Nate Smith listed on “U.S. Center for SafeSport” database for Allegations of Misconduct

[skierjp]

Whitney is in Texas and Ryan Dodd is in CA.

[Horton]

 

Suspension – the person has been suspended for a specific period of time.

The time has not been officially published. There is no other official information.

 

[Drago]

Hmm. Wow.

[Horton]

 

[skierjp]

Hopefully Nate can get this behind him and focus on breaking the record.

[Ilivetoski]

Awesome?

[LeonL]

I'm with @ilivetoski. @skierjp, what's awesome and deserving of a thumbs up in this situation, regardless of anyone's personal opinion of Nate Smith? Maybe I misunderstood. Your post may be only awesome that further info was provided or that a specific term of suspension has been set. ??

Compared to the others on this list, his penalty is rather mild so I assume the violation was less serious.

As @skierjp edited his post and deleted his comment of "awesome" with a thumbs up, I too will this post to say never mind.

[BraceMaker]

@LeonL is that 3 months safe sports ruling or just on USA Waterski?

[jimski]

What does physical misconduct mean

[brody]

Skierjp, the guy gets convicted of an offence and your post sounds Like he’s getting screwed over.

I don’t know what he did for sure but have heard somewhat reliable info. He has lost a fan in me. I’m amazed his sponsors have stuck with him.

[jimski]

@brody ??

[Horton]

whole think is officially a cluster F***

[ScottScott]

If I'm going to dislike a guy, I would have to know more about the situation. Obviously it was found that he crossed a line somewhere. But, 3 month suspension compared to the other US water ski and wake board members that have suspensions starting at 4 years for 1....permanent for the others. Any offense is significant, but obviously no where close to the same level as these other people.

[Horton]

@ScottScott unfortunately the very nature of the situation requires confidentiality. The repercussion of that is of course the rest of us are in the dark and we'll never know what's really going on.

[wawaskr]

So no one learns anything....good old boys club... biz as usual...shocker!!

[Ilivetoski]

So he got a suspension which means they are reasonably confident something happened... does that mean it gets turned over to the police? If so a 3 month ban from water skiing might be the least of his worries

[gregy]

I would think if safe sport only gave a 3 month suspension police aren't going to do much. Plus someone said the even happened 6 yrs ago. Hopefully this gives some closure to the victim or victims. And hopefully Nate owns up and learns from his mistake and gets whatever help he may need to make sure it never occurs again. Suck not knowing though.

[lakeaustinskier]

I'm a Boy Scout leader. As many people probably know BSA covered up a lot of problems in the 60's and 70's. IMO by BSA not immediately being open and honest about what happened prevented people from quickly reacting and learning from past mistakes.

 

On one hand I don't want to know what Nate did - it almost feels like knowing would only create more salacious gossip. However, as the parent of three kids and as a youth leader (not just in Boy Scouts), if I was given more specific guidance from SafeSport or AWSA etc. I would feel much better about my contact with young people. And to be clear - not just about Nate but all the people in the list John posted.

 

How many times have we all been in a boat by ourselves with a young person who is not our own kid? How many times have we been in the water with a young person holding them trying to get them up for on a ski for the first time? Just thinking about those situations sometimes scares me.

 

After much denial BSA finally reacted about 10 years ago and created a fantastic training program called "Youth Protection Training" (YPT). As BSA leaders we are required to recertify our YPT training every two years and NEVER be in a situation where we are alone with someone under the age of 18 - ALWAYS have another adult present when we are with a minor. This training is public and you do not have to be a member of BSA to take it (PM me and I'll send you a link).

 

Again - I'm conflicted about how much information I want to know. BUT if by carefully releasing more info AND that information would help all of us protect our kids I would fully support the effort.

 

[jcamp]

@Horton how is the "whole thing officially a cluster F***?"

 

Allegations were made, professionals investigated, immediate steps were taken to prevent additional victims from being harmed, both sides were given the opportunity to tell their stories, evidence was weighed and a penalty doled out.

 

To me it sounds like the process worked. How would you have preferred the process to take place? To call it a cluster calls into question the credibility of the process, it's results and impacts how people view this and future probes.

[BraceMaker]

@gregy I suspect there is at least some pressure to have a formal statement.

 

 

[Than_Bogan]

I don't have any statistics on what typical suspensions are, but just intuitively that seems like a VERY short suspension, which hopefully means this was deemed more of a "one time big mistake" than a serious long-term concern.

 

Yes, that entire paragraph is speculation, and I understand why some of you are calling for more information. But I just don't think that's realistic. There are very few instance where you can disclose information of this nature without explicit permission, which I can't see any of the parties granting. And if you change the rules to makes things automatically public, you'll merely encourage victims to NOT tell anyone.

[dbski]

It's so sad that because of a few shitheads the rest of us have to walk around on eggshells. I was a high school teacher for 30 years and was constantly aware of how precarious many situations were. In the 30 years of teaching I physically touched one female student. She was a great kid I had in class for 4 years and her only parent died suddenly. She took a week off school and her female counselor was accompanying here around to get readjusted. When she came to my room I expressed my sympathy to her and gave her a side hug with one arm in front of her counselor and even then I felt like I was taking a risk. It was very common because I taught CAD that kids would come after school to get caught up. I was always nervous when there would be just myself and a female student in the room. I would NEVER have the door closed as I knew all it would take was one unsubstantiated accusation from a female student and I'd be toast. It would have been headline news I'm sure on all the local TV stations. I totally understand and agree with all the precautions that are now in place but it does put a wall to a degree between people. Sad.