Summer Olympics and Abuse in Youth Athletics

There is a lot to celebrate and appreciate about the Summer Olympics that recently concluded. People pushing limits, breaking records, and thrilling audiences around the world is amazing and inspiring.

The Olympics have inspired a conversation about mental health and physical injuries that is challenging people to adjust our values. Athletes who persevered and performed despite, and through, injury were once celebrated and revered. Today, athletes are being praised for taking breaks and recovering. Instead of ‘pushing through’, athletes are modeling the need for mental wellness and physical safety.

Of course, its not all roses.

Canada’s women’s soccer team was busted for spying on their opponents. And that has led to a lot of speculation and assertions that this is common practice amongst many teams.

The drive to win is powerful.

Think about past doping scandals. There is a lot of pressure to win at any cost.

Awards, accolades and recognition are powerful motivators.

I recently came across an article about a study conducted at the University of Toronto.

The study finds that as federal funding in pursuit of Olympic medals has increased, participation in grass roots organized sports has steadily decreased.

I find this data to be incredibly sad and revealing.

Prioritizing Olympic and elite level achievements has contributed to a decline in participation of organized sports. The article, Federal Funding Linked to More Medals for Canadian Olympians - but Less Participation in Grassroots Sports: Study, provides plenty of alarming statistics, such as the fact that in 1990, 44% of Canadians over the age of 15 participated in organized sports. Today that number has dropped to 27%.

Yikes.

Youth sports has been an area of concern for Priority Kids because we see that there are many gaps in safety practices that protect children from sexual abuse. Or, to re-frame that wording to be more positive, there is tremendous opportunity to protect children in organized sports.

We pay attention to the Long Term Athlete Development movement and we know that protecting children from sexual abuse in sports settings will help to increase participation in sports.

But obviously, we don’t all share the same motivation for participation. That makes a big difference.

If the point of participating is to WIN, and that’s what we invest in, then we see that one outcome is lower participation rates. We don’t need EVERYONE involved, we just need the best.

If the point of participating is to have fun, be healthy, and build community (as in, Long Term Athlete Development), we’d probably start to see an increase in participation and perhaps regain some of what has been lost.

In addition, we’ll see less sexual abuse in sport when ‘fun, health and community’ are ‘the point’.

What’s the ‘point of it all’?

It’s a question that comes up regularly for me.

We’ve all got a different answer for that question. For some people, the point is to win a medal. If that’s the point, then using a drone to scope out the competition makes sense.

If the point is to win medals, then directing funding towards elite athletes makes sense.

If the point is to impress other countries with our athleticism, then focusing on the exceptional athletes is the right thing to do.

The problem is that, as humans, we are prone to making sacrifices, bending rules and rationalizing our behaviours to achieve our goals.

Consider the incredible records that Olympic athletes set and break. Humans are capable of achieving so much.

And when the goal is to break a record, or win a game, we are setting ourselves up to sacrifice children to meet our goals.

Have you seen the documentary Athlete A? It’s available on Netflix and it exposes the toxic culture at USA Gymnastics that contributed to Dr. Larry Nassar’s ability to sexually abuse hundreds and hundreds of athletes. Nassaur was eventually charged with sexually assaulting 265 young women and girls (1).

Yikes.

One of the athletes in the documentary points out that the USA prides itself on its competitive nature, but doesn’t recognize that it is sacrificing children for the sake of winning.

Sacrificing children.

Sounds like the Hunger Games (2). It’s not fiction though, is it? This is real life.

Awards, accolades and recognition are powerful motivators. It’s not just USA Gymnastics that has worked so diligently towards winning that it ignores horrible atrocities, and allows them to persist. This is common behaviour. It doesn’t always result in such a huge number of people being harmed, but children are harmed in many organizations, partly because people are fixated on the WIN or the achievement.

But we don’t have to let awards, accolades and recognition be ‘the point’.

And that’s where protecting children becomes a real challenge. There just isn’t a lot of praise going around for things like,

• Asking school administrators about their sexual abuse prevention policy
  

• Asking coaches what they are doing to protect children from sexual abuse
  

• Talking to other adults about strategies for keeping kids safe from sexual abuse

These are conversations that we must start modeling. We can’t continue to push our children into programming because it’s what everyone else is doing and where the awards are being given out.

We can’t continue to assume that schools are safe just because they are schools and they give out grades, awards and recognition.

People have a lot of different answers for the existential question, ‘what’s the point of it all?’

Maybe it’s to win.

Maybe it’s to learn the curriculum.

Maybe it’s to learn a skill.

If ‘the point’ isn’t to protect children from sexual abuse, then kids aren’t being protected.

period.

We’re not going to win awards, be celebrated, or be acknowledged by our community for advocating for children.

That’s what makes us revolutionaries. Revolutionaries are a nuisance and annoying because we disrupt the status quo.

The status quo is that 34% of children are sexually abused (3). It happens in families, schools, and sports settings.

When I ask myself, ‘what’s the point of it all?’, I can come up with lot’s of different answers depending on the day and my mood. But it ALWAYS includes,

Keeping kids safe from sexual abuse

It is more important than wins and medals. More important than fitting in. More important than receiving awards.

You can help keep kids safe by asking the question, “what do you have in place to protect children from sexual abuse?”

It’s a question you can ask a friend, or family member. A question you can ask a volunteer or staff person. A question you can ask your MP or MLA.

It’s a question we can ask ourselves.

Not sure if your answer is good enough? Connect with our Lead Advocate and find out more about best practices that protect children from sexual abuse.

We’ve seen that humans can achieve tremendous results when we put our energy and resources towards our goal. Let’s make protecting children our goal.

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If the content of this article causes you distress or discomfort,
please seek support.

Where to Get Help in Nova Scotia
Call 211
Kids Help Phone Call 1-800-668-6868