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Silent Edge-Information and links of interest for those con cerned about figure skaters and sexual abuse and exploitation and other advocacy issue for skaters

Accused of Sexual Abuse: One Figure Skating Coach's Experience

In 1990, a female skating coach working in the Cleveland area was charged with gross sexual imposition (or "improper touching") against a 10-year-old female student. The coach had taught the girl for two years. Police reports, which the accused coach had no access to before her case was resolved, indicated that the student had accused her of improperly touching her during a practice session. In addition, the girl also claimed that the coach's husband had molested her in a separate incident, at a time when the coach's husband was not at the rink.

The girl's mother had filed charges against the coach in every local municipality where the coach had been working. Two rinks where the coach had been teaching barred her immediately, giving her no chance to defend herself even before the case came to trial.

Before the case did come to trial, the coach was pressured into a plea bargain, but she refused, staunchly maintaining her innocence. Eventually, with much resistance, she agreed to participate in one session of counseling and promised not to sue the police for false arrest. In exchange, the charges against her were dismissed. In local newspaper reports, much was made of her agreement to take counseling.

The impact of the charges on the coach's life, career and family were profound. She lost 20 pounds in one year, her young children were hounded by reporters, and some acquaintances kept their children from visiting her home. Although most of her students stayed with her through her difficulties, she was still barred from certain area rinks, and so lost some of her students who preferred to skate at those locations. Other coaches rallied around her in support and started a fund for her. The lawsuits she eventually filed against rinks that summarily dismissed her took four or five years to resolve.

Says the coach, who is well aware that sexual abuse exists in figure skating, "There has to be some kind of way to differentiate between [an abusive coach] and somebody [who] isn't, without destroying their lives the way they tried to destroy mine."


Source: Talking Figure Skating, by Beverly Smith, McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1997.