Gilhooly - I Am Nobody: Confronting the Sexually Abusive Coach who Stole My Life

To all who have suffered:

You are not alone, you will be heard, and you will be understood.

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,

Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,

Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,

Remembers me of all his gracious parts,

Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;

Then, have I reason to be fond of grief?

Fare you well: had you such a loss as I,

I could give better comfort than you do.

I will not keep this form upon my head,

When there is such disorder in my wit.

King John (Act III, Scene IV), William Shakespeare

CONTENTS

A CALL TO ACTION

I F YOU HAVE been sexually abused, fight on, no matter how dark things may seem, no matter how difficult your situation may be, because you can come through and survive your battle and live a good, meaningful life. Reach out to others and let their goodness shine upon you and help carry you along your journey to inner peace, wherever that may lead you.

If you havent been abused, please give freely of your love and support to those who have been abused, for we need you and your help more than you can ever know.

But if you have sexually abused another, pay your debt to society and get all the help you need to ensure that it will never, ever happen againfor it can never, ever happen again. Accept responsibility for what you have done, no matter how unfair it may seem to you, and accept all of the consequences you may have to endure because of your actions, all of the restrictions you will face in your future. Respect your victims. Do not make excuses. Do not in any way minimize the impact of what you have done to your victims. Do not try to pretend that there was any good you may have done along the way that could in any way offset even part of the bad that you have done. Failing that, go to hell.

PROLOGUE

I AM NOBODY

I M STANDING IN the parking lot of a local community hockey arena. The rinkplain, rectangular, designed like an industrial warehousecould be anywhere. Its a cool, still, gray day in the middle of a Canadian winter, snow gently falling, the type of day where every kid should be outside skating and playing, living life to its fullest. It makes me think back to all the hours we spent playing hockey outside, how good it felt to skate with the wind at our backs, how brutally awful it was to have to turn around and skate back into it. In an instant I am again feeling that cold air biting through my equipment, I am remembering how it felt to freeze into my own sweat. For a moment its real, and I want to fall back into it, I want to give myself completely over to the memory of the sound of our skates squeaking as we stood and rocked back and forth in the intense cold, listening while our coaches set out the next drill. I want to be that kid again, getting ready for the next drill while sniffling back a runny nose in the thick fog of our heavy breathing, all of us needing to start moving again to generate some body heat. I can even smell the hot chocolate that was always served to us when we were very young and came inside after our battle with the elements, the true victors being those who could get their skates off quickest and be the first to grab the hot water bottles to warm their frozen feet.

But Im not a kid anymore, and the game left me with other memories, too.

I enter the arena. I see people milling about, kids dragging equipment bags bigger than the bags I took with me when I went away to university. The scene is chaotic. The arena, like most others, is crowded, not designed for the crush of people. There are children and adults everywhere. And then it starts, something that always happens to me whenever I am at a rink (or in any public space, for that matter). I start scanning the room looking at every adult male trying to figure out why each one is there in the midst of the kids. That one in the corneris he a parent? Have I seen him before? What is that guy doing over there? Are those kids by the door being watched by their parents? That coach kidding around with the kids on his teamis that normal, or is he getting a little too personal with some of them?

Ten steps later and it has passed. Ive made it into the dressing room of the team that I coach and all is well. Just the hockey team enters, the boys and the other coaches. Here we can all have fun and the kids can revel in the pure joy of playing hockey. That world out there, the big scary one we all encounter daily, that world doesnt exist in the energetic lead-up to going out on the ice and playing. On the ice, the kids do things with such speed and grace that you sometimes have to remind yourself just how young they are. Here, one thing and only one thing matters to them: hockey. When they are at the rink hockey becomes their entire world. There is no school, no homework, just a safe place where they can push themselves athletically and at the same time play.

At least, its supposed to be safe.

I loved hockey. I still do. Hockey was where I was most comfortable. On the ice I felt completely in control of everything around me. I excelled at hockey and was confident in a way I never was anyplace else. I saw the game and understood its patterns. I was a part of teams and understood the internal dynamics of how teams operated. I could see who was struggling, who needed to work harder, who needed to be pushed, who needed to be supported. It all just came naturally to me. I was at peace in my hockey equipmentthe world made sense, I had an identity, and I was proud.

But then, in 1979, when I was fourteen years old, I met Graham James, the once-prominent, celebrated hockey coach. Graham groomed me and then sexually assaulted me over a period of several years into the early 1980s. That changed the way I would see hockey, the way I would see life, forever.

Books like this are usually written by people who are somebodiescelebrities, athletes, prominent business people, politicians, or other persons of note. They have a built-in audience, and their views are accorded greater weight and importance than those of a nobody. That makes sense, because as much as the media (and those who sell books) love a good story, those stories need an audience.

But I am nobody, just a victim (or survivor, if you prefer that word, and I understand why many do). Im not a former professional hockey player, nor was I ever that close to being one. Im not a woulda, coulda, shoulda type who cant get over the fact that but for this or that I might have been a star. All one can ever know is who I once was, who I became during and after the abuse, and who I am now. Im just me, once a young boy with promise who had the misfortune of crossing paths with, and then drawing the attention of, a serial sexual predator. Now I am a man who is, decades later, finally putting his life into place.

Because Im a nobody, you have no connection to me. You dont know me, so you dont bring with you any preconceived notions of who I once was, who I am now, and what my struggle did to me. You have no particular reason to care one way or another about me. You havent compartmentalized me in any way as somebody you see in the media, in the headlines, on the screens. Im completely removed from your world while still being a part of it. There is distance between us.