Dear Pastor Frank: You have addressed some sexual issues regarding boys, but not sexual abuse. Our son is a 17-year- old high school senior who plays on a hockey team. He hopes to win a scholarship to play hockey in college. I’ve been disturbed by the stories of sexual abuse of young athletes by coaches and team staff persons. We’re concerned about our son getting into this kind of situation now or in college and wonder if you have any advice for us as parents of a young athlete in terms of what to watch for.

Dear disturbed parents,

I have not addressed child sexual abuse because I’ve not been asked a question about it. Also, it is a huge subject. But your question narrows it down a bit and I will attempt an answer.

My advice to parents of student athletes is to realize what is going on generally in our society in terms of sexual assaults on youth. Then have a conversation with your son about being aware of potential situations of sexual grooming and preying on young athletes in the sports world because it happens. He will need strategies for how to deal with these situations in the midst of his excitement about competing at this level.

Statistics

A digital survey conducted in June 2021, commissioned by Lauren’s Kids, a nonprofit group that seeks to educate parents and kids about sexual violence. The survey included nearly 800 adults under the age of 45 who attended private or public universities. It found that more than 1 in 4 current or former student athletes were sexually assaulted or harassed by someone in a position of power on campus, compared with 1 in 10 of those in the general population. The abuser was most often identified as a coach. So guarding against sexual preying on young athletes is definitely a matter of concern.

This survey includes both girls and boys. But when reports were broken down by gender, it is clear that boys are sexual victims as well as girls. Surveys have reported that 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 6 boys have been sexually assaulted by the age of eighteen. Of the men who report abuse, 16% of them say they were sexually assaulted by the time they reached the age of eighteen. More than 5% say they were assaulted during college. The hunch of those who study male-on-male sexual assault is that most incidents go unreported because men tend to keep these things to themselves. They may not tell even a buddy.

Instances of Abuse

Boys have been abused by priests, scoutmasters, coaches, fraternity brothers, neighbors, and even family members. Most of the abused know their abusers. I can testify to that. At age 13, I was sexually molested by my parents’ upstairs tenant. I was babysitting the couple’s infant while they went out for the evening. I had fallen asleep on their sofa in my pajamas and woke up when I felt his hand fondling my genitals. I never told anyone about this incident, not even my parents, although I have recently written about it. I also never forgot it.

There was a story a few years ago involving a Chicago Blackhawks staff person accused of assaulting team rookies who were in their late teens or early 20s. The whistle blower was Kyle Leach, who had moved down from Canada to Chicago at age 19 to play with the Blackhawks. Interestingly, the movie Youngblood (1986), starring Rob Lowe, was about a 17-year-old boy who went to Canada to play hockey on a professional team. While there was no sexual assault, the team members initiated him by strapping him down on a table in the locker room and shaving his pubic hair and then locking him out of the locker room wearing only his jock strap.

Another concern is that new players may be plied with alcohol, which in some cases has turned out to be deadly in fraternity initiations. There’s not supposed to be drinking on sports trips, but it’s been known to happen. That’s also how sexual assaults take place between players and staff members. Aldrich invited young men back to his hotel room after a night of partying and took advantage of their unsteady condition. This is nothing less than male rape. It is seldom consenual sexual activity. There are undoubtedly many more instances of sexual assault than what has been reported.

Hazing

While coaches and staff persons have been singled out as abusers, team hazing may involve forms of homoerotic assault that young men are subjected to in high school and college sports. In team hazing there have also been reported instances of male rape. This need not involve penetrative sex, but sexualized hazing could involve team members holding down a naked player in a darkened locker room and dry humping him. This sort of behavior isn’t supposed to happen, but coaches turn a blind eye to what goes on in the locker room until there is a whistleblower. Whistleblowers are few because many of the boys accept hazing as a “tradition,” which means it’s been going for a long time. Boys who submit to hazing are under peer pressure to do so. They also know that their turn will come to be the hazers. It is precisely because hazing is built into team culture, but is officially forbidden by school policy, that coaches need to keep their eye on what is going on in the team.

Let me insert here that this is exactly the sort of team behavior that has been exposed at Northwestern University in June 2023, and resulted in the firing of head football coach Pat FitzGerald. Next it was the abusive behavior of the baseball coach toward the staff and students. Then it was the girls on the cheerleading team who were expected to allow gropping by alumni and donors at parties. A culture of sexualized abuse is coming to light at Northwestern and the coaches and athletic staff could not have been unaware of it. There will be lawsuits and the university will end up paying millions. That will not undo the damage done to students by the instances of degrading sexual abuse.

There are several factors to be aware of.

First, the perpetrators of sexual abuse of children, youth, and young adults have been married men.

The man who abused me was married with a child. Brad Aldrich was reportedly married with children. In one of the most infamous cases, Jerry Sandusky, who served as assistant coach with the Penn State Nittany Lions football team and was convicted of abusing 52 children over a 15-year period, was a husband and grandfather. Dennis Hastert, the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was charged with molesting adolescent boys on the high school wrestling team when he was the wrestling coach. You don’t think of married men initiating a homosexual assault. But men with homosexual desires can be married.

Generally, sexual abuse of minors and young men has not been committed by men who identify as gay. This may be because men who identify as gay have come to terms with their sexuality.

Second, in most cases the school or organization administration knew what was going on.

The administration had received prior complaints about the coach or staff member but kept it under wraps until someone like Kyle Beach blew the whistle. Kyle reported his sexual assault to the Blackhawks managers, but they declined to act on its because they were focused on winning the Stanley Cup. It was the same with the sexual molesting of female gymnasts by the now-convicted and imprisoned Jerry Nassar, who was the physician for the U.S. Women’s Gymnastic Team. In the Penn State case the whole top tier of the university administration and athletic department was terminated for allowing the sexual abuse to go unreported. There was organizational fallout in the Chicago Blackhawks and the team had to pay $2 million in damages to the NHL.

You would think that schools and organizations would want to avoid the bad publicity of covering up instances of abuse by their staff, but seemingly they don’t. Expect universities and sports organizations to revert to damage control as their first response to reported instances of sexual abuse, just like the Catholic bishops did in instances of priests accused of sexually abusing boys..

Third, the instances of sexual abuse are perpetrated on needy victims.

You might not think of college or professional athletes as needy, but young men in their late teens who are away from home for the first time are in need of someone to take them under wing and show them the ropes. They welcome the attention of someone who befriends them. I’m sorry to say that this someone might be grooming them for a sexual encounter. I don’t know if these situations are covered in high school sex education classes.

Sex education teachers should be bold enough to discuss the signs of sexual grooming of youth by adult predators and give counsel on how to resist a relationship with an authority figure that seems to be becoming too intimate. These instances occur too frequently to be ignored.

Signs of Abuse

Parents should watch for signs of depression or change of attitude. Youth who are sexually abused may become withdrawn or irritable. They may suffer from depression. Boys in particular may act out with aggressive behavior. They may want to avoid the person who is abusing them. I know I did. These changes may not always result from sexual abuse; they could be a response to something else going on in their lives. But these changes should raise warning flags that parents should not ignore.

It can be especially difficult for a young man if the groomer is someone in the hierarchy of the team organization, like a member of the coaching staff. The young athletes want to please their coaches and staff. If a young man picks up signals that a staff person is showing too much interest, some preventive measures can be implemented.

Protective Measures

The young man should tell a buddy what he thinks is happening and ask around to see if there have been other (unreported) instances of sexual advances on team members by this staff person. He should not go into a coach’s office without having a teammate nearby. He should not have a shower with an older man if they are the only two in the showers. On sports trips he should abide by the rules. Don’t drink and accept invitations into some staff person’s room. If there is a gathering in someone’s room, leave when the others do. If he gets assigned a room with a staff person and that man comes on to him, he should just tell the man assertively, “I don’t want to do this.” I would say that even if the young athlete is gay and would be open to male-on-male sex, he should not get into an entangling relationship with a staff member.

If an incident occurs, report it to the head of the athletic department. The young man should also let the department head know that he has told his friends, an academic adviser, and his parents. Then the director knows the incident can’t be ignored. Institutions are known for covering up these sexual transgressions on the part of their staff.

If a sexual assault is perpetrated by a teammate, for example, when they are sharing a hotel room on a team trip, the young man should be able to handle the situation since it’s a peer relationship. I haven’t been on a sports team, but I experienced a nocturnal assault from a roommate with whom I was sharing a bed on a college choir tour. It happens, and dealing with it is awkward. But it is up to these guys to work it out. He might just resist his roommate or tell him, “I’m not into that.” If all else fails, the young man who is being sexually harassed by a team mate can ask for a different roommate.

Some Coaches Can Be Bullies

Not all instances of abuse are sexual. Some coaches have a tendency to bully certain members on the team. There’s a fine line between between a hard taskmaster on the whole team and picking on one or two team members in particular. The reasons for bullying vary. The coach may pick on a minority player because he is racist, or because a boy is perceived to be gay, or because he doesn’t meet the coach’s standards. Unfortunately, my high school swimming teacher was racist and used to come down hard on Black students. The coach has a problem but he takes it out on some student athletes. The student athletes are not likely to report the coach unless a clear pattern of bullying certain students can be detected.

Most Coaches Are Trustworthy

While it’s believed that instances of sexual abuse and bullying of young male ahtletes is underreported, I would like to think that these instances don’t happen to the majority of young athletes. Coaches are entrusted with the protection and stewardship of young athletes’ bodies, and most of them they take this charge very seriously. But sexual abuse and assault of young male athletes does happen and the young athlete should not think that it won’t happen to him. He should know what to look for in terms of grooming and report instances of boundary violations to the staff person’s or coach’s superior. If he thinks the coach is bullying certain typres of students, he should discuss it with school administrators. The basic rule of thumb is: if your son is uncomfortable with any situation, he should pay attention to his instincts.

Best wishes for your son’s safe passage through the world of collegiate or professional sports.

Pastor Frank