The same is true in tennis, and there have been some notorious cases there, too. A prominent French coach (he coached the 1998 Wimbledon finalist) was convicted a few years ago of sexually abusing a couple of his young teenaged charges; that case began with a book written by one of them. Her own experience was outside the French statute of limitations, but because of the book others came forward and one of them qualified.

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THIS IS SO *NOT* AN APOLOGY!!!! Leaving aside the passive tense and that he never even gets out of the realm of metaphor, what he is actually apologizing for is losing control over the abuse. HE IS NOT APOLOGIZING FOR THE ABUSE ITSELF. Only for his inability to confine it to a small number. GAGHH! I just can’t even…

Both kinds of ambition occur, either simultaneously or in opposition, and the rolls can reverse.

This situation is probably made worse and more dangerous, because in this sport, and at this level, very young girls are often sent/ allowed to go off, to very specialized training facilities far from home. If you want your child to have a chance at international level success, you pretty much have to abandon day to day control or one parent has to move to where the training facility is.

Compound that with the virtually unbelievable fact that this could be occurring, and for so long, in a program operating at that level.

It is simply appalling.

That’s interesting — I haven’t thought about it much from that standpoint.

There are ambitious kids, there are adults who are ambitious for the kids….

…this is not to say that people shouldn’t speak. This is just bringing up a lot of thoughts about how profitably spent our teen years were, going to rehearsals and show choirs and competing for the glory of adults.