USA Swimming Families, Sponsors, Fans: End the Sex-Abuse Cover-Up

Published May 17th, 2012

Arrests this week of coaches in Tennessee and Pennsylvania highlight the continuing culture of denial and cover-up of sex abuse at USA Swimming, the national Olympics movement’s Congressionally sanctioned supervisor of competitive youth swimming….

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Published May 17th, 2012

In 2010, and in the wake of an investigation by ABC’s 20/20, International Swimming Hall of Famer David Berkoff painstakingly compiled a list of swimming coaches and other figures in the sport, throughout the world, who were accused of sex abuse and other misconduct. Berkoff included cites to the publication of these allegations. During the same period, he was appointed to the board of directors of USA Swimming.

This year, in a lawsuit by swimmer Jancy Thompson, Berkoff’s list became a public record. I am now publishing that list; it can be downloaded at http://muchnick.net/berkofflist.pdf.

In publishing the Berkoff list, I am motivated by the goal of further and redundantly documenting cases of youth coach sex abuse. This publicity could help prevent future victims, such as those of coaches Christopher Johnson in Tennessee and Kenneth Fuller in Pennsylvania, which were reported in the earlier item today on this blog….

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Published May 18th, 2012

(The author of this guest column is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy. A combat-decorated naval aviator, Jeff Renwick is currently a captain for a major airline. His wife Cary, a graduate of the United States Military Academy [West Point], swam collegiately and represented the U.S. at the 1995 Military World Games in Rome.)