A Duty of Care<\/p>\n
I was a high school coach for forty years, thirty-six of those as a head boys track coach.\u00a0 My duties ranged from technical coaching to managing meets to painting lines on tracks to helping kids through the trials of life.\u00a0 But one thing I knew for sure:\u00a0 beyond how fast I could make kids run, or how high I could make them jump; my primary obligation was to protect them and act in their best interest. Their parents placed them in my care, whether we were practicing at home or travelling across the country for national competition.\u00a0 I had a duty to protect them:\u00a0 a duty of care.<\/p>\n
Caring for athletes would include discipline as well as love.\u00a0 It would include taking their side against other adults from time to time, even if it would be easier to step aside.\u00a0 It was protecting them, but also demonstrating to them how to do what was right, even if it was hard.<\/p>\n
Most of my athletes were minors, only a few eighteen or older, but it didn\u2019t matter to their parents, the school, or to me.\u00a0 They were in my care.\u00a0 When many of them earned the opportunity to compete at the collegiate level, we recognized that they were now young adults of legal age.\u00a0 But we still expected that their coaches, who would demand an enormous amount of time, dedication, and effort, would feel that same duty of care to protect them.<\/p>\n
For several of those forty years, I coached wrestling as well.\u00a0 It\u2019s the hardest thing a kid can do in athletics, combining strength and stamina, putting it all in front of the world in one-on-one competition.\u00a0 It demands intense dedication; a \u201ctake-home\u201d sport of control at all times.\u00a0 Wrestlers constantly focus on their body, from weighing in every day, to worrying about injuries and skin conditions.\u00a0 They are also constantly \u201cinspected\u201d by coaches, officials and medical personnel, more than any other sport I know.<\/p>\n
Whether it\u2019s today, or in the 1980\u2019s and 90\u2019s, coaches in wrestling have a special \u201cduty of care\u201d to protect their athletes, who are more vulnerable to abuse than in other sports.\u00a0This was just as true at the Division I collegiate level, where tremendously motivated and talented wrestlers are willing to do or endure almost anything to achieve their dreams.<\/p>\n
You might well ask:\u00a0why didn\u2019t the gymnasts at Michigan State cry out against their abuse?\u00a0 Why didn\u2019t the Olympic swimmers tell their parents?\u00a0 And why is it only now that the wrestlers from Ohio State are speaking out?<\/p>\n
The answer is, they knew that to speak out was to risk their dreams.\u00a0 They knew that to question the \u201cpowers\u201d that were abusing them was to risk being sent away, ending their quest for achievement.\u00a0 And while looking back it might not make much sense, to the young and dedicated athletes their abuse became part of the \u201cprice\u201d to be paid.<\/p>\n
It was up to the adults, the coaches in the case of Ohio State wrestling, to stand up for these athletes.\u00a0 It is clear that everyone \u201cknew\u201d what the team doctor was doing; why didn\u2019t the head coach Russ Hellickson, or his assistant, now Congressman, Jim Jordan, speak out.\u00a0 The probable answer:\u00a0 they didn\u2019t feel empowered by the administration to take a stand, they would be risking their jobs.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s too bad.\u00a0 It was their \u201cduty of care\u201d to speak out and protect their athletes.\u00a0 It was a failure on their part.\u00a0 And it is even more of a failure, now twenty-five years later, to not acknowledge that mistake.\u00a0 Congressman Jordan has been \u201ccalled out\u201d by his wrestlers.\u00a0 He might have said, \u201cI was young, I made a mistake, I\u2019m sorry.\u201d\u00a0He didn\u2019t, he called them liars and the right wing media machine has gone to work to discredit them.\u00a0 It is \u201cME TOO\u201d again, this time, with forty-year old men.<\/p>\n
Should Jordan\u2019s actions disqualify him from his political office? He should have stood up for his athletes then, but he didn\u2019t. He made a mistake twenty-five years ago.\u00a0 That is forgivable. \u00a0What should disqualify him is his failure to acknowledge that mistake now, and his continuing failure to recognize that he stills owes those athletes, those kids of the 1990\u2019s, a duty of care.<\/p>\n
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