Sunday, April 11, 2010

What Are We Thinking?

You’ve probably been reading about the sexual abuse scandal involving U.S. swim coaches who have been molesting, groping, and secretly taping numerous young female swimmers around the country. Thirty-six coaches have been banned for life. Now I bet that really makes us feel good about ourselves! Not that they’re going to go coach somewhere else, or anything like that!!!

Have you had about enough of the phony righteous concern being expressed by the U.S. Governing body, and other presiding authorities, who pretend they want to ‘clean up the sport’? Don’t we go through this every year? With swimming, gymnastics, ice-skating? And, obviously, not only with U.S. Olympic sanctioned sports. It happens every day in youth soccer, Little League baseball, girls softball, wrestling, and other sports as well. Oh, they’re intent on catching the perpetrators. . . . . . . . . . .yeah, after the f***ing molestations have already occurred! That does the kids a lot of good.

Question: If all these so-called ‘authorities’ are so motivated to prevent the devastation in these children’s lives, why do they not have the courage to make changes that actually work?
Answer: Oh, I don’t know, could it be that ‘harmless’ little Political Correctness (Personal Cowardice) gene I’m always talking about? Just wondering.

Solutions? Hey, I’ve got an idea. Of course it would have taken a genius, like myself, to think of it. It’s not like any ordinary intelligent adult could conceive of such a solution!

NO MORE MEN COACHING YOUNG GIRLS. ANYWHERE. EVER.
(Oh, did I say that out loud?)

Let me repeat. EVER. Not in youth sports, not in High School. Not until girls are Juniors in College, or at least an equivalent age. Not until girls are old enough to read the intentions of their coaches, and experienced enough, and confident enough, to navigate that minefield, or at least mature enough to make their own choices in the matter. That means they must be ADULTS. Do you hear me? There is just too heightened of a sexual presence in today’s world. Does anybody think that these coaches do not indulge their fantasies on the Internet, and then not succumb to the compulsion to ‘play them out’ with the kids on their teams? Predators almost always gravitate towards the youngest, the weakest, the most vulnerable and clueless. That means children and adolescents. Is there anybody responsible for Youth Sports in our country that does not understand that?

You say, “But what about the boys?” Simple, until boys are juniors in High School every male coach must be complimented by an equal number of female coaches present on the team. Let me say that again. For every male coach on a Youth Sports team there must also be a female coach on the same team. I don’t care if all she does is bring snacks (that is not a comment on women as coaches, it is a comment on the importance of having a female presence). To further ensure the protection of our children, no male coach should have any contact with a child, or teen, away from the court, or playing field, for any reason, unless the child is accompanied by a parent, or another female coach. You say, “But what about sleepovers? They’re a tradition for youth sports teams” Yeah, they are, and I say, “Exactly what kind of adult male coach (married, or not) wants to have his team sleep over at his house?”
Please!

By the time a boy is in his third year in High School, he is, by and large, through the most difficult part of his adolescence, the most vulnerable time of his young life. The male coaches of Junior and Senior High School boys should, still, be closely monitored; and then, beginning with College, the boys could be under the guidance of male coaches without the presence of a female. Hopefully, by then, they will be seasoned, and savvy enough to fend for themselves.

And the locker room? Keep the friggin’ coaches out of the locker rooms until the boys are finished dressing. They don’t need to ‘supervise’ boys taking showers. If they’re already predisposed towards adolescent boys, they shouldn’t also have a free pass to ogle them.

Now, are these concepts that difficult to understand, or implement? You say, “But no ‘male-only’ coaches up until the Junior year in High School for boys, but the junior year of College for girls; that’s treating boys and girls differently.”
Well, let me just say this about that. “BOYS AND GIRLS ARE DIFFERENT.” And I’m sorry to have to offend you, but if you don’t understand that, if you’ve bought into the PC lie that boys and girls are the same, then you should not be raising kids.

Mothers, do you think you know the men coaching your kids? For that matter, do you think you know your Pastor, or Priest? Do you think you know their teacher? I know you’d like to think you do. Well, I don’t mean to alarm you unnecessarily, and you’re likely to hate me for this, but you probably don’t even really know your own husband.
Put that in the context of a coach who ‘seems like such a nice guy’.

OK, I’m ready to be arrested by the PC police (hands extended, ready for handcuffs). Better me for what I think, and what I say, than the men who are actually molesting the kids, or the ‘governing bodies’ who perpetuate it. Right?

I’m really just the messenger, but we like to get mad at the messenger. Makes us feel like we’re doing something to solve the problem.

People, this is not our grandparents world. And if we don’t wake up and understand that, the incidents of molestation of our children are going to continue to rise exponentially. Wake up, stop hiding behind Political Correctness, and insist that these solutions, or similar ones, be instituted, post haste, in your own communities.

In today’s world, Men, unsupervised, coaching children, or adolescent boys?
Men coaching young girls?

What are we thinking?