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Post by mikegarrison on Apr 16, 2022 15:15:26 GMT -5
I keep circling back to my comment about professional ethics. I completely agree that it is unprofessional to get involved with one of your *current* players.
But people are people, and I'm not going to sit here and say I condemn Russ Rose for marrying someone that he used to coach. Especially since they have been married for so long. I'm also not going to speculate on when their romantic or sexual relationship started just based on their wedding date.
There are reasons why sexual harassment is a quite complicated issue, and one of those reasons is that if the relationship is welcomed by both parties, then it pretty much by definition is not sexual harassment, regardless of what outsiders might think of it.
There is a huge difference between having a string of teenage "ex-girlfriends" who you coached versus falling in love with and marrying a single ex-player who must have been in her early 20s at that point. In fact, let me say that I actually think it trivializes the harm that Butler did to his victims by equating it to something like Rose marrying a former player.
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Post by colonial2415 on Apr 16, 2022 22:01:43 GMT -5
I keep circling back to my comment about professional ethics. I completely agree that it is unprofessional to get involved with one of your *current* players. But people are people, and I'm not going to sit here and say I condemn Russ Rose for marrying someone that he used to coach. Especially since they have been married for so long. I'm also not going to speculate on when their romantic or sexual relationship started just based on their wedding date. There are reasons why sexual harassment is a quite complicated issue, and one of those reasons is that if the relationship is welcomed by both parties, then it pretty much by definition is not sexual harassment, regardless of what outsiders might think of it. There is a huge difference between having a string of teenage "ex-girlfriends" who you coached versus falling in love with and marrying a single ex-player who must have been in her early 20s at that point. In fact, let me say that I actually think it trivializes the harm that Butler did to his victims by equating it to something like Rose marrying a former player. Hey Mike, you're a bit twisted in your ethics. So by your theory, if I were an intercollegiate coach, I could recruit a player, then coach her for four years, then after she graduates, start an intimate relationship with them and that is OK to you, only if, we live happily ever after and till due us part? What happens if we break up? What happens if I date another player after they graduate? Where do you draw the line? You have mentioned Russ Rose, well if you knew then that he was dating a former player back when it was happening does that make it OK, or is it OK because they are still together? Know who else dated and married a former player Bob Bertucci (the same guy who just slapped his player on the bench). I coached club back in the early 2000s. Bertucci was recruiting a player of mine and the athlete's parent's actually asked me if he was "the coach" who dated and married his player from back over 20+ years ago. What does that tell you? To be honest, those coaches should have been held accountable. But back then that kind of behaviour was acceptable and pushed under the rug. Are you going to sit and tell me that when these men coached their future wives, there was no flirting or grooming? Please. No coach of any kind should be able to have an intimate relationship with any player current or former. Plain and simple.
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Post by mikegarrison on Apr 16, 2022 23:51:06 GMT -5
I'm pretty comfortable with my ethics, thank you. I happen to think that adult people make their own decisions, and that college students are adult people.
I think a lot of parents have a hard time dealing with the fact that their college-aged kid is now an adult, rather than still their precious darling. I know my parents struggled with this, and I've seen it happen again and again with a lot of other parents. Especially the first time one of their kids reaches that sort of independent age.
There are professional reasons why it is not good for coaches to get romantically/sexually involved with their current players. It's not really good for the player, or the coach, or the team. But IMO none of those apply once they are no longer their current players.
I actually don't think it matters ethically if the relationship lasts one month or 50 years. I mean, I've been in relationships that lasted years and some that lasted months, and the difference wasn't my sincerity. It was that things just didn't work out. But I do think that if it lasts for many years it pretty much proves that it was sincere.
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trojansc
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Post by trojansc on Apr 17, 2022 0:09:52 GMT -5
No coach of any kind should be able to have an intimate relationship with any player current or former. Plain and simple. Do Graduate Assistants or student support staff count in this statement? Just curious. They could easily be the same age if not younger in some instances.
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Post by mikegarrison on Apr 17, 2022 0:58:34 GMT -5
No coach of any kind should be able to have an intimate relationship with any player current or former. Plain and simple. Do Graduate Assistants or student support staff count in this statement? Just curious. They could easily be the same age if not younger in some instances. Age difference between adults is their own business, IMO. But yeah, it's a silly absolute statement. What happens if a coach runs into a former player 15 years later, and they get interested in each other and start dating? By colonial2415's criterion, that would be completely out of bounds and unacceptable.
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Post by colonial2415 on Apr 17, 2022 1:53:02 GMT -5
No coach of any kind should be able to have an intimate relationship with any player current or former. Plain and simple. Do Graduate Assistants or student support staff count in this statement? Just curious. They could easily be the same age if not younger in some instances. Of course. If you coached them, you should not be dating them. Out of all the people in the world, you need to date a current or former player?
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Post by colonial2415 on Apr 17, 2022 1:57:43 GMT -5
I'm pretty comfortable with my ethics, thank you. I happen to think that adult people make their own decisions, and that college students are adult people. I think a lot of parents have a hard time dealing with the fact that their college-aged kid is now an adult, rather than still their precious darling. I know my parents struggled with this, and I've seen it happen again and again with a lot of other parents. Especially the first time one of their kids reaches that sort of independent age. There are professional reasons why it is not good for coaches to get romantically/sexually involved with their current players. It's not really good for the player, or the coach, or the team. But IMO none of those apply once they are no longer their current players. I actually don't think it matters ethically if the relationship lasts one month or 50 years. I mean, I've been in relationships that lasted years and some that lasted months, and the difference wasn't my sincerity. It was that things just didn't work out. But I do think that if it lasts for many years it pretty much proves that it was sincere. Sure college students are adults, absolutely. So why would college student be dating their coach then? Why would an intercollegiate coach be dating a college student? Just professional reasons why a college coach should not be involved with their players? Just professional? Not ethical or even moral (depending on the individual).
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Post by mikegarrison on Apr 17, 2022 10:07:32 GMT -5
I'm pretty comfortable with my ethics, thank you. I happen to think that adult people make their own decisions, and that college students are adult people. I think a lot of parents have a hard time dealing with the fact that their college-aged kid is now an adult, rather than still their precious darling. I know my parents struggled with this, and I've seen it happen again and again with a lot of other parents. Especially the first time one of their kids reaches that sort of independent age. There are professional reasons why it is not good for coaches to get romantically/sexually involved with their current players. It's not really good for the player, or the coach, or the team. But IMO none of those apply once they are no longer their current players. I actually don't think it matters ethically if the relationship lasts one month or 50 years. I mean, I've been in relationships that lasted years and some that lasted months, and the difference wasn't my sincerity. It was that things just didn't work out. But I do think that if it lasts for many years it pretty much proves that it was sincere. Sure college students are adults, absolutely. So why would college student be dating their coach then? Why would an intercollegiate coach be dating a college student? Just professional reasons why a college coach should not be involved with their players? Just professional? Not ethical or even moral (depending on the individual). Professional ethics are ethics. Why would two people be dating each other? Um, probably because they wanted to date each other. Call it love, call it loneliness, call it chemistry, call it what you like. If it didn't exist, this would be the last generation of humans, would it not? And moral? What's immoral about people dating each other? Happens all the time. Probably you have done it. If you have a kid, pretty certainly you have done it. Taking advantage of someone? Using a position of power and authority to gain sexual advantage? Yeah, that's immoral. But I am certainly not going to categorically state that every relationship between a coach and a player (or especially not an ex-player) falls into that band. Sometimes people just meet other people, you know? It happens. I take it from your comments that you are a club or high school coach, used to working with teenagers or maybe even pre-teens. My own coaching experience (which is not in volleyball) is exclusively with adults (typically anywhere from grad student age to late middle age), and I have what is likely a completely different perspective on the issue. College coaches fall into that in-between zone, where the students/players/whatever-you-want-to-call-them are adults, but young adults. I have seen people who treat coaching adults as a sort of meat market, but then again I have seen adults take classes in order to meet people too, and that can include the coaches. With adults, if everyone involved is consenting and happy about it, that's their business. But if they aren't happy about it, it can be a problem. Like if you sign up for, I don't know, a pottery class, and the instructor is way more interested in hitting on you than teaching you pottery? That's BS that you shouldn't expect to be dealing with. I used to coach in one class that was pretty notorious at times for people hooking up. Students and students, instructors and instructors, students and instructors. We were all adults, mostly all in our 20s-40s, and we were all members of the same mountaineering club. All the instructors were volunteers. I would not say the purpose of the class was to be a meat market, but there were a lot of hookups. None of us had much power over each other, except maybe for some lead instructors who were able to kick out other instructors and also had originally selected the students. So yeah, they were potentially in a position to be stacking the dice in their favor. On the other hand, we were also all aware that what we were teaching people about was literally life and death dangerous. So people were pretty damn serious about not screwing around with the actual instruction. And if somebody was really only there to try to hook up, they were usually discouraged from that. But you stick a bunch of single adults together in a pretty intense class that lasts for 3-4 months and involves a lot of weekend time together, and some folks are going to end up getting involved with each other. The reason it's a professional problem, though, is that it's distracting to the learning environment. And can lead to favoritism or perceived favoritism. And it can mess up the coaching dynamic. And people should be coaching because they like coaching, not because they are looking to get laid. So for all those reasons, it is good professional ethics to, as much as possible, try to keep that personal stuff out of the coaching relationship. On the other hand, my own personal experience teaches me that if two people find each other and fall for each other, they are idiots to let something like this get in the way of maybe making each other happy. I think then they need to find a way to avoid the problem. Like find another coach, or wait until the coaching is done, or if that doesn't work, establish really clear roles so they know when someone is being "the coach" versus "the partner". All of this is super-complicated when you have a situation where the coach is an employee of something like a school or a business or something, because then you need to follow all their rules too. And these rules are in place for a reason. Bottom line is that people are complicated, but that doesn't mean it's automatically evil if a coach and a person they are coaching fall for each other. It *is* automatically evil for an adult to use a position of teaching children as access to sexually using those children. And I think equating the latter with the former really seriously underplays the evil of the latter.
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Post by d1athlete on Apr 18, 2022 21:28:58 GMT -5
d1athlete- "us" means the people Butler sexually abused. My understanding of the class action lawsuit is the judge thought there was credible evidence to believe us but that the judge wanted the prosecutor to pick a different lead and actually gave them a chance to do so. They disagreed and appealed the judge's decision/request to a higher court which they are now waiting on a decision for. I don't think they lawyers even asked any of the other 1300 to take Mullen's role. But you are right, Butlers have a habit of bullying people into silence. But what I am saying is I would not assume that is the case here and then use that assumption to say there is nothing there. Butler did rape us, we were under 18 yo when he first abused all of us. End of story. I would not say everything was "acquitted'. Major bodies like the above mentioned have banned him for life. That doesn't happen without credible evidence to support their position. Plus the NY- he was not acquitted. In fact he had to pay out something like 35K. I know he and/or his supporters are spreading lies like we were jealous, we wanted more playing time, it happened after we were 18 and not his players anymore. We survivors, did not even know each other that well. Are you saying we all got together to conspire against him for the above reasons? And really you believe he waited to abuse us until we were of age? Ask yourself, does that really make sense? What are we gaining by coming forward? And deohge- I would like to think you are a decent person. Wouldn't you want to make sure, like really sure you were correct before you potentially accused a sexual assault survivor of lying? I can only assume you are really close to Rick and or Cheryl Butler and that you have been fed his lies for so long that you are brainwashed into not having an open mind. deoghe- moderncaycoach asked very good questions. Why won't you answer them ? it seems like when ever someone brings up something substantial you make a one sentence comment not even relating to the question. Do you mind me asking... why now? Decades later. I didn't say you all got together to conspire against him. I am wondering what do you have to gain? What is your reasoning for speaking up now? I understand that it takes time to come forward about allegations; however, why 20+ years later. Why now?
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Post by stanfordvb on Apr 18, 2022 22:27:17 GMT -5
d1athlete- "us" means the people Butler sexually abused. My understanding of the class action lawsuit is the judge thought there was credible evidence to believe us but that the judge wanted the prosecutor to pick a different lead and actually gave them a chance to do so. They disagreed and appealed the judge's decision/request to a higher court which they are now waiting on a decision for. I don't think they lawyers even asked any of the other 1300 to take Mullen's role. But you are right, Butlers have a habit of bullying people into silence. But what I am saying is I would not assume that is the case here and then use that assumption to say there is nothing there. Butler did rape us, we were under 18 yo when he first abused all of us. End of story. I would not say everything was "acquitted'. Major bodies like the above mentioned have banned him for life. That doesn't happen without credible evidence to support their position. Plus the NY- he was not acquitted. In fact he had to pay out something like 35K. I know he and/or his supporters are spreading lies like we were jealous, we wanted more playing time, it happened after we were 18 and not his players anymore. We survivors, did not even know each other that well. Are you saying we all got together to conspire against him for the above reasons? And really you believe he waited to abuse us until we were of age? Ask yourself, does that really make sense? What are we gaining by coming forward? And deohge- I would like to think you are a decent person. Wouldn't you want to make sure, like really sure you were correct before you potentially accused a sexual assault survivor of lying? I can only assume you are really close to Rick and or Cheryl Butler and that you have been fed his lies for so long that you are brainwashed into not having an open mind. deoghe- moderncaycoach asked very good questions. Why won't you answer them ? it seems like when ever someone brings up something substantial you make a one sentence comment not even relating to the question. Do you mind me asking... why now? Decades later. I didn't say you all got together to conspire against him. I am wondering what do you have to gain? What is your reasoning for speaking up now? I understand that it takes time to come forward about allegations; however, why 20+ years later. Why now? The info about butler came out a while ago. If you’re under the impression that all the victims have just recently come out that is not the case. I first heard about it years ago. Also, maybe a reason they decided to come out was to allow other young girls and their parents to have this info if they may be thinking of sending their daughters to his club. I believe the only reason butler hasn’t been accused in recent years is because these women spoke up and he’s too scared to. If no one ever said anything he would still be doing it
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Post by metoo on Apr 19, 2022 0:13:19 GMT -5
Hello d1athlete. I don’t mind your questions. But it seems you haven’t read up much at all about Butler. We did not recently just come forward., Some survivors came forward almost 30 years ago! We have been fighting this good fight now for that long. I think because of the recent lawsuit the past few years this subject has brought Butler’s evil actions to the like light again. Many survivors don’t come forward for decades, but that was not our case. The statute of limitations was very short back then. No criminal charges could be brought against him. However in other places like with USAV, AAU, JVA, Disney, that don’t have that statute of limitations and Out cases and sides were presented, you can see what happened, who they all found credible. It wasn’t Butler. Why did we come forward? What do we have to gain? Exactly. We came forward because we did not want it to happen to another girl. Butler has developed and shown he has pattern of preying on his underage players and we had to do something. We knew it would bring on ridicule,, disbelievers, taunters. Despite that, we had to speak the truth.
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Post by stanfordvb on Apr 19, 2022 0:44:06 GMT -5
Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think there’s been any *known* victims since they first accusers came forward. If I’m right ab that, there’s a very clear reasoning for why they came forward initially and it worked
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Post by JT on Apr 19, 2022 0:54:24 GMT -5
Do you mind me asking... why now? Decades later. I didn't say you all got together to conspire against him. I am wondering what do you have to gain? What is your reasoning for speaking up now? I understand that it takes time to come forward about allegations; however, why 20+ years later. Why now? Do you realize that this has been brought up here on Volleytalk starting in (at least) 2006? People have been coming forward with this for a long time. Maybe you should have done some looking, before assuming they remained silent for 20+ years. (Although it wouldn't have invalidated their experiences or allegations if they had.)
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Post by moderndaycoach on Apr 19, 2022 8:52:07 GMT -5
Do you mind me asking... why now? Decades later. I didn't say you all got together to conspire against him. I am wondering what do you have to gain? What is your reasoning for speaking up now? I understand that it takes time to come forward about allegations; however, why 20+ years later. Why now? Do you realize that this has been brought up here on Volleytalk starting in (at least) 2006? People have been coming forward with this for a long time. Maybe you should have done some looking, before assuming they remained silent for 20+ years. (Although it wouldn't have invalidated their experiences or allegations if they had.) What a lot of people don't talk about is spvb had what they considered a "mass exodus" once before in a time period from 2003-2006. They lost a lot of players that went on to other top clubs in the area and were immediately impact players on top teams that would have kept the roster strength there for all of his top/secondary teams and started to spread out deeper talent in the area. Parents have known, kids involved in the club scene knew, and stories started to circulate again as he was trying to move out of West Chicago. These are the same threats, the same bully tactics, and over MO of how they have handled this situation forever.
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Post by bigjohn043 on Apr 19, 2022 10:02:45 GMT -5
Bottom line is that people are complicated, but that doesn't mean it's automatically evil if a coach and a person they are coaching fall for each other. It *is* automatically evil for an adult to use a position of teaching children as access to sexually using those children. And I think equating the latter with the former really seriously underplays the evil of the latter. This is what I really disagree with. Any coach / player relationship is a very significant power imbalance. Coaches decide playing time, positions, tactics, etc. They have huge control over the player. With that type of power imbalance and control, it is evil to use that to develop a sexual relationship. It just is. I agree that it is worse to do it with a minor but I don't see a big difference just because someone has turned 18. FWIW, adult rec leagues and climbing clubs a a bit different because they just aren't that serious. I also think student support staff is a very different thing without any of the power relationships. But club & college volleyball are huge commitments with big power imbalances. You might say that former players are fine. But Russ Rose coached Lori until December of 85 and they got married in 86. Does anyone really believe that they started dating, got serious, got engaged and married within 12 months? You would think that they would delay it at least for appearance sake. But they didn't because at that time this type of coach / player relationship was fine. Rick Butler looks at that and says if Rose can date a player then why can't I? I dated my high school girl friend when she was 16 and I was 18 so how bad is that really? If the two people meet 10 years later then that is probably fine. But that is never the way this stuff happens. The relationship almost always happens right after they are coach / player and most people know it started sooner. We need to have a basic standard in sports that coaches dating or marrying former player is just not OK. If I was an AD I would not hire someone who married or even dated a former player. If one of my current coaches started doing it that would be grounds for termination. Otherwise you have Russ Rose marrying a former player that he says he only started dating after he wasn't her player and we all know what that really means and what is acceptable. Russ Rose and Rick Butler are part of the same culture that says this stuff is OK. It isn't.
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