{"id":6241,"date":"2012-10-28T09:55:04","date_gmt":"2012-10-28T17:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/concussioninc.net\/?p=6241"},"modified":"2024-05-29T17:03:35","modified_gmt":"2024-05-30T01:03:35","slug":"why-my-headlines-say-rick-curl-rapist-rather-than-rick-curl-who-allegedly-and-tragically-had-a-single-lapse-in-judgment-many-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/concussioninc.net\/?p=6241","title":{"rendered":"Why My Headlines Say ‘Rick Curl, Rapist’ Rather Than ‘Rick Curl, Who Allegedly And Tragically Had a Single Lapse in Judgment Many Years Ago’"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

A reader who says she was coached by Rick Curl even longer ago than Kelley Davies Currin emailed that she is offended by my repeated references to him as a “rapist.” My short answer to the woman is that, while she finds the word offensive, I find the act<\/em> offensive.<\/p>\n

More than cheap rhetorical points, however, are at stake in the framing of the Curl story.<\/p>\n

My correspondent says Curl coached her for more than 13 years, starting at age 5, both at the Curl-Burke Swim Club and on a summer country club team. She “spent some hours (alone!!) with Rick between ages 9 to 13 and didn’t have one single problem with him!”<\/p>\n

To which I say, whoopee. The fight to detox open amateur sports is not about the majority of girls who aren’t abused. It’s about the unconscionably high minority of girls who are<\/em> abused, brazenly, systematically, with consequences only for the victims and their rippling networks of families and loved ones. Further, the national odds against Kelley Davies having been Curl’s only victim are high.<\/p>\n

More from the Curl apologist: “As far as I know the relationship was not ‘rape’ but somewhat consensual (though of course she was 13 and he was 30 — allegedly — which makes consensual a suspect term but there was certainly no rape involved!!!).”<\/p>\n

This reminds me of Whoopi Goldberg’s comment on the charges against fugitive filmmaker Roman Polanski: “It wasn’t rape-rape.” But even Polanski was a renegade artist and flaunting figure of the Hollywood cocaine party scene, to which his underage partner may have aspired. Curl was a coach, a teacher with specific levers of power and influence over his underage sex partner, and his molestations were premeditated and recurred across all the years of his swimmer’s stunted adolescence.<\/p>\n

The law does not validate any measure of consent in such a “relationship.” Nor should we morally. The behavior acknowledged by Curl in his $150,000 “non-disclosure agreement” in 1989 stamps him as a rapist. When space permits and the delicate senses of his defenders are indulged, feel free to amend that to “statutory rapist” if it makes you feel better.<\/p>\n

In the end — and I don’t mean to sound callous toward the abuse survivors who have had the courage to come forward — this is not even about them. I am not a victimologist. The Curl case needs to be pursued to the fullest extent of the law, both in Maryland, where he has been arrested, and in Virginia, where a parallel felony investigation is pending. So does the Murray Stephens case at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, home of Michael Phelps. The reason is that the persistence of a culture of abuse and denial at USA Swimming is a generation-long saga.<\/p>\n

Draining this national swamp and disgrace will require the open recitation of hard facts in high-profile cases — which in turn, as in any profound scandal, will move the chain of responsibility and accountability upward, to the top of our Olympic swimming program. Only through such a process, which includes reflecting on the role of all of us rank-and-file parents in protecting our children, will meaningful reforms be possible.<\/p>\n

Irv Muchnick<\/em><\/p>\n

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