On the USAC's Jeff Plush statement
I guess this is what it took for me to reactivate the newsletter
I often think back to when I discovered this sport. It’s a foundational question at the club to everyone — “how did you discover curling?” — and mine was that I discovered it in college, opting to try a sport I never learned instead of going to an evening class I wasn’t interested in. I was an 18-year-old, a babe of an adult, trying to establish an identity beyond my school achievements, pulling off a backwards hat and goatee look with extremely mixed results. I loved sports but couldn’t throw hard, run fast, jump high, or push strong. But I discovered I could throw a draw, call line, and stay on my two feet (usually).
Why do I keep coming back, though? The sport is great, obviously. It incorporates so many of other sports’ best qualities. The innings of baseball. The teamwork of football. The mental strength of basketball and tennis. The repetition and learning curve of golf and bowling. The synchronicity of rowing. The, uh, coldness of the playing surface of hockey. The stamina and endurance of so many other sports, and the joys and travails of winning and losing.
And above all, of course, it’s the people. The sense of belonging. But more precisely, the I love my curling club, and the sport in general, is because I can be myself within it. I feel safety and acceptance. If I didn’t have that feeling, then the curling club it’s just a building with a bunch of rocks and ice. It’s miniature Antarctica with beer.
But we are not immune to problems as a sport.
We are once again reminded that abuse and harassment can happen anywhere. It’s happening in curling as well. Specifics are not available, nor are they important, but the pattern remains the same. It takes two types of people: those to create the harm, and another group to let it continue happening.
What we do know: there’s a person in charge of USA Curling, and that person’s name is Jeff Plush, and he was in charge of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL). While he was commissioner of that league, there was systemic abuse of players by coaches. At least one of those coaches continued to get head coaching jobs in the league despite the commissioner knowing about those acts. And when the investigation led by Sally Yates was conducted, he said he welcomed the investigation and wanted to participate, but for whatever reason chose not to.
The much-publicized report can be read in full here. It documented instances in which Plush’s actions (and inactions) created safe harbor for abusive men within the league. And with him at the helm of our favorite sport, many of us do not trust this individual nor feel that he should be making decisions within our sport, and USAC’s DEI task force came to the same conclusion.
However the USA Curling board does not agree, as they published a much-anticipated statement saying that they are sticking with Plush and have confidence in his leadership.
So, yeah.
With the Member’s Assembly convening next week, I’m not sure what’s going to happen. I share the anger that many of you have with how USA Curling has operated in the last month.
When this happens in another sport, one in which I am but a lowly fan, there isn’t much I can do other than yell, shout, and boycott. Fortunately many of us, including myself, are in positions of leadership in the curling world and have the ability to wield some influence to demand answers, hold people accountable, and make good decisions.
And while I don’t know exactly how that’s going to look, I know that USA Curling needs us — all of us, their sponsors, their athletes, and their grassroots clubs — to succeed in their endeavors, and if we do not go along with them, they will fail.
So let’s figure out what that means and get to work. We all found this sport through serendipitous ways and it means too much for us to let it become something that no longer welcomes us.