USA Gymnastics board resigns as wide-reaching reckoning for Larry Nassar sexual abuse continues
The remaining members of the board of directors for USA Gymnastics are stepping down, a spokeswoman announced on Friday.
The resignations take place under a mandate from the United States Olympic Committee in the wake of the Larry Nassar sexual assault scandal.
USOC CEO Scott Blackmun wrote a letter to the USAG on Thursday outlining a number of steps the organization needs to take or risk losing its certification as the national governing body for gymnastics. One of those steps was for the entire board of directors to step down.
“While the USOC encourages USAG to think and act broadly on reforming its culture, we also believe that reform must start with an entirely new board,” Blackmun wrote.
USAG quickly complied, announcing that it “completely embraces” the requirements laid out by Blackmun.
“USA Gymnastics will comply with the USOC requirements,” spokeswoman Leslie King said Friday.
Friday’s news is the latest in a tumultuous week surrounding the Nassar scandal. On Monday, USAG suspended former coach John Geddert, who coached the 2012 gold-medal winning Olympics team in London for his ties with Nassar.
Wednesday concluded a seven-day sentencing hearing for Nassar, who had spent the previous week facing testimony in a Michigan court room from 168 of his sexual assault victims who had fallen prey as young girls when Nassar molested them while working as a doctor for USAG and Michigan State.
Olympic gold medalists McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman, Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas and Jordan Wieber are among Nassar’s many victims.
Judge Rosemarie Aquilina handed down a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.
Later Wednesday, Michigan State president Lou Anna K. Simon resigned from her post after it was revealed that Nassar was allowed to continue to assault young girls despite reports of his abuse at the university dating back as far as 1997.
Friday saw Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis resign because of the Nassar scandal and what now has been exposed as a culture of sexual abuse throughout the athletic department in East Lansing.
After decades of depravity were allowed to go unchecked within USAG and Michigan State, a swift reckoning is taking place, thanks in large part to the testimony of Rachael Denhollander, the first of Nassar’s victims to go public, and a 2016 Indianapolis Star story that opened the floodgates on exposing Nassar’s abuse.
