weird situation.... any advice?

delfin

delfin

Cathlete
Here's a very strange situation. My DD is on a gymnastics team, and practically all of the girls have noticed that the male coach is "obsessed" and "in love with" one of the girls, giving her lots more attention and trying to help her do skills that are very advanced for her. He has also allowed her to bow out of the push ups, etc. This has become a major issue with all of the other girls... and is IMO creating stress on the team.

Maybe I'm just a suspicious person, but this is raising a red flag with me. It just seems weird. Maybe it's a "teacher's pet" kind of situation, but it still bugs me. The problem is, I don't know if there's anything I can do about it. And, frankly, if it was my child he was "obsessed with", I wouldn't be happy about it. Any advice?
 
Is there anyone higher up (like an athletic director) you can report your concerns to? Or can you speak with the girl's parents? That IS very, very creepy, if you ask me. Never mind the morale on the team, I think any MAN paying a lot of attention to an underaged girl is just plain wrong.

Good luck, I know it might be an uncomfortable conversation, but the girl may not feel that she can say anything on her own.

Marie
 
Thanks, Janie, but the team is not a school team, so there is no principal to tell. There is a head of the gymnastics program, but I don't even know how I could approach the subject. And, well, telling the parents wouldn't work, because they'd probably think the girls were over reacting, and maybe just jealous of the attention their daughter's getting. At first, I thought my DD was overreacting, but after hearing more of the actual details, I realized that the girls were really upset about it, and it struck me as strange.
 
I think your concern seems warranted. We adults need to be aware that when kids say "obsessed" and "in love with" they can be meaning something different than what we interpret, but you have listened to details that verify your concern. Do talk to someone and be able to give specific instances. Playing favorites is one thing--not doing pushups perhaps is not fair, but that doesn't show any kind of improper advances or whatever, so be sure to be able to back up what you have to say. HTH
 
Ya know - I'm getting tons of red flags too. My question - would you be able to live with yourself if you discovered that something inappropriate (read - something capable of destroying this girl's life) WAS going on and you did not speak up? At the very least, you can tell the director that you are concerned that not everyone on the team is getting the same caliber of coaching and as you are all paying the same amount of money, this is not acceptable.
 
Delfin-is there anyway that you could observe a couple of practices and get an idea for yourself whats going on? Not to discount what the girls are saying because kids are pretty perceptive but you might want to get all the facts straight- we had a "situation" in our area a couple of years ago- and after this person was convicted everyone got together and was saying "well when he did this litt;e thing it seemed strange or that thing" but people were not really talking about it when the little things happened, it was afterward that people added up the strange little "incidents" that they were like- duh?-everyone was too afraid that they were being paranoid. Go see for yourself and then go with your gut feeling--deb
 
Yes, Deb, that's some very good advice. Normally, parents are discouraged from hanging around and watching (we're a distraction), but I may show up early to pick her up with my younger DD, who is starting gymnastics there in another program, and watch for a while. Another thing that has me concerned is my DD says that because this child is encouraged by the coach to try more advanced skills, she has had some pretty bad wipeouts... landing on her head/neck one time! I feel bad for this girl not only because of that, but because so many of the other girls are now so resentful of her. I keep telling my DD that it's not this girl's fault that she's getting all this extra attention, but I'm afraid that the resentment is turning into downright dislike among many of the team members. Very sad.
 
Hi - my DD is also in a gymnastics program. I would be very concerned if they do not let you observe. I understand that it is discouraged, but if you have a concern about how the practice is managed you are within your rights to observe. At the same time, I can't believe this type of behavior would go unnoticed by the other coaches and the director, but if it is, and nothing is being done, I would consider taking your DD to a different program. Something is very fishy about this coach. Good luck.
 
Delfin,

Please bring this to an administrator's attention with specifics. My former boss was a pervert and started his obsession with little girls on the swim team. I wish I would have observed his actions during the training and events; I would have reported him. None of the parents spoke up before he progressed in his sickness. He has since been caught, tried and locked up. I think a women's intuition is right on most of the time. Good Luck to you.
 
I think you should definitely investigate more, but it's possible that the coach has recognized an extraordinarily talented future gymnastics star, and is helping her work up to what he sees as her best potential. This could be the case as your DD has reported that the girl in question has been encouraged to try some very advanced moves. It may be that he thinks she doesn't need pushups, or pushups would not be good for her for some reason.

Certainly not defending this guy if the interest is in fact prurient, but I would encourage you to get some more info. first.

On Beryl Bender Brich's (or is Birch? can never remember) advanced yoga video, she spends an extraodinary amount of time helping one class member, a young man. He clearly is the teacher's pet, and a bit of a show-off, and it's not clear to me whether she's being flirtatious with him or just encouraging. They have a special relationship but it's hard to say why. However, this guy is clearly much more advanced than the rest of the class and he seems to have a "spark" when he does the very difficult poses, I could easily see him teaching yoga for the rest of his life and getting better and better. It sometimes disturbs me to watch the video because I'm a little flustered by that special relationship, but I don't know if I'm being unreasonable about it or not. That's the hard part with this stuff, sometimes we see things that aren't there, and sometimes we say "OH I sort of had a funny feeling about that, if only I'd listened to my instincts!"
 
Yes, Diane I definitely understand what you're saying. Maybe he's paying extra attention to this girl because she does show so much promise. But if that's so, wouldn't she consistently be outperforming the other girls? I don't think that's the case. And why the reports of the "wipe outs?"
But it could be as simple as two personalities just clicking right, as in the case of your yoga video. I think the difference, though, is in your video, they're all adults. Showering extra attention on a child in front of other children is naturally going to create resentment, jealousy, and unfortunately in this case, dislike, which is not what you want on a team sport.
I definitely think I need to see first-hand, with my own eyes, what is going on, instead of hearing all this second hand.
 
Delfin, yes I completely agree with you. Even if nothing yucky is going on, just singling out the girl all the time, to the exclusion of others, is terrible teaching. I so hope that nothing is going on for the sake of that one girl and also for the entire class! Keep us posted what you find out...
 
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