Tuesday, August 21, 2012

David Berkoff in an email to Jeff Chida discusses the rampant sexual abuse in the sport - Does he allude to Rick Curl?

David Berkoff is both an Olympian and currently sits on the Board of Directors at USA Swimming. When running for the position of board member he was highly critical as to how USA Swimming was addressing the rampant sexual abuse within the sport and summarily made promises as to what he would do if elected.

I endorsed him when he was running and I even turned my head the other way when he borrowed form this blog in a long "manifesto" he posted in the comments section to a Swimming World article.

Once elected, it was as if all his rhetoric in those private emails and the postings on message boards was nothing but election rhetoric. He signaled "left" but he turned "right."

Here is an email written by Berkoff to Jeff Chida which demonstrates this.

From Concussions Inc.  
“...Denying knowledge of [REDACTED] and others banging their swimmers! It’s a flat out lie. They knew about it because we (coaches and athletes) were all talking about it in the late 1980′s and early 1990′s. I was told by several of [REDACTED] swimmers in 1988.… I was told [REDACTED] was molesting [REDACTED] for years starting when she was 12 by some of the Texas guys. ...”

Once again I remind readers of what 1988 and 1992 Olympic medley relay gold medalist David Berkoff said in a 2010 email to Jeff Chida, a swimming parent, shortly after ABC’s 20/20 blew the cover off USA Swimming’s decades-long cover-up of coach sex abuse.

Was Berkoff talking about Rick Curl, now on “provisional suspension” after exposure last month of his molestation of his swimmer Kelley Davies through the early 1980s at the ages o 13, 14, and 15 – followed by Curl’s payment of $150,000 in hush money to the Davies family? Berkoff won’t say. Now USA Swimming’s technical vice president, Berkoff defiantly maintains that the organization takes care of its own because it is “family.” Graham Spanier, the disgraced former president of Penn State, probably believed the same of his institution. So did Don Vito Corleone. ..." 
[Link]

This article is shocking and goes into explicit detail about how Rick Curl allegedly groomed his victim and allegedly abused his victim for years all from the alleged victim's point of view.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

If this article is true i'd say its time to tear down the Eddie Reese statue. No different than Joe Paterno!

Jeff Chida said...

email is about Rick Curl as you surmise.

Tony Austin said...

Jeff, thank you for coming forward. Apparently you are the only person who heard these rumors and witnessed unethical activity to come forward at great peril to your career.

Jeff Chida said...

Thanks Tony!

As much as I would like to waive a magic wand and remove all predator coaches (and their Paterno-like supporters) from USA Swimming...

It is not going to happen overnight as my son and daughter told me so last evening.

It took eight years to get a local coach to leave after a few days of the ABC 20/20 and ESPN exposes.

It wasn't USA Swimming that got him to leave (sadly)... but rather the mounting pile of evidence derived from the swimming community.

One person can't do it all.

And to be fair, neither can David Berkoff by himself.

It takes ALL of us involved along with a "SANE" process to get rid of the cancer of sexual abuse.