" ...From Online PR News: Online PR News – 03-February-2010 – The San Jose personal injury law firm of Corsiglia, McMahon & Allard is vigorously pursuing its lawsuit against United States Swimming, Inc., also known as USA Swimming along with Pacific Swimming and San Jose Aquatics (Santa Clara County Superior Court, Case #109CV149813) as a result of sexual molestation acts committed against young teenage female swimmers by former San Jose Aquatics swim coach Andrew King, who was sentenced to 40 years in prison on Friday. As the national governing body, USA Swimming is responsible for selecting and training teams for international competitions including the Olympic Games.The link has further lurid details regarding the San Jose fiasco, and I am hoping that USA Swimming gets it and implements what one reader called the gold standard in protecting families and coaches. In fact here is his actual comment:The lawsuit claims that USA Swimming failed to conduct a proper background search on King at the time he was hired as the swim coach of San Jose Aquatics in December of 2000, and had they conducted such a background investigation, they would have discovered that King should never have been allowed to coach female swimmers.
In a deposition under oath, a former female swimmer of King described how Pacific Swimming board members referred to King as a 'pedophile' or 'child molester' in a joking manner, that King had a young teenage female swimmer living on his boat while at the same time King was staying with the parents of another teenage female swimmer that he was allegedly molesting as well. .."
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The BSA does and excellent job of keeping everyone above reproach. Their guidelines are "the gold standard". Sad to say, very few organizations or groups that work with youth (schools, churches, etc) have standards this high...if any. This standard works well for adults in business as well. If more adults adhered to it, there wouldn't be a problems with inappropriate conduct in the workplace.
5 comments:
No organization is immune to this stuff, sad but true:
http://www.postregister.com/scouts_honor/index.php
At the time of the 2000 incident, I don't believe USA Swimming was background checking anyone. Now all coaches are checked and red flagged if certain items come up in the check.
The bottom line - if you suspect something unsavory is happening on a club between a coach and an athlete, contact the club administration and let them know you are going to file a complaint with the police! That's the best way to handle it.
Read the Boy Scout policy. It would have prevented all of it even if they knew he was a pedophile. It's that strong of a document
People need to be background checked, esspecially if working with kids! Laws do need to be put into place, but they need to be effective. You need to ensure safety without hapmering the sport.
My take is that a club or kids group should have a protection policy so thorough and so comprehensive that a background check would not even be necessary. The policy I linked to is the best one I could find.
I think it's great you're championing this and hope your suggestions get implemented - I think it's appalling they don't even reply.
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