I am one of the lucky ones. I was not sexually abused by my doctor. I did get a playful slap on the butt and a hand on my shoulder, my knee, my arm, followed by an uneasy feeling and confused looks I shared with my mom. But what I have now is guilt, sorrow, and anger.
“Go see Dr. Larry Nassar,” my coach told me. “He’s one of — if not the — best. He knows gymnastics, he’ll know how to fix you.” So I did. I went to see Dr. Nassar at Michigan State University because he had treated Olympians — some of my gymnastics role models — and just getting on his schedule was an achievement.
By now, most people know who Larry Nassar is: the ex-Team USA Gymnastics physician who was recently sentenced to a total of up to 360 years in prison for sexually abusing more than 265 young girls over 20 years. While I was not sexually abused, some of my teammates were not so lucky.
In March of 2016, I visited Dr. Nassar for a knee injury I had for five years. We went to his office, I sat on the table, and he started asking me some basic questions: How long has your knee been bothering you? Was there a specific incident that triggered it? Does it hurt all the time or just at practice? These are all normal questions to be asked at a doctor’s appointment; what was not normal was the hand he placed on my knee. It was placed there as soon as I sat down, while I was just talking to him, not simply placed during the physical exam in a “let me feel it to see if anything feels out of place” way. It felt more like “I need to be touching you.”
I did not think too much of this at the time. I remember looking at my mom; we exchanged a nervous look but then wiped it from our minds.
As I was leaving, he slapped my butt.
I was 14, I did not realize what had happened, but it felt weird and unnatural. After I left Nassar’s office, my mom and I were relieved as well as a little giddy because he had not told me my gymnastics career was over. When we went to lunch, we talked about how nice it was that he understood women’s gymnastics so well, how laid-back and friendly he seemed, and how strange it was that he was so comfortable around a teenage girl, easily chalking it up to his years around gymnastics.
But when the scandal broke six months later, it all made sense.
In September of 2016, Rachael Denhollander told The Indianapolis Star a story of Nassar sexually abusing her, and no one believed her. That is, until hundreds of others came forward with similar experiences. Nassar had gained their trust, manipulated them, and used them for his personal pleasure without concern as to how it would affect them. People said he was a master physician, and they were right about that, and about one other thing: he was a master at hiding in plain sight behind the thin veil of reported medical treatments.
But how could this happen? And how did it stay hidden for 20 years?
The answer is in large part due to the environment many gyms across the country have created. High level gymnastics is intense; the best coaches put their time and energy into their gymnasts because they know what we are capable of, and get frustrated when we fall short. There is no time for complacency, and our coaches are always trying to light a fire under us, pushing us further than we think is possible.
My head coach, who I know truly cares about and believes in me, is a two-time Olympian from Bulgaria, so it does not seem to surprise anyone that his style of motivation and coaching can be a bit harsh at times:
“You’ll never be as good as her,” “you’re wasting my time,” and “that was garbage” are phrases that are often heard in the gym. There was even a two-week period when my coach did not talk to me at all, not one word, because he was so disappointed with my performance in practice — even when I thought I was doing well.
In situations like this, gymnasts want a way to physically escape. For my teammates and me, it is “going to the bathroom” for a chance to sit in the locker room, to take a deep breath, and regroup. For many others, apparently it was going to see Nassar.
The environment at the Karolyi Ranch in Texas — the now-closed gym where the national gymnastics team trained — was reportedly so toxic that going to visit Nassar for “treatments” became many gymnasts’ safe haven. In their victim impact statements read in court, survivors talked about how he would provide them with snacks, treats, and gifts, giving them a perceived safe space away from the intensely negative verbal and emotional treatment they received in the gym.
Gymnasts from Twistars USA Gymnastics Club in Lansing, Mich. — where Nassar was given a private room in the back by his lifelong friend John Geddert — can no doubt relate to the gymnasts at the Karolyi Ranch. Geddert, the now-retired Twistars owner and head coach, was just like the coaches at the Ranch in the negative training environment he created. His methods were apparently so horrible that he was suspended by USA Gymnastics on Jan. 22 because of accusations of his abusive behavior. Friends have told me that he has been known to throw water bottles, shove gymnasts into the apparatus, and force them to continue practicing even when they had gotten injured. Similar to the gymnasts at the Karolyi Ranch, some at Twistars have said they would go to Nassar to escape their screaming coach.
Why do people let Geddert and others get away with this awful behavior? It’s simple:
Success.
Geddert is one of the most successful coaches in the gymnastics world, having coached Jordyn Wieber and the Fierce Five to their fame in the 2012 London Olympics.
Despite their gold medal achievements from that year, the biographies of those five gymnasts will be tainted by their inclusion in this scandal.
I am angry that for most Americans, when they think about gymnastics, this scandal is what that they will think of. Specifically, they will remember the hundreds of young women as victims — overlooking the hard work, determination, perseverance, strength, beauty, and grace that are hallmarks of a gymnast’s personality.
As each survivor stood up and revealed her story, it clearly empowered others to speak up as well. In fact, the trial lasted days longer than originally planned because more people requested time to confront their monster face-to-face.
As I watched the impact statements, I was shocked to see so many familiar faces. I find out weekly that more and more of my friends were abused by Nassar.
I feel guilty that I was lucky and did not have to live through the horrific experiences they did. My mom feels guilty that she brought me to this monster, that in doing what everyone had said was the best thing for me, she was putting me directly in harm’s way.
I was so close.
She also shares that sense of guilt for the relief she feels knowing it was pure luck and timing that protected me, when some of her friends and their daughters were not as lucky.
While so many have called Judge Rosemarie Aquilina a hero for her support of the survivors as they confronted Nassar in her courtroom, all she really did was sit on the bench, uphold the law, and tell another adult how despicable he is. I am extremely thankful to her for helping each of the survivors find the strength to do what they did, but calling her a hero is a bit of a stretch. It is my hope that anyone in her position would have given him the same sentence, found him just as repulsive.
To me, the true heroes are the hundreds of young women who stood up and shared their stories when what they had been told to do for so long was sit down and stay quiet.
The victims were shut down time and time again because no one wanted to “rock the boat.” No one wanted to see just how monstrous this man was, or do anything to compromise the national and international success USA Gymnastics was having.
“If you bring this to higher authorities, it will start a huge scandal that you would not want to be a part of,” one victim was told by someone from USA Gymnastics. They chose to see these gymnasts as just that — gymnasts that should not worry about anything except winning for their team or country. They saw them as weak little girls that would not want to stand up for themselves because it would be too much for them to deal with. The culture they had kept these young women in was such that they were just little girls only focused on winning.
That is one of the things I am struggling with: how to change the culture. It is one thing to continue to empower the survivors to speak up, to break the silence and deny the perpetrator his power. But the culture needs to change from the top down.
The punishment should be on the coach who crosses the line or the doctor who abuses his position, not on the young woman working her butt off everyday to achieve her dreams. Silencing her is not the answer; shaming her is not the answer.
There seems to be a mentality in the sports world where performance is valued higher than protection. “Medals over morals,” I recently heard. People do not look under the surface because the team is winning! Be careful not to do anything to change that! What they fail to consider is that what is happening may not be straightforward, simple winning: The cost for these athletes may be emotional, physical, or even sexual abuse. It is not okay to ignore the safety and wellbeing of gymnasts for the sake of winning, because winning at all costs is actually losing in the long run.
If I could talk directly to each of the women who have come forward, I would say thank you.
Thank you for standing tall. I would tell her to never forget to speak up for herself. To remind herself that she matters, that her story matters. We all matter. Change can, should, and will happen everywhere if we listen, validate, and help each other. Thanks to the survivors speaking up, no more girls will ever become victims of Larry Nassar, and the topic of protecting the thousands of young female athletes is now in the forefront.
But will it happen again with a different monster?
The answer is more complicated than a simple yes or a no. If changes are not made to the system, yes, it will happen again. It is unlikely we will change the intense, often negative, environment that is created in the gym. What we can — and must — change is the expectation that speaking up will cause problems, problems people do not want to get their hands dirty with. We have to make that change to prevent this from ever happening again. It will not be easy and it will not be quick, but I am sure it will happen.
“How could you keep your daughter in a sport like this?” read a text my mom received after the survivors spoke at the trial.
We talked about this for awhile, because to people not directly involved with gymnastics, it may look like a toxic sport that ends in various types of abuse and injury. I suppose it is not surprising given that it is currently all that is being talked about.
But this sport has taught me things far greater than athletic routines: it has taught me that when you fall, you must get back up again; that given time, something that once seemed impossible can become possible; that when the world seems upside down, you have to flip yourself over to look at it differently; that there is multiple solutions to the same problem — if you cannot walk on your feet, you can walk on your hands; that pain is only temporary and does not define who you are; and that being brave when you feel weak is often the only option.
Just like my mom has been asked how she can continue letting me do this, I have been asked why I would want to. Why did those abused by him not simply quit? Not surprisingly, the answer is complex, but while I cannot speak for others, for me it comes down to a passion for this sport; a commitment to myself and my teammates to stick it out for the long run; and a determination to achieve my dreams and reach my potential.