Last night, I read an article written by Phil Taylor from Sports Illustrated called The Sandusky Effect, and like so many things written by ex-athletes and sportswriters regarding the Penn State scandal, it ignored the 
perspective of abused children. See SI, January 9, 2012, at 80. Taylor does not exactly defend Sandusky as much as he complains that because of Sandusky’s alleged rape of a boy, Taylor is afraid to give the boys he coaches a ride home from practice. Taylor complains that when his players “come out of a game, [he] wonder[s] if it’s o.k. to squeeze a shoulder as a sign of appreciation. Why is it so important to squeeze a boy’s shoulder anyway? How serious of a loss is this?
To Taylor, not being able to squeeze shoulders or give hugs represents a huge loss. He writes, “One-on-one interaction between player and coach, innocent and valuable, is lost.” Really? I call bullshit. Just because physical contact must be limited “to gestures like a high-five or a fist bump” does not mean that boys will not receive the mentoring and instruction they need or want from male authority figures. What it does mean is that unsuspecting boys will not be fondled, abused and raped by men who wear the misleading outer garments of a trustworthy adult. It means that physical boundaries of boys and girls will be viewed as mattering. Mattering greatly.
It strikes me as odd that Taylor bends over backwards to state that the “recent allegations against Sandusky . . . are still unproved,” as if there is any doubt (in a non-legal sense) that Sandusky sexually abused boys. Taylor could have simply stated, for the purposes of journalistic integrity, that abuse was alleged. Adding the words “Still unproven” indicates a snarky disbelief that anything “really happened” in the Penn State locker room. He does add, almost reluctantly, that the “increased attention” resulting from the case has made parents more vigilant and abuse victims “more willing to come forward,” and categorizes these as “welcome developments.”
And then, after this barest hint of a genuflection to the cause of abuse victims, Taylor undermines it by whining, “what about the overwhelming majority of coaches, those of us who have no dark motives?” In other words, what about me? What about my needs as a coach and a father and an adult? And this is exactly the mindset that leads pedophiles to attack boys and girls. They need; they want; they take; they touch; they rape and through it all, they never stop to consider the victim’s welfare.
For years, sexual abuse victims had no voice. And when victims did begin to speak out and share their stories, folks shunned the victims or attacked their credibility. So often, my own parents sat around the dining room table, glasses tinkling in the background, and gasped over the latest broken reputation. “How can they believe these allegations?” They asked, and I’d sit there in my chair and squirm as my folks batted down the science of unlocking repressed memories. “How can we believe adults who are just now coming forward to report what supposedly happened to them as children? Some therapist or shrink planted the story,” Dad would opine, and Mom would nod and murmur, “Just horrible, those shrinks are all in it to make a dollar. They make more dollars if their patients were molested.” And I’d tune them out as they bemoaned the fact that coaches and teaches could not longer so much as touch a student or an athlete.
I’m an adult now, with children of my own, and to my parents and their ilk, and to Taylor and his ilk, I call bullshit. If you coach or teach children, go right ahead and give them a hug if they need one. This isn’t so much about your needs: it’s about what the children need. But by all means, if hugging the children makes you frightened or uncomfortable, then don’t lay hands on them. Problem solved. Or if you need to talk with a child privately
, leave the door open or chat in the corner of a gym in full view of everyone else. Never talk to a child who is not related to you alone in a vehicle. And if guidelines meant to protect the children you teach or coach annoy, frustrate or stymie you in your efforts as a teacher or a coach, then go find another avocation, because I’m thinking you don’t belong in this one.
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About Running from Hell with El
© December 2, 2011 E. L. Farris. Welcome to my blog. I talk a lot. My essence is captured by the mythical Phoenix, who rose from the ashes and was reborn. I have walked a difficult path to get here, but with three children on my back, the future never has never looked brighter.
Honestly, this isn't something I planned out or anything. I don't plan. I don't lay my clothes out for tomorrow or make meal menus a week in advance and calendars confuse the crap out of me. But I was thinking as I was running the other day about myself (and yeah, I think about myself way too much, I know it) and I got on the subject of heaven and hell and trouble; lots of trouble. Yup. That's me. I'm troubling; I find trouble; I make trouble; I get in trouble; I get troubled; I make everyone else troubled. I'm trouble.
It’s my nature to find trouble, sort of as inevitably as a dog will seek out and devour the stalest, decaying mound of road kill within miles of its nose. One time my dog fought a raccoon off in order to consume an entire rotting turkey carcass that we’d tossed into the trash bin the night before, and forget to lock down I reckon (and if you’re wondering why we didn’t remove the entire rotting turkey carcass from either the raccoon or the family dog, well, that’s how rotten the turkey smelled, I mean, it was like a cataclysmic, apocalyptic reality of rot, I’m telling you). I sniff out trouble with the inevitability of a kid tossing a tantrum after too much birthday party. Even as an adult attending church (please don’t nag me about going more often—so many people have tried that and it just brings out my inner pouting recalcitrant teenager) I cannot contain snickering and inappropriate giggles (and this is at services where I’m crying in reverent gratitude ten seconds prior to the snarky snickering).
If there is hell, and I think it is much safer to assume there is because (as I read in Dilbert’s column the other day) Satan has a delicious sense of irony, especially if ignored, then I’m always skating two or three steps ahead of landing there. It’s not that I don’t want to be good; I mean, my theme song would be that idiotic song from Dukes of Hazard (talk about unwanted ear worms)—you know, the “good ol’ boys don’t mean no harm” line, except when I grew up I realized there was a freakin’ Confederate flag drawn on top of their sick Dodge Challenger. And I detest and deplore everything that the Confederate flag represents, but my point is that I can’t help making trouble in my unending quest for a good time.
And here is where the running falls into place. We sort of got the hell aspect of the name figured out right? I got this thing for trouble; thus, I am at high hell risk. What else do you need to know about me? Well, I run. I’ve been running since I turned 14 and lost a ton of weight that I’d put on to keep eyes from leering at me, or at least that’s my theory for why I got so fat as a twee...ner. A lot of abused girls put on weight as a protective instinct and it worked pretty well for a time, but carrying around extra weight is a burden that I didn’t like shouldering. So I went on one of those dam* diets and started to run and I’ve been running since. Whenever I stop running, and sometimes even when I’ve been running, I’ve landed in a lot of trouble. I smoked and drank and used all sorts of recreational and prescription assists if you get my drift; for a time, I purposely failed classes as a way of screaming “Fu** you” at the adults in my life who failed me in so many ways. And every time I landed a few inches short of hell’s gates, or even in jail, I ran my way back out of there.
I ran through a childhood that could well be described as hell. I ran through major depressive episodes and often teetered one step from the edge of a breakdown, but through running, held onto my sanity, my life and whatever belief in God I’ve managed to cobble together one trudging slow step after the other. Each step I take, no matter how physically painful, draws me a shade closer into my better angels.
And painful the steps have become over the years, which is how I earned the nickname Phoenix. Some mornings I feel like I got run over by a bus and yet the truth is, I was. My family and I survived a collision with a metro bus, and I can’t talk about it much because we’re involved in litigation, but it’s fair to say that the accident fuc*ed me up pretty badly. And yet I keep rising, like a reborn Phoenix, from the pyre of a burning fire, and as I run I realize that whatever hell is or isn’t, as long as I keep rising, my spirit will never die.
Meanwhile, I’m not taking any chances. I read enough about hell in Milton and Dante to know I don’t want to fall into it. I don’t even want to visit hell (and you couldn’t pay me to reread Milton again, whoa, talk about a rough read) unless of course Beatrice comes with me.
perspective of abused children. See SI, January 9, 2012, at 80. Taylor does not exactly defend Sandusky as much as he complains that because of Sandusky’s alleged rape of a boy, Taylor is afraid to give the boys he coaches a ride home from practice. Taylor complains that when his players “come out of a game, [he] wonder[s] if it’s o.k. to squeeze a shoulder as a sign of appreciation. Why is it so important to squeeze a boy’s shoulder anyway? How serious of a loss is this?
, leave the door open or chat in the corner of a gym in full view of everyone else. Never talk to a child who is not related to you alone in a vehicle. And if guidelines meant to protect the children you teach or coach annoy, frustrate or stymie you in your efforts as a teacher or a coach, then go find another avocation, because I’m thinking you don’t belong in this one.
EllieAnn
January 17, 2012 at 11:38 am
Really cool points you have here. You’re right! It’s not about what you need, it’s about the kids you’re working with. Most likely … the kid won’t ever need hugs alone in a locker room.
Running from Hell with El
January 17, 2012 at 1:04 pm
Thank you EllieAnn! And I love your sentence above: “Most likely … the kid won’t ever need hugs alone in a locker room.” I’m sitting in front of my computer giggling.
Renée A. Schuls-Jacobson
January 17, 2012 at 1:25 pm
Great article, El. On a related note, someone commented to me just yesterday that the Bernie Fine scandal seems to be quieting down in Syracuse. Someone apparently confessed he was lying about the whole thing.
“Sounds like somebody got paid to shut up,” I scowled.
“Wow, you sound bitter,” the person responded.
And I guess I am. “Just because the statute of limitations has run out on the boys who were likely abused doesn’t mean that Bernie Fine is innocent,” I said. “Fine may be proven ‘not guilty’ but that doesn’t mean he didn’t molest them. It just means our justice system is very, very broken.”
And all these years later nothing has changed. I guess it’s a good thing I never came forward about the person who raped me. No one would have believed me.
They still wouldn’t today.
Running from Hell with El
January 17, 2012 at 1:54 pm
Thank you Renee. Damnit, the Syracuse case makes me want to scream. And it kills me how we’re treated as bitter when we see through the bullshit and call it as we see it. Yes: just because any S/L has run doesn’t make Fine any less culpable. And our “justice system” is not, as a wise friend explained to me, a justice system. It is a legal system which all too often strips the victim of any recompense under the law.
As the victims of sexual assault and abuse, we’re the ones who are left the clean up the mess. And God help the ones who come forward and are torn to shreds and themselves put on trial. The standard in these sorts of cases is not guilty if there is reasonable doubt; unfortunately, to establish “reasonable doubt,” the victim’s credibility is assailed and his or her character destroyed. And then they wonder why more people don’t come forward?
Like you said: “No one would have believed me.” That’s why.
Hands Free Mama
January 17, 2012 at 6:28 pm
Beautifully stated, El. I have goosebumps on my arms from the power of your words. I can feel your passion and I wish everyone wished to protect our children with such determination.
“And if guidelines meant to protect the children you teach or coach annoy, frustrate or stymie you in your efforts as a teacher or a coach, then go find another avocation, because I’m thinking you don’t belong in this one.”
Your words and delivery have impacted me. I hope they are far-reaching … especially to those who need it the most.
Running from Hell with El
January 17, 2012 at 6:34 pm
Gosh, thank you so much Hands Free Mama, for your kind words!!!