Ungodly acts

An abusive coach is the worst of all

Even before the pedophilia scandal erupted in the Roman Catholic church, unsettling reports of athletic coaches molesting their players had begun to bubble up. Most prominently, a former NHL player finally found the courage to speak out against a coach who had sexually abused him years before in a hockey youth league.

But, on a wider level, all sorts of coaches of young boys in various sports have been found guilty of predatory sexual charges -- sometimes against many of their players over the span of many years. Just last week, in New York, the kindly benefactor of a legendary youth boys' basketball church program was accused of molestation.

Horrible as it is to contemplate priests -- men of God -- taking sexual advantage of young boys, it is perhaps an even greater violation of trust for coaches to be predators. A priest, after all, is but a surrogate of God. A coach often appears to a young boy as the Almighty Himself here on earth.

There is, for example, the old joke about Jesus and a powerful coach walking along together. Someone says, "Isn't that God?" And his friend says, "No, that's Coach Jones. He only thinks he's God."

More to the earthly point, coaches control the immediate fate of boys much more so than do clergymen. Coaches, after all, determine if you make the team and how much you play. Most boys are far more in the thrall of a man with a whistle than he with a crucifix. Indeed, coaches play such a significant role in the life of children that it is not uncommon for a grown athlete to look back and say that such-and-such a coach was by far the most important adult in his life -- or second only to his father. Coaches on the field enjoy a close position of trust -- even love -- that few teachers in the classroom ever attain.

It is not, either, just the coaches of boys who sometimes abuse this honorable status. There have been scandals involving female coaches having lesbian love affairs -- or seeking the same with their college players. And the salacious reports of middle-aged male tennis coaches seducing their teenage protégées, as they conveniently toured the world together, became so prominent that the Women's Tennis Association, which once turned its head away from the obvious, has now, wisely, instituted careful monitoring.

To be sure, most coaches -- like most priests -- are not sexual predators. In sports, the most famous pedophile was, in fact, a star player -- the tennis world champion, Big Bill Tilden, an emotionally and sexually stunted adult, who usually traveled with a boy companion. Twice Tilden would be jailed for sexual misconduct with adolescents. But, also, we cannot be naïve. Pedophiles are obviously going to be attracted to coaching boys. It is an all-male situation rife with physicality, where the coach has power, mystique ... and accessibility.

Sport is religion to many people -- especially to many boys who can be so susceptible to men they admire and, effectively, worship -- men they devotedly call "coach."

Sports Illustrated senior contributing writer Frank Deford is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com and appears each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition. His new novel, The Other Adonis (Sourcebooks Landmark), is available now at bookstores everywhere.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.

 

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