USA Gymnastics: The Larry Nassar Cases

This story is a typical case of child sexual abuse with a male offender, Jerry Sandusky, who victims were aged between 7 and 13, and who had a close

Once the awareness of the sex abuse became known, the investigation began. During the investigation, witnesses of the abuse came forward

Baylor Coach The article published May 28, 2016, by Mark Schlabach on ESPN titled, “Baylor to fire coach Art Briles after 8 Seasons,” is about Sixty-year-old Art Briles in the process of finishing his extension of his ten-year contract for coaching football at Baylor University. He had eight years left of that ten-year contract until he messed his whole career up. He was making almost $6 million each season and that would have made him the Big 12’s highest paid coach. Briles was fired along with several other members of the schools program when an investigation found that they failed to address sexual assault allegations against football players.

A MSU cross country athlete communicated to the athletic program staff she was sexually assaulted by Nassar while getting treatment for an injured hamstring. She was dismissed by a coach who said Nassar was “an Olympic doctor” and “knew what he was doing.” (Mack and Lawler 1) MSU softball player, Tiffany Thomas Lopez, had a similar story. She told three athletic trainers and one staff member that she had been abused by Nassar. Once again it was dismissed, she was told “she was fortunate to receive the best medical care possible from a world-renowned doctor.

Jerry Sandusky was an assistant football coach at Penn State University from 1969 until his retirement in 1999. He was well respected and even founded a charity organization for disadvantaged youth. After his retirement, he was still frequently on campus due to his status as an esteemed coach and professor emeritus. During his 30 year tenure at Penn State and thereafter in his retirement, Sandusky was involved in several incidents of lascivious behavior with minors.

The gymnasts are blamed for all of this and this is not right. They were not of age, they were manipulated and brainwashed and most of all, they were hurt and will never recover from this. First of all, the victims were too young to realize what was happening to them. As gymnasts got shielded from the public so they could train for their dream, whether this meant getting into college or training for the Olympics.

Key Facts and Issues In 1967, Jerry Sandusky was hired as the assistant coach under Joe Paterno at Pennsylvania State University. Throughout his career Jerry Sandusky was, according to Crandall, Parnell, & Spillan, 2014), described as a respected football coach and the founder of a charitable organization, The Second Mile, for disadvantaged youth. “Initially founded by Sandusky in 1977 as a group foster home for troubled boys, but grew into a non-profit organization that helps young people to achieve their potential as individuals and community members” (CNN, 2017). Little did the public know, Sandusky was a child molester, however, he was not undercover to some of the people, as we call them, the big wigs.

Jerry Sandusky, assistant football coach for Penn State by all outward appearances seemed to be an outstanding citizen who worked with the legendary Joe Paterno and founded The Second Mile, which was a charitable organization that helped disadvantaged youth. Unfortunately, for the children, Jerry Sandusky was also a serial child rapist. Another tragedy is that although you would think if anyone knew of the abuse, they would have helped these children, in this case, people in high places knew of the abuse and did nothing. Some of the most powerful people, which included President Graham B. Spanier, Senior Vice President-Finance and Business Gary C. Schultz, Athletic Director Timothy M. Curley and the Head Football Coach Joseph V. Paterno, at

As I read the coverage from CNN, I noticed that the paper was bias against Nassar from the very beginning. The started the story with; “Once a world-renowned sports physician treating America's foremost Olympic women gymnasts, Larry Nassar now will spend the rest of his life behind bars”(CNN). The start of this story is telling the reader that this man is no longer world-renowed sport physician. They continue the story with “The disgraced former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor was sentenced” (CNN). This sentence shows bias against Nassar.

“You can't trust a world-renowned doctor, who in the world who can you trust?” (Moghe, S and Del Valle, L, 2018) remarked Olivia Cowan, in a victim impact statement. This brings to light the factors that played to Nassar’s advantage and aided him in his sexual abuse of women. Two important factors were: role and status. Nassar’s status was that of a renowned, professional, physician which is a respected and high paying job, not to mention he was working for a well-known and highly respected organization2 at the time.

Even as a child, she had troubles such as developing later than the rest of the girls and her gymnastics coach jabbing her with a stick to get her splits flat. Once she is finally good at something, uneven bars, she messes up at a competition. This humiliates her because she is not the representative, which is what she wanted so badly. Then as she gets older, she grows and can no

To professional athletes, the game is their life. Athletes should not be stopped from playing because of risks when one can make that decision for themselves. People are working to make sports more safe and less risky by making improvements in the equipment used and prohibiting athletes from playing the game while injured. Also, athletes continue playing the sport even though it could potentially take a toll on their health. To begin with, improvements are being made to equipment to make sports more safe.

Lies Cost Lives Over 150 young women involved with USA Gymnastics (USAG) and Michigan State (MSU) recently came out as victims of sexual abuse. The culprit: their well-respected physician, Larry Nassar. The young gymnasts were required to see this physician, and, when a few brave girls tried to report him, they were shut down for being “disrespectful” or “insubordinate.” The organizations who supported Nassar, specifically USAG, MSU, and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), did nothing for these young women because they felt they needed to protect their and Nassar’s reputations as the best of the best.

Jody Miller’s, Getting Played, illustrates to the common eye, what young people have to do to survive on a daily basis in poor urban communities. These poor urban communities often have a negative connotation which usually scares off common folk. The residents of these communities are usually African Americans. They face challenges daily that common people wouldn’t even dream of worrying about. Jody Miller describes what makes girls go through these victimizations.

The internal stakeholders at Penn State were the students and the football players the football staff and the board members of Penn State. The way the internal stakeholders were affected is that some people lost their jobs. The football players by having wins taken away and losing bowl games. Some players looked up to the coach as a hero and he was telling them he did not know about it. The football player found out that Joe Paterno had known the whole time that the sexual abuse was happening.