11/21/24
January 23, 2005
Hoop Nightmares: ESPN the Magazine with the Dumb Pretentious Name tells the story of Rick Lopez, the legendary girls basketball coach in Colorado who was molesting numerous players as young as 13 for years.
posted by rcade to basketball at 10:36 AM - 8 comments
Different stories from the same magazine, Dirk. The story about Lopez was just offered on ESPN.Com.
posted by rcade at 11:02 AM on January 23, 2005
my bad. nothin' but love...
posted by DirkDiggler at 11:43 AM on January 23, 2005
Parents can be so blind.......especially when they are focused on the wrong things!
posted by daddisamm at 12:11 PM on January 23, 2005
thanks for the link rcade.
posted by goddam at 12:57 PM on January 23, 2005
Nice attempt by the writer, but I still don't get how these parents didn't catch on to his abuse sooner. How could you trust your daughter to a single guy in his 30s who takes girls around the country running a basketball club with no ties to any sanctioning body with oversight over his behavior? I have to think that the parents were so obsessed with athletic success for their children that they ignored rumors, questionable behavior, and signs from their own kids that something might not be on the level.
posted by rcade at 01:42 PM on January 23, 2005
I agree with rcade. At 20 years old, it has become a cliche of my generation to talk about how our parents push us ridiculously hard. Our parent are willing to throw almost everything away for the chance to get us a scholarship. It's actually especially bad in girls sports, I think, because there actually is a decent chance of getting a scholarship for a fairly talented athlete (most guy athletes know they have no shot at getting a scholly). There is such a market for female athletes, that coaches who can crank out kids for college programs will be able to get away with a lot. Also, as aluded to in the article, there are a lot of guys forming teams with no supervision out there. It's a strange system filled with the opportunity for misconduct and abuse, which we may not now about for years.
posted by Bonkers at 09:55 AM on January 25, 2005
i agree with the "this guy will get my kid a scholarship" angle. but i also think coaches like lopez have the ability to get into the heads of these parents. they start to treat him like a son or brother, he's a part of their family. and why would they question someone in their family?
posted by goddam at 10:06 AM on January 25, 2005
Don't you wish you would have posted this, Weedymcsmokey?