Don't wait. Investigate early and thoroughly. And most of all, put your athletes ahead of your organization. Those are the lessons USA Wrestling needs to take away from the sexual assault scandal involving athletes for USA Gymnastics and its former team doctor, Larry Nassar.
The world watched seven days of gut-wrenching testimony from more than 150 accusers of Nassar. A judge in Michigan sentenced Nassar, last week to between 40 and 175 years in prison for sexually abusing women and girls for decades. He has yet to be sentenced in a separate molestation case. Nassar was also sentenced to 60 years in federal prison for having child pornography on his computers and he faces more than 150 civil lawsuits filed by his accusers.
Make no mistake Nassar is the biggest villain in this tragedy, but there are others. USA Gymnastics is also named in some of the civil suits. Now two senators, one a republican and one a democrat, are calling for answers from USAG and two survivors of Nassar's abuse say USAG, along with Michigan State University where Nassar was also the team doctor, are institutions that are "diseased" and "rotting from the inside out."
Among the allegations against the organizations; that they ignored red flags and allowed a serial predator access to his victims for years.
Institutional complicity is nothing new. Think Penn State and Jerry Sandusky.
And unfortunately wrestling is no stranger to sexual predators. Think Dennis Hastert. The former Speaker of the House was convicted of paying hush money to a victim of sexual assault while Hastert was a high school coach and the victim was one of his underage wrestlers. He has admitted he sexually abused other wrestlers he coached as well. This is of course nothing on the scale of the Nassar allegations and it did not involve USA Wrestling.
But that is not to say USA Wrestling should be the ostrich with its head buried in the sand.
The fallout is just beginning for USA Gymnastics. The former CEO was forced out last year and now all of its board members have resigned. Also, the scandal is taking a financial toll. The group could lose millions of dollars from sponsors.
For USA Wrestling the blueprint going forward, if and when an allegation is made, should be clear. When someone comes forward is not a time to protect reputations and not a time to hide allegations. It's a time to take action, investigate vigorously and take immediate steps to prohibit any recurrence or additional victimization.
Most of all it's a time to send a message loud and clear that USA Wrestling maintains a culture and atmosphere of zero tolerance for this type of immoral and criminal behavior.
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