I wasn’t all that angry until I saw the red hats.
The pairs skaters were wearing them in the Kiss and Cry during the short program at US Nationals. Not all the pairs skaters – specifically, Dalilah Sappenfield’s students. They’re Kansas City Chiefs hats, in tribute to the late John Coughlin and his favorite football team. Surely, their resemblance to MAGA hats was an unfortunate coincidence. But what set me off were the skaters showing off those hats, waving them in front of the Safe Sport banner overhead in the most literal possible display of horrifying priorities.
The defensiveness and victim-blaming have been rattling my chain and making me leery of Twitter all week, but it’s much harder to scroll past a hat. They drowned out the fair and cautious rundown of the situation that Terry Gannon gave at the start of the broadcast, and completely overshadowed USFSA’s formal request to Safe Sport to continue their investigation into the accusations against Coughlin. Even the public statements that don’t blatantly side with Coughlin show little compassion for his accusers – indeed, they are hardly mentioned.
Not everyone is screwing this up. Mervin Tran’s eloquent, compassionate response to both the allegations and Coughlin’s death mirrored much of my own grief and cognitive dissonance. I think Tran speaks for a lot of people in the skating world who are afraid or unsure of what to say. As this Tumblr post points out, many of those who comply with the party line, or stay silent, might be doing so to protect themselves, either because they are survivors not ready to come forward, or because they fear repercussions if they express their true opinions.
That’s why it took me a week to write this. I’ve had my share of #MeToo moments, but I don’t like discussing them publicly and would fear sharing my experiences under a charged circumstance like this one. As the cultural response to sexual violence and manipulation has shifted toward greater transparency and justice, I’ve dreaded the moment when I would know someone – like someone – accused of sexual misconduct. It’s much easier to condemn strangers.
I didn’t know John Coughlin well at all. I met him a couple of times at skating events and had a few conversations with him on social media. I found him charming, intelligent, and passionate about his sport. His skating commentary was both funny and incisive, and his “Ave Maria” free skate from 2011 Nationals is one of the most beautiful pairs performances I’ve ever seen. He was not evil, and he did much good in his lifetime.
But he also allegedly did horrific things that put his good qualities into chilling perspective. It is cruel to ignore his alleged actions, not only to those who survived what he might have done, but to him. Coughlin deserves to be remembered as a person, in all his complexity. If his legacy of harm is severe enough to overshadow his legacy of good, it is unfair to his memory to paint over the damage he’s wrought and insist on the fiction of a “beautiful soul.”
History and math are on the side of Coughlin’s accusers. People almost never make false allegations of sexual assault or abuse. If multiple survivors come forward, as was the case here, the chances that they are all lying become vanishingly small. My day job involves lots of statistics, and the statistics indicate that if credible allegations have been brought forward, the accused probably did harm someone. Data analysis seldom deals with certainty, and generally trusts the most probable explanation. We don’t know for sure what happened, but there is a clear probable explanation here, even if it’s not the one we want to hear.
I believe survivors. I’m in the painful position of believing survivors when I’d rather believe that a guy I liked and admired was as wonderful as he seemed. But the way to work through that pain isn’t to claim it’s too soon, or to say it’s none of one’s business, or to build a defensive wall of sparkly red football hats. It’s right and fair to mourn Coughlin, but it’s also right and fair to condemn harmful behavior.
The pairs free skate is still ahead. Maybe someone will have the courage to wear teal in the Kiss and Cry on Friday, in solidarity with survivors. I won’t expect it, but I’ll be looking for it.