You started to notice this a couple of years ago, when top prospects, wanting to protect their health before heading into the NFL draft, would announce that they were skipping their team’s bowl games. …
Over the last couple of years, players skipping their bowl games became more and more common, and it is now, save for your occasional back-in-my-day cranky former players, generally accepted by coaches, fans, and media alike that any player who doesn’t skip a bowl game to preserve his draft status is doing himself a disservice. The game doesn’t matter, and hey, he’s not getting paid anyway. …
This is the peril of having a billion-dollar sport that doesn’t pay its players …
Category: ethics
Acrobats in Kenya
Veronique Sprenger spent 10 weeks training with this troupe in a slum called Kangemi in Nairobi.
She’s doing a Masters in International Development Studies at the University of Amsterdam on these athletes.
Watch all the way through. It’s impressive what they’ve accomplished with very little equipment. Tumbling on hard wood floor, for example.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Olympians call for Congressional USOC overhaul
Olympic diving champion Greg Louganis and nearly 50 other former Olympians are calling on Congress to overhaul the U.S. Olympic Committee, insisting a major reorganization of the USOC is needed to ensure athlete safety. …
Kathy Johnson Clarke and Julianne McNamara, members of the groundbreaking 1984 Olympic gymnastics team, and Marcia Frederick, the first American woman to win a World championship in gymnastics, are members of the group. …
Is It Bullying?
College gymnasts – narcotic pain meds
According to the recently released NCAA National Study on Substance Use Habits of College Student-Athletes, the proportion of women’s gymnasts who reported using narcotic pain medications — nearly 18 percent — is the highest among student-athletes in any sport.
Overall, the use of pain medication, both prescribed and nonprescribed, has decreased among student-athletes since the release of the last NCAA substance use study in 2014, but health care professionals still are examining how best to manage pain among college athletes. …
NCAA Vault judging is stupid
NCAA judging is stupid. But some of the craziest injustices occur on Vault.
Spencer tells us the REAL rules:
NCAA pretends that it follows the JO code of points, except it obviously doesn’t. Not even a little.
There’s a tremendous amount of subjectivity remaining in NCAA scoring, including an unwritten understanding regarding which deductions from the JO code actually count and which ones magically don’t for the purpose of scoring NCAA routines. …
WTF IS NCAA SCORING – VAULT EDITION
Bonus
Alicia agrees.
our inspiration – Maggie Nichols
On Jan. 9, 2018, Nichols, then a sophomore gymnast at Oklahoma, released an 898-word statement informing the world that she, too, had been sexually assaulted by former USA Gymnastics team physician Larry Nassar.
She let the world know that, in 2015, she and her coach were the first to report his abuse to USA Gymnastics, that she was the one who had been identified only as “Athlete A” in the reports of Nassar’s actions, which he inflicted under the guise of medical treatment on more than 300 victims. …
“I want everyone to know that he did not do this to Athlete A, he did it to Maggie Nichols,” Nichols wrote in the statement. …
2019 NCAA Inspiration Award: Maggie Nichols
Oklahoma gymnast hopes reporting abuse by USA Gymnastics doctor helps others feel empowered
keeping banned coaches banned
Nancy Armour, Rachel Axon and Brent Schrotenboer for USA TODAY:
1. Create a universal banned list.
2. Use existing enforcement mechanisms.
3. Require related youth-serving organizations to honor each other’s sanctions and share information on discipline.
Three keys to keeping banned coaches banned and children safe
Bridget Sloan interview
She talks about choosing Florida … over Utah and Georgia. Bridget Sloan won 3 Championships with the Gators. Everyone expected her to go to Georgia.
She speaks about her coach Marvin Sharp for the first time.
When she first heard about his suicide in 2015 — while a College Gymnastics superstar — she was confused and angry. Bridget broke her phone in frustration.
Her Mom thought she should come home to Indiana. Bridget refused.
Her parents felt betrayed too.
In fact, she felt guilty that she’d had such a good career with Marvin Sharp. Good memories over the 20 years. Bridget was not a victim of her coach. She looked up to Marvin as a second father.
At the time Bridget decided to stay quiet. She did speak to Sam Peszek about it at the time. Sam had also trained with Marvin Sharp after the Olympics.
Listen on the I Have Cool Friends podcast.
Nassar abused his friend’s 6-yr-old
The criminal doctor’s victimized the daughter of a close family friend. It started when Kyle Stephens was age-6.
She was not a gymnast. This was not fake medical treatments.
Kyle’s father refused to believe her. As a result, she hated her father for years. They finally reconciled before his death.
Very ill, Kyle’s Dad took his own life in 2016.
Kyle Stephens was first to testify.
Listen to episode 8 online. But know that it’s disturbing.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 
