Today’s post is different as in it’s not a bookish post. When I changed the direction of my blog to be majority a bookish blog, I didn’t change the name because I still wanted to have the freedom to post non-bookish content when and if I wanted to.
If you’ve been living under a rock, you have missed what just happens to be the BIGGEST sports scandal, bigger than Jerry Sandusky and Penn State, bigger than Deflategate, and bigger than any other sports scandals. I’m talking about Larry Nassar. It involves three different governing bodies, the NCAA, USAG (USA Gymnastics), and the USOC (US Olympic Committee). NCAA is involved because Larry Nassar was an employee at Michigan State University, USAG and the USOC are involved because he was the doctor at the Karolyi Ranch in Texas which was the training center for USAG. He did not have a medical license to practice in Texas and he was also the team doctor for the Women’s Olympic team, which is why the USOC is involved. This disgrace of a human being sexually assaulted at least 150 young girls, teenagers, and young women. Watching the victim impact statements is heartbreaking, but what is even worse is that these young girls, teens and young women reported the abuse, but the governing bodies did NOTHING. On Wednesday Judge Aquilina listened to the last of the victim impact statements and handed down her sentencing by sentencing the disgrace of a human being to 175 years in prison. The Karolyi Ranch which has a history of abuse, Dominique Mocheanu spoke out about it in 2008, has been shut down, the entire USAG board of directors has resigned, the president of MSU has resigned, the MSU athletic director has retired and now the federal government is involved, the USOC has hired a private firm to investigate, Valeri Liukin has resigned from his position as coordinator of the women’s National Team, a position he took over in 2016 after Martha Karolyi retired. And Larry Nassar was sentenced a third time earlier this week. It will be interesting to see what happens with USA Gymnastics in the coming months with competition season coming up.
No, I have never been a victim of sexual abuse. However, I would like to mention that I did gymnastics for eight years. And when I first heard about all of this TWO YEARS ago in 2016, I wondered why nobody listened to these athletes until now, or when Dominque Moceanu first spoke out about abuse within USA Gymnastics in 2008. It saddened me to see/hear that this happened. I hope a lot of changes happen so a situation like this never happens again.
Inside My Minds 