BUCKEYE a, 4 mo October 22, 2009 Dear Buckeye Girl's Team Parents. i am writing you tonight about a former coach, Ray Adams. who worked part?time at Buckeye for about 18 months back in 2005-2007. Ray was arrested last week in Broward County, Florida on four counts of lewd and lascivious molestation, stemming from a accusations. The alleged attack took place while the girl was involved in team training at a gymnastics school where Ray coached in Florida. was contacted by the Broward County detective who was investigating the accusations against Ray prior to his arrest. She was iooking for past incidents and patterns of behavior that could help her in building her case. i was able to offer little help since Ray did nothing criminal while employed by Buckeye. The same was true when spoke with the prosecuting attorney this past Wednesday. She is facing a bail hearing for Ray tomorrow, Friday, October 23, and she is worried he will be released on bail. She fears that the courtroom will be packed with gymnasts and their families all of whom will be speaking in support of Ray Adams. She suspects that if he is released on bail those same parents will be the ones who will fund it. How can this be? They obviously think Ray is innocent. We will have to wait to learn what happens tomorrowjust as we will have to wait to ?nd out whether he is convicted of any wrongdoing at all. For my part the reaction on the part of the parents in Florida does not surprise me. Ray had a large and loyal following during the time he worked at Buckeye. Most of the girls that Ray worked with liked and trusted him and the parents of those gymnasts also liked and trusted him. But that is not to say that Ray did not have issues during this time. He did. The complaints we had on Ray generally fall into two categories: gifts and photos. Ray was the manager of The Sharper image at Easton. As time passed some of the gymnasts and their parents would stop in to visit Ray at the store when they happened to be at Easton. And sometimes, if a gymnast showed a particular interest in one of the items in the store, he would make a gift of it. These gifts were often quite extravagant and the items expensive. it you think any of the parents complained about their daughter?s receiving one of these expensive gifts you would be wrong. We had not a single complaint about any of the gifts received. No, we started getting complaints from the families of girls who did not receive a gift. My response: if you cannot give the same to everyone then no gifts at all. believe he told me that i had no authority over what he did at his store and he could give things to anyone he chose to give them to. I agreed and then explained to him that in my i could hire whomever I chose and that if he continued to split the team into the haves and the have~not's he would no longer coach at Buckeye. The gifts stopped. Overlapping the gift controversy and continuing for some months thereafter was the photo controversy. Ray was a photographer and he had nice equipment and he liked to take photos of the girls. it you think we had a problem with him taking inappropriate photos of the girls you wouid be wrong. We had not a single complaint about any photo he took of any of the girls. No the complaints we received were from the girls who did not get their pictures taken by Ray. lie he was dividing the team into ism ?n . and some were not. Agar from Ray were big Ray fans. divided the kids and some were chose .0 and attenti Ray but also with gift two roups. Those kids and families who receive . Thoge who did not either didn?t care or they became openly hostile 30'? fesporisei no more the girls who were in his favor. Things were on the verge of getting 9 kids photos. This policy was gym-wide. No staff members were to take photos of any 0f the tis still poiicy. Ray ement?s (and a good reason) first. The unteSS they had manag the denied taking any photos and once i continued to take pictures. When I called him on i . veri?ed that he lied to me, I terminated his employment at Buckeye Gymnastics- We also ?elded a handful of complaints from families who had bad feeling3 about flirty comments toward their gymnast. These comments. if accurate, were ones that It? ith considered inappropriate for an adult male coach to say to a young girl. We confronted rm all of them. He either denied or explained them away. A couple of the parents who came to us with these complaints were upset with us for not terminating his employment With Buckeye immediately. But none of the comments, even if true, were enough to justify termination in and of themselves. Nor were there many of them. The few complaints we had along these lines were spread over an 18?month period. But, none of this is to imply that we did not take the complaints seriously. We took alt of them to heart and they served to put us on high alert with Ray and we were very careful to strictly enforce all rules concerning two coaches in the at all times and no private lessons unless the was full of kids taking class or attending practice. Those have been our policies for many years and we still enforce those rules. That is our history with Ray Adams. This is the information that provided to both the detective and the-prosecutor in Broward County, Florida, concerning Ray and his time with Buckeye. Perhaps a more important issue is this: What is Buckeye doing now to make sure that we never hire anyone who might harm one of our students or athletes? The answer falls into two parts: first, what policies are in place to help insure that we do not hire any bad people in the first place and, second, what can we do if a bad guy (and?they are always guys) slips in despite our best efforts? First, every teacher and coach at Buckeye is background checked using the National Center for Safety initiatives (NCSI). This is same company and national data base and screening system used by the United States Olympic Committee. You can learn more about this process by Visiting USA?Gymnasticsorg at the following address, (http://usa- overviewphp). USA Gymnastics requires all coaches at USAG sanctioned competitions to be background checked in order to receive a professional coaching credential. All of the coaches at Buckeye had gone through this process and have passed the back-ground checks. At Buckeye we go further and we check everyone. Next, we check references. This does not come into play as often as you might think. Laura, Becky, and Michelle all grew up at Buckeye. coached all of them for many years and i did not feel any need to check their references. Philip, Sasha, and Li Li were all hired based on their exceptional international coaching achievements all of which were veri?ed by the national gymnastics governing bodies in Bulgaria, Ukraine, and China respectfully. Kittie has been coaching at Buckeye since 1986 and i do not remember ifl checked her references. That leaves Luke. We checked his references and they were glowing. Recently, we started the process to hire Monica to coach the girls and even though she was personally recommended by OSU Men?s coach and USA Olympic Coach, Miles Avery, we were in the process of checking and verifying her references when she resigned. Those are the steps we take before we hire anyone to teach or coach at Buckeye. We have no control of who applies for a 10b at the gym. We use back-ground and reference checks to try to weed out those who have questionable backgrounds or inadequate gymnastics experience. should those efforts fail or should someonejusi go had once they start with us. we also design our policies in a way that helps insure the safety of the children whenever they are in the 1, Parents are permitted and encouraged to watch every class and every practice There are no walls, You can see and often hear everything that goes on in the 2. The teachers and coaches are not permitted to work With our students and athletes without another staff member present in the gym, In the vast majority ot cases private lessons are not permitted at times when the is otherwise empty. We strive to insure that there are always parents, kids and other staff members in the 3, We listen to your concerns when you bring them to us. if you bring a complaint to Kittia I guarantee that she brings it to me. The same is true with all the coaches. They all share ccncems brought to them with Kittia and ultimately me. In all cases we discuss what needs to be done, what is fair to all, and how best to proceed, Our number one goal is to do what is best for the child. Things often get complicated and we not always get it exactly right but we certainly try our best to see things get done the right way It might have dawned on you that Ray got through the screening procedure at Buckeye and he did the same thing With other and passed one back-ground check after another What went wrong? I have been in contact with USA Gymnastics and they are dismayed that someone With an arrest and conviction record can get through the screening process They are in the process of a review of the N051 procedures and protocol to determine where the break down might have occurred. i have also been in contact with a number of who employed Ray at one time or another and it has been suggested that Raymond Adams, or rather Samuel Raymond Adams, had changed his name and was provrding false SS numbers to avoid detection. Federal law largely protects the matching of names With 58 numbers and it is unclear how NCSI (or any other background checking company) will respond should that be the case. It might also simply be the case that the back-ground checks everyone used do not flag arrests that do not result in convictions or convictions on minor offenses that do not meet the reporting threshold We Will continue to use NCSI forour back-ground checks until we learn the results of the USAG review or until we have a better option We will also continue to check references, listen to the concerns of our parents. and enforce our While these steps did not keep Ray from entering the they may have deterred him from doing harm. Should you have any questions or concerns not adequately addressed in this letter please feel encouraged to Contact me directly, Sincerely, David Holcomb, President Buckeie Gimnastics