By Jon Heshka, Associate Professor at Thompson Rivers University
Before there was Larry Nassar, there was Jerry Sandusky. There are, of course, many – too many – other instances of coaches and other adults in positions of authority sexually abusing and assaulting athletes but Nassar and Sandusky stand out for their notoriety.
Nassar is the serial sexual predator advertised as “a knight in shining armor” who posed as a caring and compassionate doctor specializing in osteopathic medicine and was found guilty of sexual abuse after molesting and assaulting about 500 girls and young women over more than two decades. Nassar has been sentenced three times – 60 years, 40 to 125 years, and 40 to 175 years – after being convicted in several cases for sexual assault and child pornography. His victims included Olympic gymnastics, Michigan State University athletes, and girls as young as six.
Nassar’s deviance, negligence and malpractice was permitted by a network of enablers which included high ranking officials from Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics whose incompetence was staggering. The dismissive rejection of the athletes’ complaints, the gaslighting of the girls, the circling of the wagons and the “Nothing going on here, folks” could not withstand the firestorm of the girls and young women that Nassar assaulted.
In the end, it resulted in a $500 million settlement from Michigan State University, the university’s president resigning, it’s athletic director resigning, its head gymnastics coach resigning (and convicted three years later of lying to police), its former dean of its College of Osteopathic Medicine being found guilty on two counts of willful neglect of duty linked to his supervision of Nassar, the entire board of directors of USA Gymnastics resigning, its president and CEO resigning (he’s still awaiting trial for evidence tampering), and the firing of the US Olympic Committee’s chief of sport performance.
Gymnastics’ day of reckoning had come.
Jerry Sandusky is the former assistant coach of Penn State’s men’s football team who in 2012 was convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse involving eight boys and sentenced to 30-60 years in prison. Sandusky worked under famed coach Joe Paterno whose teams had five undefeated seasons, two national titles and whose 409 wins ranks first in major college football history. The scandal resulted in the resignations of Paterno, the university’s president, senior vice president and athletic director, a university-commissioned investigation led by former FBI director Louis Freeh which concluded Paterno and the three senior administrators covered up for Sandusky, prosecutors bringing a series of charges including obstruction of justice and conspiracy against the three senior administrators – ultimately resulting in two pleading guilty to misdemeanor child endangerment and a jury convicting the third of the same crime – and the NCAA imposing a $60 million fine on Penn State, which was later agreed to be mostly spent on a state child sexual abuse program.
Football’s day of reckoning had come.
And before Sandusky, there was Graham James. James, named Man of the Year by The Hockey News in 1989 after he won the first of two Western Hockey League championships. James was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in 1997 for sexually assaulting two teenage boys more than 350 times over ten years. In 2012 he was sentenced to two years for sexually assaulting two teenage boys hundreds of times while they were players on teams he coached.
It has been 24 years since James was first convicted. To a degree, the culture of sport in general and hockey in particular has changed. But it also hasn’t. Instances of these sorts of sexual predation by coaches and adults in positions of authority who use their power to groom and assault their victims sadly continue.
In its most extreme form, hazing – which is generally accepted as any potentially humiliating, degrading, abusive, or dangerous activity expected of a junior-ranking athlete by a more senior teammate[1] – crosses the line to sexual assault. Survivors claim that hazing happens with team staff, coaches and club officials being not only aware of it but it being so entrenched that in the words of one former player, “It was pretty normal and seemed accepted or even expected.”
What has changed is the willingness of brave athletes who have been assaulted to speak out and confront their tormenters. What has changed is society’s willingness to listen to these young people and to not blindly defend powerful institutions like Big Sport or the Catholic Church. What has changed is that some courts are handing down sentences which are actually fitting of the crimes, rather than slaps on the wrist.
What has changed is the #MeToo movement came along which has called truth to power.
What’s different though is that what happened behind the scenes with Nasser and Sandusky eventually became public and those who failed these kids were held to account but that was not the case with James and what’s happening in major junior hockey in Canada. The narrative has always been and was left unchallenged that James acted alone and that no-one in a position of authority on the many teams he worked for and leagues in which he coached was aware of what he was doing.
What Nasser, Sandusky and James have in common is not just that they are rapists who sexually assaulted young athletes but that the systems in which they worked and preyed on their victims allowed it to happen. People in these organizations either knew or suspected something or ought to have known and failed to do anything about it.
A class-action lawsuit was filed by former NHL player and Stanley Cup winner Daniel Carcillo and former WHL player Garrett Taylor on June 18, 2020. The statement of claim listed disturbing allegations of abuse which included players being subjected to repeated racist, sexist and homophobic slurs; rookies being required to sit in the middle of the shower room naked while older players urinated on them; players being forced to masturbate in front of teammates and coaches, and players being forced to consume the urine, saliva, semen or feces of teammates.
Affidavits filed in Ontario Superior Court in December 2020 by former players state that the culture of hockey at the time was so perverse that, for example, a young player recruited by James to play for the Winnipeg Warriors in the 1980s was placed in the home of a convicted sex offender who sexually pursued him. The same former player claims that hazing rituals known by team staff included him being stripped naked, with his arms spread out and taped to hockey sticks, as if “he was being crucified,” and disturbing details involving older players tossing pucks one by one into a bucket tied to the young player’s penis and penetrating his anus with a hockey stick.
Canadian hockey is, for the most part, stuck at the first stage of denial. There remains a refusal to accept that there is a problem in the sport’s culture, an unwillingness to come to terms with its past, a rush to sweep its dirty little secret under the rug, and to just keep going, as if nothing happened.
It cannot possibly be said that James acted alone. A recent Winnipeg Free Press exposé[2] shows he was protected by people in power who valued winning more than anything else. The protection wasn’t like an enforcer on the ice who fights those who threaten star players, but it wasn’t far off. In some cases, it took the form of willful neglect like the billeting of a player with a convicted sex offender. In others, it was burning a blind eye to things that were in plain view, if only they cared to look.
The class-action lawsuit alleges that the Canadian Hockey League and its leagues – the Western Hockey League (WHL), the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) and the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) – and its 52 Canadian teams and eight US-based teams breached its standard of care and was negligent by, among other things, not adequately supervising and training players, failing to ensure the safety and well-being of players, and subjecting players to abuse from club coaches and staff.
It is possible that hockey’s day of reckoning is finally coming.
1. Eric MacIntosh E. (2018). “Creating an anti-hazing value system: Changing the culture of sport and entertainment” Sport and Entertainment Review 4:1, 14.
2. Hamilton, J. (December 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18). Winnipeg Free Press https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/special/graham-james/
