Many more children get “lost in the machine.
Identifying children early who may show potential to become elite athletes one day is a growing social phenomenon. This growing psychology and sociological movement of “talent identification” is not only influential in the United States. Across the world, this movement influences all sports of all types. Some children do go on to play at a professional level in their respective sport. However, many more children get “lost in the machine.”
This blog captures an important premise from my new book, which comes out in May of 2025. The title of that book is A System Designed to Fail: Football and Its Oligarchs. In my book, I lay out the leading causes for why a sport like football has created a psychological and sociological machine that only exploits, abuses, and grooms children for monetary gain. This machine uses virtue signaling to cover up what goes on behind closed doors with children identified as talented athletes. Grooming begins with the gatekeepers, who the football Oligarchs train and coaches turn the machine on.
Grooming is a psychological method that is used to manipulate, desensitize, and create inescapable power dynamics that result in sexual and non-sexual exploitation of victims (Collings, 2020).
Grooming is often not reported because the behaviors that relate to sexual and non-sexual grooming are not seen by the public as harmful when they are disguised well (Jeglic et al., 2023). The goal is to avoid “detection” when grooming a child by an adult, Jeglic et al. argue. One way that adults avoid detection that grooming is taking place is by not acting on groom-like behaviors while parents and/or family are present with the children. Grooming environments will often be created when an adult interacts with the child in private.
Psychological manipulation within grooming tactics is designed to shape behavior to develop trust in the child towards the abuser. The only goal with this type of manipulation is to advance the selfish and narcissistic goals of the abuser (Collings, 2020). The psychological turmoil that a child experiences as a result of psychological manipulation lasts a lifetime, sadly.
Desensitizing a child to grooming-like behaviors creates trauma bonding in children with the abuser. Desensitizing effects are connected to physical experiences for a child. The child’s physiology changes as the trauma bond continues. The child may no longer be able to detect sensory nerves throughout the body. These nerves send signals to the brain, alerting the child that there may be a threat in some cases.
Instead, the child cannot detect whether the abuser is a threat or not. The dissociation due to the emotional trauma that results from trauma bonding and grooming behaviors cuts the child from his body. Along with not being able to detect threats by recognizing signals from the body, emotional trauma can also result in hypervigilant for dangerous signals and magnifying non-verbal signs at the cost of verbal signals, nightmares, and somatic triggers.
Coaches desensitize players by creating trauma bonds with them. Coaches often say, “Our team is like one big family…we trust each other.” Coaches also say, “We will not allow our family to be hurt by anyone else.” Although statements can appear innocent and harmless, coaches rely on virtue signaling to give the public the impression that their children are in good hands. The cycle of abuse continues for these kids through high school. The coaches maximize their profits with these children by maintaining the trauma bond.
Once finished, these athletes are abandoned as adult children. These athletes are emotionally infantile and become victims of abuse from others. They are left wondering if anyone in the world cares about them. The effects of trauma bonding leave athletes emotionally numb, mentally ill, and hopeless. How many children’s lives must be ruined due to society’s unwillingness to hold coaches legally responsible for their egregious behaviors? One athlete said to me, “I have never forgotten about the abuse I suffered by coaches to this day. I know these same coaches have not given much thought about how they ruined my life.”
References
Collings, S. J. (2020). Defining and delimiting grooming in child sexual exploitation. Child Abuse Research in South Africa, 21(1), 1–9.
Jeglic, E. L., Winters, G. M., & Johnson, B. N. (2023). Identification of red flag child sexual grooming behaviors. Child Abuse & Neglect, 136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2022.105998
Photo by John Fornander on Unsplash
Clinical Complex Trauma Specialist (CCTS-1),
Certified Dialectical Behavioral Therapist (C-DBT),
Certified Alcohol & Drug Abuse Counseling (CADC)
