Runover Train

It’s things like this that make us remember that athletes are more human than we like to think they are.

Laveranues Coles, one of the most feared wide receivers in the NFL, has admitted publicly that he was sexually abused as a child and into his young teenage life by his stepfather.After the Jets defeated Miami 17-7 Sunday to improve to 1-1 on the young season, Coles admitted what had happened to him when he was ten and continued until he was thirteen, that the man his mother was seeing sexually abused him. She would later marry him before getting divorced as the charges came forward.

“If it gets one kid to come out and say, `Look, this is happening to me,’ … I think… (coming out about my past) is right.”

That is the most thoughtful, intelligent, caring thing I have heard anyone say in a long time. The fact that Laveranues Coles, a pro bowl wide receiver that is without a doubt the role model for countless aspiring NFL players, has said this has happened to him, should make it easier for people who have been sexually abused to come out about it.

According to Stop It Now (www.stopitnow.com), one in five girls will be sexually abused as a child and somewhere from one in ten to one in twenty boys will be sexually abused. Additionally, somewhere from 70-90% of all such crimes are committed by a person that the abused knows. It is not “those strangers hanging around the edges of playgrounds or in the corners of video arcades” like we see in movies, but dads and moms and uncles and aunts and cousins and brothers and family friends, and in the case of Laveranues Coles, step dad.

And nearly 50% of sexual abuses are by people under the age of 18, of which about 75% of such abusers were abused themselves.

Worst of all, 88% of all sexual abuses are never reported to the authorities. Coles’s case is in the small minority.

Reading those numbers, I’m stunned. I would never have guessed that high. But sadly, these numbers are what are believed to be the truth. It isn’t someone here and there; it is someone here, and someone here, and someone here, and someone here.

It can affect anyone and has affected many. Yet we ignore it as just another minor threat. If 20% of little girls and 5-10% of little boys get sexually abused, that is not just another threat. Especially when eight out of every nine times it never gets reported.

In 1993, David Pirner of Soul Asylum (and a great societarian for the music industry) sang the song “Runaway Train” about children who run away. In the music video, pictures of missing children were shown depending on the country the song was played in. In the United Kingdoms, missing U.K. children were shown. In the United States, missing U.S. children were shown. A hotline number was also provided.

Miraculously, numerous children were found because of this top 10 Billboard hit.

Now, it would be hard to do anything similar with child abuse, but Laveranues Coles’s confession goes a long way to at least making people more aware of this problem.

“I just want to help kids because I think it happens to more people in this world than actually allow ourselves to believe. Coming up, I always felt like I was the only one that ever happened to. Then, when I started going to different sessions, they let me know that it happens to a lot more people.”

Coles worked through his horrible experience, but he was only able to through time and help. With 70-90% of all sexual abuses coming from people the abused knows, it can only be harder to come out with the truth. But that is the most important step.

Laveranues, you did not have to tell us all that this happened. You did not have to relieve your own experiences in front of the world. You did not have to show what a productive, full life a person could live if he or she is able to come to terms with what has happened and moved on.

Statistically, the hardest part is admitting not just to other people what has happened, but to yourself. Coles did that and now he is showing the world that such an experience can be overcome with time and talking.

So I applaud you Mr. Coles. You have earned my respect. Not for your football play or your major endorsements, no, but for your noble admission to the world of what happened to you just to help the many others who have been traumatized like you once were.

The world needs more people like you, especially the sports world.

I’m not giving you my sympathy because you don’t want it. Terrell Owens wants sympathy. You want sympathy for the people who are too scared to say mommy or daddy or Uncle Bruce molested them.

And that is a noble thing.

So when the Jets play my Falcons later this year, I’m going to be pulling for you. Not to catch a game winning touchdown, but to get up when the Falcons knock you down and then go back and perform on the next play. You’ve stood back up from so much more.

The world needs more people like you, not just the sports world.