SHARI KARNEY SPEAKS OUT ABOUT Underage sexual relationship is child sexual abuse at Olympics
We need to use the proper language: Calling this a relationship implies it is between consenting adults. You don’t have a consenting relationship between a 13-year old swimmer and a 33 year old Olympic coach. This is another Sandusky coach-predator action except this one is taking place in the swimming pool instead of the shower. Again, a coach preys on a child athlete. The 13-year old is an Olympic Swimmer named Kelley Davies Currin. She is now 45-years old. She stifled this for 25 years because she signed a piece of paper when she was nineteen. In my opinion where a coach sexually molests a 13-year old girl for four years, and is around pre-pubescent girls in bathing suits all the time…it is likely there are going to be other victims. I find it highly unlikely that Kelley is the only one. With Sandusky, after the first boy came forward, nine other child victims followed and told their harrowing stories. I would like to support swimmers, children and child athletes to give them the strength to come forward and speak out. I am asking for an investigation by U.S. Olympics Committee and FBI and lets hope that Louis Freeh does a report. The FBI needs to investigate since adult predators cross State lines with their child/teen Olympic Contenders, and even cross to foreign countries. Further, I am pleading with parents of child swimmers in the Curl-Burke Swim Club and child Olympic Contenders everywhere to probe into what is happening or has already happened. In other words, parents step it up! The Curl-Burke Swim Club, has now one of the largest swim clubs in the country with 2,000 members and 15 facilities. It looks to me like this swim club grooms athletes for Olympics. Kelley Davies Currin said, “Now I’ve gotten to the point in my life where I’m done being quiet about it…it was a crime.” Basically, she’s saying she’s finding her voice at 43—23 years later. I want to encourage other victims, other athletes, other children to find their voice. The only way to prevent child sexual abuse is for victims to be done being quiet about it.
Associated Press Rick Curl was one of the nation’s most prominent swimming coaches. He put his stamp on an Olympic champion. He built a highly respected club that trained thousands of youngsters. All along, he was hiding a dark secret. It caught up with him Wednesday. Curl was banned for life by USA Swimming over allegations of an intimate relationship with a teenage swimmer in the 1980s, another ugly chapter in a sexual abuse scandal that has rocked one of America’s most successful Olympic sports. “ Obviously I feel really good about it. But, in a way, I feel like this should have been done so long ago. This is really just the first step in the process. Unfortunately, I don’t think things are going to get better. I think more discoveries are going be made. This is just the first layer of the onion. ” — Kelley Davies Currin on banishment of ex-coach Rick Curl from USA Swimming “He cast a spell over me,” said Kelley Davies Currin, who claims the relationship started when she was 13 and Curl was 33. “I don’t know why. Looking back, it doesn’t make sense. He controlled everything. He controlled what I ate, when I slept, who I could hang out with.” The founder of a well-known club in the Washington, D.C., area and the coach for 1996 and 2000 Olympic gold medalist Tom Dolan, Curl was scheduled to appear Wednesday before the National Board of Review. But he informed the governing body he was waiving his right to challenge the case at a hearing. Curl voluntarily gave up his membership and was added to USA Swimming’s list of banned individuals, which is published on the organization website. He became the 67th name on the list. Currin said she was pleased with the banishment of someone who caused her so much misery, but hopes it is only the beginning of truly meaningful change throughout the sport. “Obviously I feel really good about it,” she told The Associated Press in an interview. “But, in a way, I feel like this should have been done so long ago. This is really just the first step in the process. Unfortunately, I don’t think things are going to get better. I think more discoveries are going be made. This is just the first layer of the onion.” USA Swimming bans Rick Curl for life
http://espn.go.com/olympics/swimming/story/_/id/8398669/rick-curl-banned-life-usa-swimming-having-improper-relationship
Sexual Misconduct in U.S. Swimming
By Irvin Muchnick For those wondering if the problem of sex abuse in our national youth competitive swimming program is truly worse than Penn State – and if so, why – I say look no further than the Rick Curl case. Last week USA Swimming announced a “provisional suspension” of Curl, one of the country’s most prominent age-group club swimming coaches, former national team coach, and founder of the Washington, D.C., area’s 950-athlete-strong Curl-Burke Club, which moved swiftly after accepting his resignation to rebrand itself as CUBU. USA Swimming postponed until next month an emergency hearing on information that Curl had molested swimmer Kelley Davies (now Currin), starting in 1983 when she was 13, and later paid the Davies family $150,000 in a “non-disclosure agreement.” Rick Curl Sex Abuse Case Raises New Concerns Read more: http://www.momsteam.com/rick-curl/rick-curl-sex-abuse-case-raises-new-concerns#ixzz26yqPKHjV