Tag: sexual abuse

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Abusers, enablers, and glory

He’s a predator, no doubt.

He stalks a victim, grooms a victim, lures a victim. He’s a master of charm, deception, distraction.

Hey, look over here. A championship. A scholarship. Golly, would ya look at that. It’s a seat on the national team. A shot at Olympic glory.

Nothing else to see here. Just a string of winners.

Bring those kids, parents. Give ‘em to me. I’ve got what it takes to get ‘em to the top.

Pay no attention to the sick son of a bitch behind the curtain.

A guy you’ve never heard of made headlines last month:

https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/a-coach-accused-again-and-again/ 

Not patriotic: USRowing has some work to do.

Continue reading “Abusers, enablers, and glory”

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Courage and Redemption

Room 103
– A Title IX Drama –

Room 103 is a stage play set on a contemporary college campus. Warning, what follows involves sexual violence, courage, entitlement, narcissism, and the troubling level of privilege we afford student athletes.

Title IX, signed into law over fifty years ago, is well-known for requiring gender equity in college sports. It goes way beyond that, prohibiting discrimination and harassment on the basis of sex among all students in schools that receive federal funds. Sexual assault is a violent form of discrimination and harassment, and is investigated by the school’s Title IX enforcement office separately from any criminal charges that may be filed.

Many thanks to the survivors of sexual violence whose courage is the inspiration for this work.

Continue reading “Courage and Redemption”

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Room 103 Act I

Room 103
– A Title IX Drama –

Room 103 is a stage play set on a contemporary college campus. Warning, what follows involves sexual violence, courage, entitlement, narcissism, and the troubling level of privilege we afford student athletes.

For a cast list, scene summaries, and basic stage instructions, please click here.
All material copyright (c) 2023 by William Walker. Contact at rubycreekboathouse@gmail.com

 

Act I

Scene 1

Room 101 – Barbara Woods’ office, untidy, stacks of papers, cheap furniture: desk, conference table, 8 chairs.

Barbara Woods, preparing for an interview, sits at her desk urgently reviewing papers. If stage allows, could show Nancy Doe waiting next door in Room 103, in shadows.

PAULINA NETTLES (knocks, enters, seems harried):            What are you doing, Barbara? Aren’t you coming?

BARBARA WOODS (baffled):            Coming where?

PN:                  Barbara… softball stadium. There’s a-

BW:                 Oh yeah. Can’t. I’m booked. Got an interview waiting in 103. With another in 105 right after.

PN:                  President Clemons just called. He expects us all there. He’s not gonna be happy.

Continue reading “Room 103 Act I”

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Room 103 Act II

Room 103 
– A Title IX Drama –

Room 103 is a stage play set on a contemporary college campus. Warning, what follows involves sexual violence, courage, entitlement, narcissism, and the troubling level of privilege we afford student athletes.

This is Act II. To start at the beginning, please go to Act I here.
For a cast list, scene summaries, and basic stage instructions, please click here.
All material copyright (c) 2023 by William Walker. Contact at rubycreekboathouse@gmail.com

 

ACT II

Scene 1

A week later – August 3
Leaving Room 101

Pop Hughes and Welly Harris, outside Barbara Woods’ office

POP HUGHES (pacing):    Suspended? It’s the first week of August! Three months delay, for this! You’re suspended?

Continue reading “Room 103 Act II”

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Why do we have to learn sad things?

It was just another tweet from a tweeter on the twitter, a quick stop on a casual scroll down the screen. Then I hit the brakes. 
 
“Today when I taught my 8th graders about the Indian Removal Act,” the tweeter tweeted, “one asked why they have to learn sad things, and I would love to hear your gentlest, sincerest responses to the 13-year-old behind that question.”
 
As my brain scratched around for suitable 280-character wisdom, I read through the replies. And they were gold. 
 
You can find that tweet, with all the beauty and power in those replies, right there on the twitter:
 

 

And a tiny sampling of those replies… Continue reading “Why do we have to learn sad things?”

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Sons and feminism and raising ’em right

Review: How to Raise a Feminist Son by Sonora Jha, PhD
Sasquatch Press USA, Penguin Random House India, 2021
Goodreads: 4.46 / 5

“Mind if I borrow that opening line?”

Dr. Sonora Jha glanced up at me, taken aback. Clearly this tall old white man, a goofy grin pasted on his face, was oblivious to his own privilege. And he was messing with her.

She was fresh off her keynote speech at a writers’ conference and I was just one among dozens of eager fans who tried to catch her ear as she worked her way out the door. But she paused with a gracious smile. Continue reading “Sons and feminism and raising ’em right”

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Poetry in the Dirt

Wrigley Field

Not many years ago, my late father woke me up at 3AM. He’d been gone nearly a decade by then. But his “Hey! Billy! Write this down!” yanked me from bed, and I ran to the kitchen only to find myself alone, Dad still long dead, and my fingers typing five stanzas he’d dictated to me as I slept.

But I’m no poet.

With that in mind, my daughter – she’s my daughter and my muse – convinced me in 2019 to do this poetry challenge called EscApril. Writers use that happy spring month to crank out 30 poems in 30 days, with a daily prompt to get started. I had silly fun with it, and did it again last year in the second month of lockdown. That made it extra fun.

Then she asked if I planned to do EscApril again this year.

This time I actually challenged myself. This time I decided all 30 poems would relate to themes, characters, and scenes in Diamonds and Dirt. …while using the prompts given by The EscApril People. Whoever they are.

It’s baseball, lies, abuse, revenge… fun stuff. Enjoy responsibly.

https://www.playininthedirt.com/about/poetry-huh/

 

 

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This news is too damn real

It was that moment. That surreal moment.

You wake up, take a break in the real world from that novel you’re writing… and the real world creeps right into the novel, or the fiction creeps into the news, or what the hell just happened? 

Amy Carnell comes up on the page. And she comes up on the TV screen. But not for the reason you’d think. The former youth soccer sensation, later an exec with the Sounders and the Seattle Reign, alleges sexual abuse twenty years ago by her youth coach.  


Carnell’s story featured by Hana Kim, Q13
At top: Creeper. (Seattle Times/Amy Carnell)

Continue reading “This news is too damn real”

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Naz Carter’s no-look pass

Naz was the story.

It was a pump-fake, behind-the-back, if-you-blinked-you’d-miss-it kinda story.

Still, like too many other stories, he was the story. All about him. His lost promise. His choice to leave the team. A great opportunity in a new country. Those high flying dunks we’ll never see again.

Carter: see ya. (Lydia Ely, UW Daily)

And like too many other stories, the victims were lost in the ether. They weren’t the story. Their pain, their confusion, their newfound status as targets of threats and accusations — none of that was the story. Until one of them stepped up and said something. Because nobody else, not those whose job it was to say something, not those whose job it was to protect her, nobody else was going to say anything.

So this post won’t be about him. This post is just a bunch of baffled questions. Continue reading “Naz Carter’s no-look pass”

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Courage… Step by Step

What Is a Girl Worth?: My Story of Breaking the Silence and Exposing the Truth About Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics – by Rachael Denhollander

Available from Amazon in hardcover, Kindle version, and audiobook.
Or from your local library.

The specifics of what he did… Horrendous. Enraging. It’s all laid out in the book. The callous disregard for the well-being of the very athletes he was famous for treating. The brashness to violate girls right there in the exam room with their mothers a few feet away. The manipulation of their minds to believe he was doing nothing wrong, that they were twisted if they said something about it. The sheer numbers of girls and women he assaulted. Continue reading “Courage… Step by Step”