Jamie Reidy comments on news that a group of former gymnasts have come forward thirty years later with allegations against Doug Boger.
CNN reporter Casey Wian reports that a group of former gymnasts charge their former elite level coach in Pasadena with rape and abusive behavior at practice.
By talking now, these women — now in their 40s and 50s — say their main focus is not necessarily to bring more charges against Boger. Rather, they want to make sure that no other girls, from here on out, have similar stories.
Julie Whitman, a former USA National Team member, said she began spearheading the effort after, about six years ago, she discovered that Boger was “still coaching.”
This kind of revelation is becoming all too familiar.
But the girls’ parents, in their efforts to make their daughters’ dreams come true, made a disastrous decision to relinquish access to the gym:
Most parents had no idea what was happening, partly because they’d signed a waiver that barred them from attending practices.
Say what?! You let somebody demand unsupervised time with your young girls? I don’t care if the guy is Obi Wan Kenobi and he promises to make her a Jedi; an adult doesn’t demand alone time with my child.
The most controversial part of this CNN story involves a man who would become the most powerful politician in Southern California:
In a different incident, Kathy Riordan, daughter of former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, recalled seeing a teammate, naked and running out of Boger’s bed during one road trip. She told her father, who called the teammate’s parents — only to be told that they “wanted to keep it quiet.”
“But I did bring Doug Boger down to my office,” Richard Riordan said. “And he denied everything.”.[***]
***FOLLOW UP (Wednesday April 4, 2012 4:26 EST):
Kathy Riordan has been in contact with The Good Men Project and would like to clarify the information that CNN has shared about the role of her father, former Mayor of Los Angeles, Richard Riordan. Kathy wrote:
Upon discovery of Boger’s crimes, my father called Doug to his office for a meeting with the US Attorney. After confronting Doug, my father was instrumental in having him released from the coaching program at my school (where he also taught) and continued to pursue criminal prosecution with law enforcement. Sadly, the victim’s parents opted not to get involved and prosecutors decided the child victims would not make good enough witnesses to obtain a conviction.
In addition he also called the parents of the Flairs gymnasts to warn them all about Doug
It saddens me that this important piece of information was left out of CNN’s story, leaving viewers, like you, to believe Doug Boger just got a “stern talking to.” My father did everything in his power to get him prosecuted and I am forever grateful that he did his part and more.
I hope that you make this correction or remove your inaccurate portrayal of a man who did what very few did back then.
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About Jamie Reidy
Okay, first off please tell me this guy isn’t the same Riordan who wrote the Percy Jackson books. I freaking love those books.
Anyway, I definitely have to agree that “mandatory unsupervised alone time” with my kid would’ve/SHOULD’VE been a huge red flag.
Nope, that author is RICK, not Richard.
I read the linked article, and it’s hard for me to see Riordan at fault here. He did do something when his daughter told him the story – he talked to the girl’s parents, who did not want to pursue the matter. He talked to the guy who, unsurprisingly, denied it, which is what an innocent person does, too. Is he supposed to go to the authorities about somebody else’s kid when that kid’s parents won’t cooperate, and he doesn’t have any direct evidence or confession of wrongdoing?
The article doesn’t give the timing of when Riordan’s daughter reported the incident with her friend, but another section does say:
So, without any evidence likely to lead to a successful prosecution, and possibly after one already led to acquittal (depending on the timing) how is anybody, even a mayor, supposed to report the beloved coach to police with most of the parents of alleged victims paying to defend him? The article contains other such examples of parents or former gymnasts either defending him or denying that anything improper ever happened.
When one of the accusers approached USA Gymnastics about him in 2008, did they immediately suspend him pending an investigation, or turn it over the police to handle? No, they suggested speaking to former teammates, who together finally convinced them a year later to do an official investigation. Then in 2010, they made him an “ineligible coach”. They didn’t turn him in or make it impossible to coach again somehow – they just made it so he couldn’t be one of their sanctioned coaches. All these years, then, there were victims, their parents, and people who administrated the official sanctioning bodies who were aware of the abuse or suspect abuse, and for various reasons, chose to let him keep coaching, and the one time he got prosecuted for something, he was acquitted. In this context, Riordan was just one more parent on the periphery of what was going on, not some central figure who alone had the evidence and wherewithal to stop a sex offender.
As happened with Paterno, I understand the urge to point the damning finger at one person who failed to report, and then demonize that person because then we can pretend we’d have acted differently. We’re not monsters like them, after all. The pressures against reporting are tremendous, though, and even people who *do* try to do something end up getting told not to, or see charges dropped or defendants acquitted after going ahead and doing the right thing. Both Paterno and Riordan did more than just ignore what they heard, so the failure to investigate and do anything to stop further abuse was shared by many, many people. Just like us.
Everyday we drop our children off at school and they are unsupervised with a teacher. What’s the difference? Children get abused and molested all the time at school. I tried to sit in on my son’s class once and they told me I’d have to “schedule” the visit so I wouldn’t disrupt the class. Ask your school what their rules are. Secondly, my parents never signed a waiver. They trusted this man because he established a trusting relationship over the years. They provided a loving, nurturing environment for me so, maybe you should blame me for not speaking up at 10 years old?! There’s one only person to blame here…Doug Boger.
I agree, FG, the “alone unsupervised time” is not the giant red flag some people make it out to be, because trusted people get that kind of time *all the time*. Teachers, coaches, doctors, babysitters, relatives, and even parents. It’s a common element in stories of abuse by a parent that the other parent did not believe or would not stop the abuse. Are parents supposed to not ever be left alone with a child because they might abuse them?
Adults aren’t supposed to abuse kids. That’s the default. It’s what we trust people to do, and most of the time that trust is well-founded. It would be logistically impossible and undesirable to treat all lone-adult supervision time as evidence of sex offender tendencies. We trust because we have to, and sometimes we make mistakes. That’s why this kind of thing is such a huge betrayal, and while the victims get the worst of it, all those people who trusted are secondary victims, not accomplices.
Also, the sexual assault is understandably getting all the attention in this story, but Boger also stands accused of non-sexual violence against his athletes like choking, pinning against walls, kicking, and burning with cigarettes. How many parents are rushing to the cops to report instances of non-sexual abuse by coaches? In some sports, some level of verbal and physical abuse is more or less expected to occur. (I think that’s fucked up, but I think it’s considered normal.)
FG, I’m not sure how this mess with Boger touched your life, and I’m not asking you to divulge details, but from the name and your comments it sounds like you were close to this situation, possibly even one of the victims, and I just want to express my deep sympathy at that. I’m glad that whoever came forward has come forward now. I was a victim of sex abuse at 14, and while I eventually heard that my abuser landed in prison as a sex offender, it still eats at me that I had nothing to do with putting him there. It *is not easy* to report.
And yes, USAG should have suspended Doug during our 2 year investigation. Instead they sent him to Russia as a world coach (on their dime) and awarded him coach of the year.
No, not boom done call the cops. Because most people don’t take one second-hand report that they’d rather think is a misunderstanding as instant proof that a person they’ve trusted to mentor their and other people’s children is a molester. He didn’t “do nothing”. He talked to the other girl’s parents, who did not apparently believe or want to do anything about it. He talked to the coach, who denied it.
What would you have him say if he boom calls the cops? “My daughter saw another girl coming out of the coach’s room naked on a trip. I wasn’t there and the naked girl and her parents won’t cooperate or testify against him, but go arrest him, now!”
If he had gone to the cops, do you think that without any cooperation from that victim or her family, and other athletes and their families lining up out the door as character witnesses, that the coach would have been stopped and sent to jail based on the mayor’s daughter telling an uncorroborated story about what she saw at gymnastics camp?
Why should Riordan be singled out as a villian in this story, when he acted as many reasonable people would, and did not encounter enough evidence or cooperation from the people he *did* talk to, to get anything done about it, even if he had suspicions? You can’t be judge, jury, and executioner based on a hunch or yucky feeling.
It all looks obvious and proven now because we’re looking at several corroborating stories coming out years later, but that wasn’t the context Riordan – or any of those other people who “failed” the girls – was acting in. I’m sure Riordan and others are kicking themselves now for not investigating or acting sooner, just like articles like this kick them, but they were just people doing what people do with very difficult-to-believe information about people who are by all accounts, model citizens with lots of people ready to stick up for them. They didn’t have the benefit of an expose and joint allegations several years later that would make it all look so obvious and the moral decisions so easy.
Can you correct the name in the subtitle to Doug BOGER? Thanks.
I want to applaud Richard Riordan for coming forward now. What took part with his daughter and the coach was in the very early 70s. There was a court case in 1982 – none of the current accusers were part of that trial.
There is only one bad guy in this story. AND there is a bad national governing body (USA Gymnastics) that construes the wording of the Ted Stevens Act to protect the rights of convicted sex offenders and abusive coaches rather than to truly protect that child athletes that it serves.
Please sign this petition to keep this coach as well as convicted sex offenders out of kids’ sports:
http://signon.org/sign/amendment-to-the-ted
[Ed. note: Thank you for the correction to the subtitle. The misspelled name has been fixed.]
Upon discovery of Boger’s crimes, my father called Doug to his office for a meeting with the US Attorney. After confronting Doug, my father was instrumental in having him released from the coaching program at my school (where he also taught) and continued to pursue criminal prosecution with law enforcement. Sadly, the victim’s parents opted not to get involved and prosecutors decided the child victims would not make good enough witnesses to obtain a conviction.
In addition he also called the parents of the Flairs gymnasts to warn them all about Doug
It saddens me that this important piece of information was left out of CNN’s story, leaving viewers, like you, to believe Doug Boger just got a “stern talking to.” My father did everything in his power to get him prosecuted and I am forever grateful that he did his part and more.
I hope that you make this correction or remove your inaccurate portrayal of a man who did what very few did back then.
Hi Kathy,
Thanks so much for clarifying that. Jamie Reidy (the author of this post) is on an airplane and wants me to express our apologies over this confusion.
It truly is sad that CNN misrepresented your father’s role in this tragedy and truly changes the nature of this scandal. We’re incredibly sorry to have followed CNN’s (misguided) lead and we will make note of this retraction in the blog.
We greatly appreciate your reaching out to us. We’d love to set the record straight on this matter.
Joanna Schroeder, Senior Editor of The Good Men Project
Thank you very much Ms Schroeder and Mr Reidy. I appreciate your apology, planned retraction/setting the record straight and desire to maintain journalistic integrity.
There was so much not told. I’d be “happy” to fill in the blanks someday if you wish.
Thanks again–Kathy
Marcus….I like your style. I’m currently very active in the current crusade going on. Changes need to be made within USAG and the current statute of limitations needs to be changed. No sex offender should be allowed to own a gym and be able to participate at USAG events. That loophole needs to be closed…something CNN didn’t touch on much.
Sadly….my parents never received a call from Richard Riordan. His daughter was there years before I was.