CEO Jim Scherr and sent Oct. 27, 2014, doesn’t specifically mention sexual abuse. It highlights four areas of concern: background checks, confidentiality, child protection and disqualifying factors for membership.