Creepy coaches still being shuffled school to school

By Mark Thornton

Last week, my friend and colleague Robbie Robertson got put in the most unenviable position a small-town journalist can be put in. He had to write a Scarlett Letter-like story about someone he had been friends with — a coach who was charged with statutory rape of a 16-year-old student in Newton County. That charge came about as a result of the investigation into a similar charge in Marion County.

The story was on the front page of The Newton Record, just as it should have been, but then a predictable thing happened when Robbie went to the courtroom. The coach’s wife glared and muttered at him. He should have said, "Look, lady, all I pulled out of my khakis was a pen and notebook ... you should be mad at your husband."

Why do so many people have trouble placing blame where it really belongs?

Virtually every problem in the world could be solved, or at least dealt with properly, if people would take responsibility for their own actions. Every reasonable person reading this agrees with that ... until it‘s him or his loved one who’s been accused, that is. That’s when the ability to reason or to be rational just seems to disappear. And someone like a newspaperman doing his job becomes the bad guy.

Psychologists call that projection ... I call it the most frustrating part of this job.

My friends and acquaintances here should know that, when it comes to doing my job, they aren’t going to catch a break. I’d rather have them mad at me for doing my job fairly than to have thousands of readers questioning the paper’s credibility.

That said, our readers have to keep in mind that we can’t just a publish a story about someone ... say, a local coach ... being fired from his job for ... say, making inappropriate remarks to a girl in the high school ... without there being some sort of documentation to support it. That’s something that’s rare to have in this situation. Parents usually don’t press charges because they want to save themselves and their child the embarrassment; school officials are afraid to put a blemish on the teacher’s record for fear of a lawsuit. The result? Teen predators keep getting shuffled from school district to school district, getting bolder and bolder with each move for which they go unpunished.

It’s exactly like the Catholic priest scandal. Officials would rather protect themselves than children. It’s spineless, but predictable, which is why the problem has perpetuated.

As I have written many times before, I know of a single Mississippi town in which more than a half-dozen coaches had sexual contact with students and never suffered any repercussions. They were all hired in different Mississippi districts either because they didn’t list their previous employer on their resumes (which is doubtful) or their previous employer didn’t warn the prospective employer for fear of legal repercussions (which is more likely).

If the numbers are that bad in one otherwise normal-seeming Central Mississippi town, this tells me that this is probably an epidemic. And if you’ll take note, almost every time one of these guys is finally charged, students from other districts come forward and say that the same creepy guy did the same creepy thing to them. I’s an epidemic that’s been allowed to spread for the sake of saving face.

The best and most practical way to stop it would be for parents to press charges against any teacher who does or says something inappropriate with their minor child. Your child’s name won’t be listed in reports from any ethical media outlet, unless you consent. And your courage may prevent some other teen and family from having to go through the same thing.

There’s also an unfortunate conventional wisdom that teen vixens are creating the situations that are getting coaches in trouble. And the men are often excused for acting like out-of-control mongrels after situations reach a certain level. “They couldn’t help themselves,” some men, and even some women, will say.

Give me a break.

Most of us red-blooded men are equipped with the same hormones. But we adults are ALWAYS the ones who are responsible for not letting those situations arise in the first place, and we’re responsible for controlling ourselves. No exceptions. If you can’t do that, find another line of work.



Mark Thornton is editor/publisher of The Star-Herald.

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