Miami Herald’s Jack Nelson Obit Doesn’t Mention Diana Nyad Abuse Allegations. Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel’s Does.
This Tells You All You’ll Need to Know About USA Swimming’s Whining About the Upcoming Article on Sex Abuse/Cover-Up in Outside Magazine
November 5, 2014Outside Magazine’s Table of Contents Listing for December Issue Article on USA Swimming Sex Abuse
November 6, 2014Look for the December issue of Outside magazine on newsstands starting November 11. Outside has published a 14-plus-page investigative package on the USA Swimming sexual abuse and cover-up scandals featured in Muchnick & Joyce’s writings at Concussion Inc.
by Irvin Muchnick
To its credit, Fort Lauderdale’s Sun Sentinel deals with the guts of Jack Nelson’s legacy – Diana Nyad’s thoroughly credible allegations that he sexually abused her and others – in the newspaper’s published obituary today.
The article was online yesterday, but I can’t provide a link today because it appears to be behind the newspaper’s paywall.
While the Sun Sentinel is making sure its USA Swimming history is accurate, the editors should go all the way and come clean about the 2004 complicity of their beat writer at the time, Sharon Robb, in actively helping Nelson, his Fort Lauderdale Swim Team, the Fort Lauderdale Parks & Recreation Department, and the Fort Lauderdale police cover up clandestine videotaping by Nelson’s assistant, Alex Pussieldi, of young swimmers he was housing – as well as the discovery of Pussieldi’s trove of recordings of his own sex acts with underage boy, and other abuses. See “New Fort Lauderdale Documents: Sun Sentinel Swimming Writer Offered Alex Pussieldi Help in Keeping 2004 Assault Allegations From Getting ‘Out of Hand’,” March 22, https://concussioninc.net/?=8852.
The Miami Herald’s Nelson obit today includes no mention of Nyad. The article by columnist Linda Robertson calls Nelson a “loquacious motivator.” Robertson also wrote the 2013 Herald feature touting Pussieldi’s Davie Nadadores operation – a year before Nova Southwestern University kicked the club off its campus and the team shut down, with Pussieldi “retiring” a step ahead of the announcement by Florida Gold Coast Swimming of his indefinite suspension. See “Miami Herald, National Swimming Media Contributed to Legend and USA Swimming Cover-Up of Coach Alex Pussieldi,” March 23, https://concussioninc.net/?p=8861.