David W. Chen from the New York Times takes a look at the US Tennis Association and its failure to protect young athletes from a serial sexual predator. Read the USTA Burgos story in full. Here is a summary:
According to the New York Times, with growing cases of sexual misconduct between sports coaches and athletes, the United States Olympic Committee reported, in September 2014, that all sports, except tennis, had taken the initiative to protect athletes from abusers. At the time, Gordon Smith, the tennis association’s executive director, and chief operating officer, “objected to a ‘single mandatory national entity’ overseeing abuse cases across federations.” Adding that “a sport should be able to ‘opt-out of the centralized structure’ if it could police itself.”
The problem with self-policing has shown, however, that many abusers fall through the cracks. Just a few months before this 2014 meeting, a U.S.T.A. tennis coach, Normandie Burgos, had been arrested for abusing one of his athletes. Unfortunately, it was not his first time facing criminal charges for sexual misconduct. Source: New York Times