Last week in Wilmington, NC, a 40 year old cross country coach resigned from the school and married one of his 16 year old runners. Now I know we are in the South and all and you hear about young-uns getting married all the time. Usually, the parents consent because their parents consented when they were 16 themselves. But this isn’t your usual sterotypical situation here. This is what is known:
- She is a exceptional student and a star athlete.
- Parents went to the school and the police to see if anything could be done. But neither could find any wrong doing on the part of the coach. The even tried to take out a restraining order against him.
- However, the parents had given the coach permission to provide a ride home from practice and meets and to run together during lunch and weekends. The girl (yes, girl) also rode with the coach to other places such as Walmart and the beach.
- The coach was in constant contact with her – calling and text messaging some 200 times in June alone as late as 3:00am.
- Friends who visited noticed the inappropriate behavior between the two.
- The coach had written the parents two months before stating that the two of them were only friends and that all they would ever be and that he would never jeopardize his job or her schooling.
- The newly wed couple aren’t talking.
What isn’t known is scary. The charge of statutory rape is out of the question now. Who’s going to bring charges? Granted, as already mentioned, there is no proof of such, but… What about the future? What will happen the first time he treats her like the child she is instead of the wife he wants her to be? And he needs a job. Well, good luck with that.
Of course, the victim in all of this is the girl. The parents finally signed a consent after a year of battle; that they were just worn out from it all. The parents say she would throw either a tantrum or a silent treatment when she didn’t get her way. Does that sound like someone mature enough to contemplate marriage? Were they so afraid to tell her to stay away from him when they realized this inappropriate relationship forming?
It seems this predator singled her out and groomed her for a relationship. According to a story that appeared in the State Port Pilot on Nov. 8, 2006, The girl was reported as saying:
“He’s very encouraging. He’s always telling us how proud he is. I’m proud of where I finished but he seems to be even more proud of me.”
Hmmm… what did he do to make her feel that way?
“She could have done anything,” says mom. “She could have set the world on fire. She threw it all away.”
Well, mom may be right in saying that the young girl has thrown her life away. But if that’s the case, the girl certainly had help. Her parents had the chance and the responsibility to draw a line and they didn’t do it. Maybe they did it to remove contention between them, but in the long run I’m afraid the girl has been thrown under the bus.
Only the future will answer all the questions. The newsworthiness of the whole affair will eventually die down so we may never know how it all turns out. I wish them well, I really do. Marriage is hard enough without glare through public’s microscope. But this is a bit much. We’ll see.
Wow… and I thought I saw all the news like this. How sad for this girl…. that she’s going to probably regret this very soon, and for a very, very long time.