If you have glanced at any news source in the past month, you’ve probably heard about the scandal with Larry Nassar, team doctor for the USA Gymnastics national team and Michigan State University (but if you haven’t, this article provides an overview).
A part of the reason this scandal has garnered so much attention is the somewhat unconventional sentencing hearing that concluded Nassar’s trial. Judge Aquilina agreed to allow every survivor of Nassar’s abuse to make a statement at the trial. More than 150 women did, and the sentencing lasted about a week.
The statements given by these survivors were tragic, graphic, and eerily similar. They painted Nassar as a monster and a “master manipulator,” gaining their trust and then taking advantage of them. However, separate themes ran through the statements as well. Nassar’s actions are unforgivable and atrocious, but he did not act alone.
The US has been a powerhouse in international gymnastics for decades. USA Gymnastics has brought home large collections of gold medals from world competitions, Olympics, and other major events. From the outside, USAG looked like a well-oiled machine, pumping out champions left and right.
But now we are learning that those gold medals came at a terribly high price.
The first reports of Nassar’s abuse reach back at least 30 years. Other complaints can be found throughout the following years, both at MSU and USAG. If even one of these reports had been acted on, Nassar could have been stopped years ago. But backwards policies that allow abuse to be concealed as well as a toxic culture allowed these allegations to be filed away and forgotten. Read more about USAG’s policies here.
Beyond the dismissal of troubling evidence, USAG created the perfect breeding grounds for this type of abuse to happen. In the current system, young gymnasts with a talent for the sport and a dream of becoming elite-level athletes are tracked when they reach higher levels of USAGs Junior Olympic competitive program. The best of the best were selected to attend national training camps at the now-infamous “Karolyi Ranch” in Texas (where the USA National team and Olympic team members also train). Training sessions at the Ranch are intense–physically and emotionally. “Tough love” is the coaches’ mentality of choice. Athletes are subjected to hours and hours of physical training each day. The facility is in a secluded area, and parents are not allowed to stay (on the Ranch grounds or even to their athlete’s appointments with the doctors!). So it comes as no surprise that these young athletes would see the appeal of cooperating with a doctor who seemed to be “nice” to them. This merciless culture followed elite athletes outside of the Ranch as they traveled for international competitions, and Nassar followed too.
As a former gymnast, I adored many of these strong women growing up. Aly Raisman and Jordyn Wieber were my idols as I watched them win gold in London. I loved watching training videos from the Ranch online. I followed the stories of up-and-coming junior national team members, and dreamed of being just like them. Now, I am grateful I never had that opportunity.
And although my experience is nothing compared to the horrors faced by the leagues of brave women who were forced to endure Nassar’s abuse, the trickle-down effect of USAG’s harmful coaching culture is evident in all levels of American gymnastics. When I started training at a USAG member club, I remember feeling scared as older girls were screamed at by their coaches for not completing routines or being too nervous to try a skill. In high school, a teammate was forced to compete with an injury that later put her out of the sport. At the age of 17, my coach told me and others that our gymnastics would look better if we lost weight.
This culture of “win first” and all else second needs to stop, in gymnastics and all youth sports. Getting the gold feels amazing . . . but being physically and emotionally crushed by adults you should be able to trust is devastating. Youth athletes are just that: young. They are children. It is my sincerest hope that this tragedy in American gymnastics serves as a lesson to anyone who works with kids that their health and happiness must always come first, even if it means settling for silver.
Click the links below for more insight on these events:
USA Gymnastics’ rot runs deeper than serial sex abuser Larry Nassar
Nassar abuse survivors call out “rotting” and “diseased” institutions they say enabled him