Coaches and athletes sometimes end up dating/getting married - Official discussion thread

Old Man by the Sea wrote:

Our society needs to let adults be adults.

It's one thing if it involves an underage athletes, thats already against the law.

Once one is an adult, you don't need some agency dictating who you have relationships with.

This I agree with. What if a couple of 40 year olds are married and one is coaching the other. SAFESPORT VIOLATION!

HS and College coaches should absolutely not be dating their athletes.

In the pro ranks I think it depends on the dynamics. Obviously if the relationship predates the coaching arraignment then it'd be ridiculous to call that a violation.

Old Man by the Sea wrote:

Our society needs to let adults be adults.

It's one thing if it involves an underage athletes, thats already against the law.

Once one is an adult, you don't need some agency dictating who you have relationships with.

The problem is that people abuse power, and sometimes we need rules to protect more vulnerable members of society. I talked to someone once who ran for a powerhouse school up north. Absolutely wild/reprehensible stuff going on.

Bonkers wrote:

Old Man by the Sea wrote:

Our society needs to let adults be adults.

It's one thing if it involves an underage athletes, thats already against the law.

Once one is an adult, you don't need some agency dictating who you have relationships with.

The problem is that people abuse power, and sometimes we need rules to protect more vulnerable members of society. I talked to someone once who ran for a powerhouse school up north. Absolutely wild/reprehensible stuff going on.

Agreed.

Coaches in colleges are not allowed to date their athletes. It's a fireable offense as it should be.

The rules are in place.

Here is the link someone wanted. Do not turn this into a thread about the person in the link.

https://deadspin.com/im-down-for-drinks-laughs-sex-the-sexual-harassmen-5983592

Personal Story Time

At age 25, I lucked into a volunteer position at a P5, but I was in complete control of my event group--oversaw all the training. The HC did not want to invest in a coach for that event, so I fell into a tremendous opportunity.

I was one year removed from undergrad, so still close to a college kid at heart, while traversing the waters of professionalism. Far from home in a new place and not knowing anyone, I gravitated towards people with similar interests near my own age--those people were my athletes, several of them being 22, 23, & 24. It was not unusual to finish a workout or competition and go to dinner with many of them or go to one of their houses and hang out. Absolutely dumb. And I knew it, too. But I just went with the flow. They were training and competing better, and my ignorance did not want to rock that boat of team cohesion and success.

Well, one of the women that I coached, 20 years old then, started pursuing me pretty aggressively (And before I get ripped here, she will tell you to this day she was very much the aggressive one in getting the relationship started). There was nothing veiled in her attempts to seduce me. I resisted at first, knowing that was a line I should not cross, even if I was just a volunteer. Obviously, that did not last, and we began an off/on relationship for the next couple of years, until she graduated. We thought we hid it well, but others will tell you they had a pretty good idea something was going on.

I won't lie to you. It's an aspect of my life that I am ashamed to bring up. I still violated a code of ethics that I was fully aware of, but I also fell in love.

We've been married a long(ish) time. That doesn't make it better or okay. But I've been at peace with it for quite awhile now.

Fairly similar story to mine except that my wife and I were both 20 years old and already married and I was a volunteer assistant for our college team after my eligibility was complete. By the letter of the law this is a violation I guess.

Bonkers wrote:

Old Man by the Sea wrote:

Our society needs to let adults be adults.

It's one thing if it involves an underage athletes, thats already against the law.

Once one is an adult, you don't need some agency dictating who you have relationships with.

The problem is that people abuse power, and sometimes we need rules to protect more vulnerable members of society. I talked to someone once who ran for a powerhouse school up north. Absolutely wild/reprehensible stuff going on.

Our society wants its institutions to have integrity and liability. It's a big society, if you can't find good options for yourself outside the workplace, especially students in your charge at an educational institution, then that's a you problem.

rojo wrote:

Here is the link someone wanted. Do not turn this into a thread about the person in the link.

https://deadspin.com/im-down-for-drinks-laughs-sex-the-sexual-harassmen-5983592

What’s the coaches name?

too old for this wrote:

I won't lie to you. It's an aspect of my life that I am ashamed to bring up. I still violated a code of ethics that I was fully aware of, but I also fell in love.

We've been married a long(ish) time. That doesn't make it better or okay. But I've been at peace with it for quite awhile now.

Dude, you may have broken the rules, but that doesn't mean you did something unethical and worthy of lasting shame. The rules are blunt, prophylactic instruments designed to prevent abuse. From what you said, you didn't abuse your athlete. You didn't take advantage of her. Sure, there may have been a power dynamic at the start, but all relationships have a power dynamic. As a volunteer assistant who was very close to her age and not the aggressor, there was clearly no power inequality that would override her free will or anything. In any event, power dynamics have a tendency to evolve, as I'm sure you realize by now. At the start, there might have been something slightly exciting about the transgressive nature of the relationship, but that's just something that gets the ball rolling.

Now, I won't deny that what you did was unprofessional and likely to undermine your authority as a coach, but that doesn't make it sexual misconduct.

Incidentally, a number of years ago I was talking about this issue with a pretty well known female coach. I expected her to express disdain for male coaches who had relationships with athletes or former athletes, but she was very sympathetic, if not exactly forgiving. She pointed out that, like you, a lot of these coaches are very close in age to their athletes. They are often lonely. They live in places far from any young professionals (who might be more appropriate romantic partners). They keep hours that make normal social life difficult. They make almost no money. And they spend a huge amount of time with fit, attractive people who share one of their biggest interests.

It's like college profs dating their grad students.

It's awesome and romantic when it works out. However, the downsides are so much worse (abuse, coercion, job security, etc). There are countless places to find love. Your students are very reasonably off limits nowadays.

As for professional coaching situations... it's like work. Workplace romances happen all the time. They blow up all the time. There's less of a direct power imbalance and (generally) more maturity in the individuals. There's an extreme view that any manager:subordinate relationship is strictly inappropriate. I don't think that's really true, but all should be aware of the risks involved.

This -- it's arguably among the better decisions you've ever made (maybe?), but I don't blame you if you cringe at the risks to your character and career you were taking when you started.

There isn't a problem with college coaches and *former* athletes dating or marrying. Though if the athlete was high school age or younger when they met, that's a bit more cringeworthy.

There is a problem with coaches and *current* athletes dating, etc. because of the professional setting and imbalance of power.

Gentleman Savage wrote:

Bonkers wrote:

The problem is that people abuse power, and sometimes we need rules to protect more vulnerable members of society. I talked to someone once who ran for a powerhouse school up north. Absolutely wild/reprehensible stuff going on.

Our society wants its institutions to have integrity and liability. It's a big society, if you can't find good options for yourself outside the workplace, especially students in your charge at an educational institution, then that's a you problem.

I 100% agree. You just don't go there. Ever!

I will add two things because there seems to be confusion about this:

- This is about a power imbalance, not necessarily an age thing. An example of this would be someone younger in the workplace that might be in charge of your promotion.

- I hear comments about athletes aggressively pursuing their coaches. This makes it acceptable. Really? I have had this situation before and I react by putting up even larger roadblocks. It's like having a relationship with a minor that is ok with it. It's NEVER OK!

As some have said when the power imbalance has gone (or there is no power imbalance as might be the case with a private coach) and a few years go by it might be ok but then the question does revert back to age. 35 years older, and dating his high school athlete? Sorry, but yuck!

This is why there is Safesport and that it has a function. To explain to people that have no moral integrity what is right and wrong.

otter wrote:

- This is about a power imbalance, not necessarily an age thing. An example of this would be someone younger in the workplace that might be in charge of your promotion.

.

And in charge of the rest of the team's promotion (scholarship $) or lack thereof.

Can we agree that in cases where the two met as adults and have a successful marriage, that it proves their relationship is legit? It would be presumptuous to for people outside the marriage to judge.

It's not clear to me that adults in a coach/athlete relationship necessarily have an imbalanced power relationship. I'll bring up Lebron, since he's not an example of dating between coach and athlete, but he is more powerful than his coaches. Similarly, if I were to hire someone to coach me, I'd not look at them as a superior. Most people in real jobs have more of a professional career than the online coaches they might hire, like Coach JS. Do famous people look at their trainers as superiors? I doubt it.

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

otter wrote:

- This is about a power imbalance, not necessarily an age thing. An example of this would be someone younger in the workplace that might be in charge of your promotion.

.

And in charge of the rest of the team's promotion (scholarship $) or lack thereof.

Yes, true.

zzzz wrote:

Can we agree that in cases where the two met as adults and have a successful marriage, that it proves their relationship is legit? It would be presumptuous to for people outside the marriage to judge.

It's not clear to me that adults in a coach/athlete relationship necessarily have an imbalanced power relationship. I'll bring up Lebron, since he's not an example of dating between coach and athlete, but he is more powerful than his coaches. Similarly, if I were to hire someone to coach me, I'd not look at them as a superior. Most people in real jobs have more of a professional career than the online coaches they might hire, like Coach JS.. Do famous people look at their trainers as superiors? I doubt it.

Be careful. Following Rojo's instructions I will not name anyone, but to your last comment, can you think of a famous person that did submit to someone that was relatively unknown in charge of their health and fitness? I can.

I recently had a sit down talk with my XC team because we had an incident related to this that hit pretty close to home. I discussed my Safesport training to them and explained that if it looks different than how we do it at practice when they are in college, they should have their guard up.

This is good that we are talking about this constructively.

What do you mean submit to someone? In a bad way? Do they have a good relationship or not? I did a Bing search for famous people who married their trainers, and came with an heir apparent to the throne of a medium-sized country. She and her trainer, now a Duke, are still married 11 years later, and have had two children, a literal prince and princess. Having never heard of these people, it sounds legit enough, probably a healthy relationship. I'd guess that she was the one with power.