#WeRideTogether sees firsthand how grooming is one of the most common, if not the most common, forms of abuse in sports. However, grooming is rarely discussed or talked about by name. Grooming overlaps and often encompasses many types of misconduct, such as emotional/psychological abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. #WeRideTogether has created this series to serve as an informational repository about grooming in sports for athletes, survivors, parents, coaches, and sporting staff.
Grooming in Sports
More than 50% of athletes experience some form of abuse in sports. 90% of the time, the perpetrator is someone they know. Authority figures and peers, such as coaches, trainers, sporting staff, and teammates, are the most common perpetrators of all types of abuse in sports.
Athletes need awareness and education on these facts. It is not just “stranger danger” to watch out for; unfortunately, we must also understand various dynamics regarding individuals we should feel safe with. Perpetrators can be someone you may be charmed by, someone you think you can trust, or someone with power and authority.
Of all the types of abuse in sports, grooming is a form of abuse that can be one of the most difficult to pinpoint, and it often overlaps with other forms of misconduct. Grooming can be hard to flag, as it is “harmful behavior made to look like helpful behavior.” (1) Thus, fully and accurately describing and defining grooming can be equally challenging and have severe implications for legal outcomes. (2) Various explanations of grooming and the grooming process can be found in other safeguarding policies, online, and via abuse prevention networks such as RAINN (Rape Abuse & Incest National Network).
The U.S. Center for SafeSport, a nonprofit authorized by Congress that focuses on abuse investigation and disciplinary proceedings, defines grooming in their Code as a footnote in connection to types of other ‘Inappropriate Conduct’:
“‘Grooming’ describes the process whereby a person engages in a series or pattern of behaviors with a goal of engaging in sexual misconduct. Grooming is initiated when a person seeks out a vulnerable minor. Once selected, offenders will then earn the minor’s trust, and potentially the trust of the minor’s family (or guardian). After the offender has engaged the minor in sexually inappropriate behavior, the offender seeks to maintain control over them. Grooming occurs through direct, in-person or online contact.” (3)
Grooming, an elusive process and a hard-to-pinpoint form of abuse, must be researched and explained further to highlight how it appears in sporting spaces. There are nuances of grooming situations, particularly in athletics, stemming from the power imbalance between an athlete and their coach/trainer/athletic staff or person in a position of authority. In athletics, boundaries can blur between athletes' sporting and personal lives, which this authority figure influences (such as nutrition, sleep, and scheduling). Also, a contributing factor is the often blind trust athletes, parents, and organizations have in coaches and other athletic authority figures.
These dynamics in sports condition the athlete, family, friends, teammates, other staff, federations, and organizations to feel that grooming behaviors are natural and normalized. Thus, grooming can hide in plain sight. These aspects of grooming in sports can lead to extra confusion for ourselves and one another when the truth and facts of abuse and misconduct come to the surface.
Because of grooming’s insidious process and nature, education and prevention of predatory tactics must continue to evolve to create environments that are inhospitable for grooming behaviors. Every athlete deserves and should be able to practice, train, and compete in safe and healthy environments.
We must build upon what we know about the stages of grooming. We must recognize how parents, friends, the groomer's partner or family, and organizations are also susceptible to the groomer's tactics and can often be complicit in such misconduct and abuse. And we must give greater insight to athletes and parents on survivor experiences and real-life instances that paint a clearer picture of what grooming looks, sounds, and feels like in its entirety. No situation is identical, yet there are apparent and prevalent patterns regarding grooming in sports.
The Grooming Process
The grooming process is often discussed and broken up into stages. Combining academic research and qualitative research from survivor stories and current events, we can better understand and identify the strategic and manipulative process set out by the groomer, stage by stage. The stages can blur, overlap, and build upon one another. To dive in completely, we suggest reading through survivor stories to gain the complete picture and see the process in its totality. The term groomer is used in this series to apply to any person who is perpetrating misconduct or abuse in the form of grooming behaviors. In the context of sports, groomers are most often coaches, trainers, or athletic authority figures.
Stage 1: Targeting the Athlete
First off, experiencing grooming is never a victim’s fault, and being vulnerable to abuse is also not the victim’s fault. Grooming can happen to athletes of helicopter parents and absent parents, those with solid family structures and those without. Grooming can happen to athletes across all sports at every level of play.
Research shows that groomers tend to target athletes who “seem trusting, admire the coach, and respect the coach’s authority in an unquestioning way.” (4) Groomers may also target athletes who may be new to the team, have strong aspirational goals and drive, want to improve their skills, may seem more distant from their teammates, or may have trouble in school or their other interpersonal relationships with family and friends. (5) For some targeted athletes, a groomer may have found them to be vulnerable because they demonstrated that the sport is their whole life or “a place of refuge and/or may view any tough coaching or misconduct as part of the price to be paid for success.” (6)
The qualities of the target athlete do not fit a distinct profile but rather aspects of an athlete that a groomer may seek to exploit. (8) However, abuse at large disproportionately impacts athletes from minority groups due to complex factors of intersectionalities. (9)
Groomers can target athletes with housing, food, and financial vulnerabilities or pick a target based on shared interests, age, proximity, or aptitude – this is the exploitative nature of grooming, in which the groomer finds an angle to capitalize. They identify a target athlete and leverage some aspect or dynamic of their identity, personality, or situation to create a form of trust, need, and dependence.
Stage 2: Gaining Trust
This is the part where the groomer aims to engender forms of credibility – with the athlete, the parents, the community, and the organization. They can build this trust via their accolades and prowess in sports, good deeds in the community, or affiliation with someone else in power. They are trusted for their winning record, knowing their sport, and developing athletes. Often, this trust is blind or overextended. Perhaps the trust is based on a gold medal, national title, and personal achievements but rarely on certifications and training regarding coaching prowess and education. Trust is also given because a groomer may hold many types of power over an athlete, such as reward, coercive, or expert power. Given their position in power, the groomer operates without checks and balances for their power and was bowed down consciously and subconsciously by the athlete, parent, other staff, and organization.
Some research refers to this as the groomer building social capital through their reputation. In this sense, by building up their status, the groomer creates a “shield of immunity against accusations.” (12) This is problematic in three ways. First, the athlete, parent, federations, and society are thus conditioned to trust the coach for guidance. This influence is not only about the sport at hand but more broadly as boundaries blur in sports, with the groomer/authority figure having immense sway in an athlete's daily schedule, sleep, eating, and social habits.
Second, it creates internal turmoil for individuals who struggle to accept that good people can do bad things and bad people can do good things. Third, it makes it harder for athletes to report as they are viewed less favorably or with less regard than this highly esteemed ‘excellent coach.’
Dually, the groomer may also leverage society’s conscious or unconscious views of athletics. Society can tend to imagine or assume that sports are a safe and trustworthy space and that sports are a sphere of life that operates outside of regulations or norms that may be commonplace in other sectors like workplaces or educational settings. Research has indicated that there is “assumed ‘purity’ of the activity,” and sports being “seen as existing outside the regulatory and moral frameworks which operate in other spheres of institutional life” has led to abuses being undetected, not reported, or unchallenged. (14) This phenomenon stems from the implicit and explicit power that groomers have, contributing to why they are not questioned or challenged. (15)
Stage 3: Fulfilling Needs
This stage is where things get even more surreptitious. The groomer is fulfilling the needs of the organization, the parents, and the athletes.
From the organization’s perspective, the groomer is powerful and can operate independently. Because of their regard, they can train great athletes and avoid questions or concerns about their coaching style or practices. They check the organization's box of producing wins.
As for the parents, the groomer makes themselves indispensable. They offer the athlete rides, talk about the athlete’s potential that can ‘only be accelerated by their methods,’ offer private lessons at little or no cost, and provide travel opportunities and extra communication support. (16) They become godsends and even part of the family, blurring those boundaries further. This is problematic because the athlete is again up against a whole community if and when they report troublesome or worrisome behavior, including their own family.
And for the athlete’s needs – the groomer has identified those and filled them – from emotional dependence to promises to compete in the next tournament, move up a seat in the boat, and ride the better horse. They may provide, treat, bait, or use gifts or access to drugs and alcohol as part of this process.
They may treat the targeted athlete as equals, as if they are peers or love interests. The athlete may feel special, have high self-esteem, and feel superior and secure. The athlete may develop a parent or lover-like dependence or reliance on the coach. (19)
Stage 4: Isolating the Athlete
The athlete is starting to exist in a universe created by the groomer, who has everyone under their spell. The athlete may be figuratively or literally isolated in this stage.
The groomer may tell or threaten the athlete to not have a life outside of their sport or distance the athlete from their other personal relationships or life outside of sport as a byproduct of spending more time with the groomer. Internally, the athlete may be confused regarding the special attention, trying to make sense of everything and wondering if others are experiencing the same thing or if it's just them on their team.
Literally, the athlete may be separated from their teammates, isolated from their support system, and sent to a camp or practice facility or competition alone with the groomer. They may also be isolated regularly or daily in the coach's office, locker room, barn stall, car, etc., to have more alone time with the groomer to strengthen that bond. (21) This process works in the groomer's favor for a gradual strategy to shift boundaries, bringing the groomer and athlete closer and closer till things are so far gone that the athlete is then “unable to resist advances.” (22)
Stage 5: Sexualizing the Relationship
This stage is where boundaries continue to be blurred. Here, there is no acknowledgment of the power imbalance between the athlete and the groomer. In these situations, consent cannot properly be given, regardless of the athlete’s age, because of the power imbalance. The groomer often utilizes forms of coercion, manipulation, and threats to develop control further.
Sexualizing the relationship applies to contact and non-contact behavior. The groomer may condition the athlete to increased touch under the guise of necessary contact for the sport, such as showing how to perform or skill or with sports massage. (24) These behaviors then progress to increased contact and sexual contact with the groomer, often finding playful ways to have more touch or capitalizing on private moments with the athlete and surprise elements to corner the athlete. The groomer may also expose the athlete to sexual content or engage in other methods of sexual exploitation or violence. This can happen in person or online, such as by texting or DM’ing an athlete and asking for or sending sexualized content.
Sexualizing the relationship also applies to the groomer, further engendering feelings of dependence, love, and appreciation from the athlete. (26) The groomer does this by building trust and fulfilling needs. It is not uncommon for the groomer to love bomb or portray their love to the athlete or for the athlete to fall in love or feel love for the groomer. (27)
This can be very confusing and convoluted for the athlete, who may be trying to make sense of their conflicting feelings regarding feeling uncomfortable with the person and the situation but also being caught up in it simultaneously.
Stage 6: Maintaining Control
Now, the groomer will do whatever it takes to keep the athlete under their control. Methods to hold secrecy, such as threats, domination, and manipulation, are apparent in this stage for the groomer to continue their behavior and the athlete caught.
For example, the groomer may say what has been occurring is necessary for their athletic progress. Or, if the athlete does not comply with the groomer’s requests, they will lose playing time. (29) This shows how groomers in the athletic space leverage many angles of power and control over an athlete or engage in bullying or other types of abuse. Meanwhile, parents and others are kept at just enough distance from what is occurring, and appearances and status quo are maintained, protecting and ensuring the coach's social capital to create further disbelief that anything could be happening. Groomers may also extend guilt and leverage upon the athlete outside the athletic space. For example, the groomer may threaten suicide or convince the athlete that the athlete could ruin their marriage, family, or career.
Internally, at this point, the athlete may have varying degrees of awareness of what is occurring and if it's okay/not okay or something they want/do not want. They may have confusing and conflicting feelings about the groomer. They may keep what is going on to themselves for a variety of reasons, such as the dependence and promises made by the groomer, disbelief, fear of retaliation, the difficulties with reporting and disclosing, fear that there will be other victims and they are protecting them, etc. The athlete will likely also be experiencing stress or behavior changes due to the ongoing trauma and may be engaging in maladaptive coping strategies or self-defense mechanisms such as substance abuse, disordered eating, compulsive behaviors, etc.
These stages then continue to overlap and play out in perpetuity until the victim removes themselves or is removed from the grasp of the groomer. This may occur via reporting, moves, team changes, etc. Studies have shown that grooming can last from less than a month to over five years. (32) Victims of grooming may not see themselves as having been subject to grooming tactics or abuse till far after the event, years or decades later. (33) Additionally, it is essential to remember that the groomer may also have concurrent victims, past victims, and future victims who are subject to their harmful tactics. Keen awareness, reporting, and safeguarding must be enacted to protect current and future athletes.
**If you need immediate support or assistance, visit our crisis resources.**
Kathryn McClain, MSW, MBA
Program and Partnerships Director at #WeRideTogether
Works Cited
- Flagging Foul Play – Preventing the Sexual Grooming of Youth Athletes
- Former NCSU athlete’s sexual abuse case hits federal Appeals Court
- Read the SafeSport Code
- Grooming - Safe4Athletes - Recognize the Stages
- Adult Grooming In Sport - If It Feels Wrong, It Is Wrong - Ann Craft Trust
- Fair Play or Fair Game? Child Sexual Abuse in Sport Organisations
- Tara's Story | Survivor Stories | #WeRideTogether
- Perceptions of Sexual Abuse in Sport: A Qualitative Study in the Portuguese Sports Community
- #WeRideTogether 2024 Global Abuse Prevalence Statistics Report
- Leah's Story | Survivor Stories | #WeRideTogether
- 'It Brought Tears to My Eyes': Alleged Grooming Victim On Former Wetumka Athletic Director Arrested, Charged With Child Sexual Abuse
- Sexual Violence and the Coach–Athlete Relationship—a Scoping Review From Sport Sociological and Sport Psychological Perspectives - PMC
- Leah's Story | Survivor Stories | #WeRideTogether
- Fair Play or Fair Game? Child Sexual Abuse in Sport Organisations
- Sexual Violence and the Coach–Athlete Relationship—a Scoping Review From Sport Sociological and Sport Psychological Perspectives
- Flagging Foul Play – Preventing the Sexual Grooming of Youth Athletes
- Kendall's Story | Survivor Stories | #WeRideTogether
- Former Rockland diving coach Byrne gets 18+ years in prison for sexually abusing two teens
- The Grooming Process in Sport: Narratives of Sexual Harassment and Abuse
- Former Colorado coach imprisoned for sexually assaulting teen athletes: "Every parent's worst nightmare"
- Full article: Sexual Violence Against Children in Sports and Exercise: A Systematic Literature Review
- Full article: Sexual Violence Against Children in Sports and Exercise: A Systematic Literature Review
- Shannon's Story | Survivor Stories | #WeRideTogether
- Flagging Foul Play – Preventing the Sexual Grooming of Youth Athletes
- Kendall's Story | Survivor Stories | #WeRideTogether
- The Grooming Process in Sport: Narratives of Sexual Harassment and Abuse
- Sexual Violence and the Coach–Athlete Relationship—a Scoping Review From Sport Sociological and Sport Psychological Perspectives
- Youth football coach jailed for raping teenage girl in car
- Eight years for sports coach for sexual abuse of minors | Cyprus Mail
- Davidsonville youth softball coach to register as sex offender after abusing player
- Tara's Story | Survivor Stories | #WeRideTogether
- The Sexual Grooming Scale – Victim Version: The Development and Pilot Testing of a Measure to Assess the Nature and Extent of Child Sexual Grooming
- DELAYED DISCLOSURE | Child USA
