A gymnastic-esque scandal rocks Olympic skateboarding!
Day 5 of plague-induced sobriety and I’ve lost my vigor. The fever has transmuted into something far worse, either the Bubonic Plague or leprosy, and I likely won’t be around much longer but at least I’m not part of USA Skateboarding.
Have you read the headlines? Have you seen the news? USA Skateboarding has suspended one of it officials over alleged sexual misconduct with a child. It is not a pretty story and let’s turn to ESPN for the details:
USA Skateboarding has placed executive committee member Neal Hendrix on interim suspension following allegations of improper sexual contact with a then-14-year-old skateboarder. Hendrix is under police investigation for the same allegations.
Professional skateboarder Julie Lynn Kindstrand Nelson, who goes by “Julz Lynn,” detailed the allegations to the Costa Mesa (California) Police Department on Oct. 11, providing a detective with a six-page letter describing interactions with Hendrix. The letter, also provided to espnW, states that when she was between the ages of 14 and 15 and Hendrix was in his early 30s, she performed sex acts on him at his request. The letter also states that he masturbated in front of her, photographed and took videos of her while she was naked and showed her pornography involving underage girls.
Etc.
A very ugly story. Bad bad bad but good for surfing? Oh don’t look at me that way. Don’t look at me at all, in fact, because you will catch what I have but let’s discuss a bit.
Surfing and skateboarding were accepted into the 2020 Tokyo Games at the same time and I would imagine to add youthful appeal. Snowboarding, which has been part of the winter Olympics since 1998, is the highest-rated, most-viewed category. It does not strain credulity to believe that the International Olympic Committee dreamed of an equal spike coming from the other two boardsports.
Even still, I would continue to imagine that many starched collars in the IOC, headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, shook their heads at the mention of surfing and skateboarding while saying, “Nein, das sind keine guten Dinge. Sehr dreckig und schlecht.” And I bet they just meant it in the joint smoking, cocaine sniffing sort of way. That surfers and skateboarders are derelicts and not athletes.
I wholeheartedly agree with those starched collars, by the way. Surfers and skateboarders are derelicts and not athletes but then look at Neal Hendrix over there on the skateboarding side allegedly pretending that he’s USA gymnastics.
Vile vile vile and not a good look for anyone at all except surfing looks positively grand by comparison. And this is why sport stuff should be left to sport people and surfers should be left alone. No good ever comes from coaches, committees, training camps, etc.
No good at all.
