COLUMN ONE : When a Coach Crosses the Line : America’s gymnastics federation is leading a tough campaign to reduce the potential for sex abuse in a sport that often involves close contact.

Even though there were parents watching, they weren’t really seeing, not that it seemed to matter to Joseph Fountain either way. In his two gyms in Maryland, as parents observed their daughters in gymnastics practice, Fountain was consumed with his own performance. Discreetly, he would slip his hand underneath the leotard of a 7-year-old girl. Or greet a 4-year-old on the other side of a crawl tunnel by pulling back his shorts and exposing himself.

One child eventually complained, but even after police were brought in, most parents didn’t believe it. And after Fountain confessed to four counts of child abuse, they still couldn’t understand it. We were there, they told police. How could this happen right in front of us?

“There was a viewing area for parents to watch their children during class, and, during a town meeting, they swore up and down that the alleged events had never taken place,” said Sgt. Frank Young of the Montgomery County Police Department.

“But I asked them, how much are you paying attention?”

With popularity in gymnastics at an all-time high, such reported incidents are mercifully rare. More than 500,000 children in this country participate at all levels of gymnastics, encouraged by parents for the gain in discipline, physical conditioning and, they hope, self-worth.

But as the sport rises in popularity, so has the awareness of the potential for sexual abuse. In gymnastics, closeness between coach and student is the norm physically and emotionally. Physical contact is required for safety and instruction. In some cases, coaches spend long hours with their students, travel with them and serve as surrogate parents.

Quietly, USA Gymnastics, the federation that governs the sport, has begun expelling coaches, trying to stifle a problem before it victimizes more children. Over the past six years, the federation has kicked out 11 coaches for sex abuse, the federation recently acknowledged. Their names are published annually on a sort of “banned” list in the federation’s magazine--although there is no specific explanation given for the termination. The victims are more than 20 boys and girls.

“We are currently fairly pleased that it is 11 coaches and not 400, but let’s not be silly about it--you never know,” said David Moskovitz, membership director for USA Gymnastics, which has grown 14% in the last year.

Seven coaches were convicted of crimes ranging from exposure to offensive touching to rape. In an eighth case, a prominent coach was convicted of fondling his own children, not his gymnasts.

A ninth coach’s conviction for statutory rape of a 15-year-old was overturned, but he was still banned after an independent investigation by the federation determined that he had violated its code of ethics. The remaining two coaches were never convicted by a court, but were ousted under the federation’s internal disciplinary system.

*

“We had an environment that, in my opinion and in the opinion of our athletes, was somewhat encouraging or opportune for people of low moral standards to take advantage of,” said Mike Jacki, former executive director of USA Gymnastics, who started the anti-abuse program. “We decided to take a protective and proactive stance.”

USA Gymnastics has authority only over its members, which includes about 11,100 coaches and 120,000 gymnasts at all levels. The majority of the total 30,000 instructors and 500,000 athletes in gymnastics-related programs, such as at public schools or at parks and recreation centers, are not members. Membership provides such privileges as allowing coaches to participate in sanctioned meets, the most prestigious competitions in the country. The federation is in charge of selecting the Olympic teams.

“When you consider [the number] of teaching professionals, the ratio of [problems] may appear to be pretty darn good,” Moskovitz said. “But . . . there are vast regions of the country where it is not talked about, it is just not discussed.

“The good ol’ boys let a violator know that he has to be out of town by sundown. And sexual deviants do not rehabilitate like other criminals. Instead, they find the situation to make the abhorrent behavior available again.”

The federation urges gym owners to perform criminal background checks before hiring coaches. Educational material is published and seminars are taught. Members are encouraged to report any suspected deviant behavior.

Particular attention is paid to “spotting”--supporting an athlete with one’s hands while teaching a particular skill. And during away competitions, coaches no longer travel alone with gymnasts of the opposite sex.

The federation’s safeguards also help protect coaches from being wrongly accused. Jacki cites one case in which a coach was taken from his gym by police after a child went home with a chalk mark on her rear end and told her mother the coach had touched her there. The coach explained that he had caught the child from falling during a skill, and his hand had slipped. He was cleared by the police.

“It is not a problem exclusive to gymnastics but because our sport is so popular we get a bad rap,” said Julia Thompson Aretz, who owns two gyms in Minnesota and represents the women’s national membership for the federation. “We require more physical hands-on for safety than in some other sports.”

*

Don Peters, a well-respected coach of women’s gymnastics for 20 years, says he has not had any problems in this area, but does believe it is something for club managers to be aware of. In his gym, SCATS Gymnastics of Huntington Beach, Peters has implemented safeguards that provide for constant supervision of coaches to ensure that a child is never alone with a teacher.

“I didn’t generate these policies because of things that cropped up in our sport, but after the McMartin situation and wanting people to feel safe with our programs,” said Peters, who coached the 1984 Olympic women’s team.

“I think that the solution to this problem lies in supervision and designing facilities where there are no closed spaces where people can be alone with the child, and that includes me,” Peters said.

“I’ll give you an example. We finished up one night with one kid leftover, because her mother was late picking her up. The mother called from her cell phone and said she was stuck in traffic. She said she would be here in about a half-hour, and asked me if I could stay with her daughter or take her home. But I said, no way. So I had to make another coach stay with me until the mother arrived to pick up the child.”

It is the pattern of a pedophile--an adult who has a consistent sexual interest in children--to gain the trust of parents and the child before beginning the abuse, so the child is afraid to complain. Sports can be especially vulnerable to this. Parents are often reluctant to believe a coach has betrayed them. Children sometimes are too young to understand what has happened. But mostly, people are too afraid and embarrassed to talk.

A former national team gymnast says he spent four years training with his coach before the abuse began. By then he was 8 years old, and the coach was treated like a family member. The gymnast never pressed charges.

“I was so embarrassed, I thought it was only happening to me,” the gymnast said.

“I remember when I was 11 or 12, I would wonder, ‘Does this mean I am gay since I am the only one he’s doing it to? Do I exude something that makes him do this to me?’ During that time, when I tried to get a little more courage to stand up to it, he told me that if I told my mom and dad, he wouldn’t coach me anymore.

“[The coach] would tell me I wasn’t talented and he was the reason I was so good. . . . I thought that nobody would care [about the molestation] as long as I was winning. And what was worse than the thought of my parents not believing me was the fear of them believing me and not doing anything about it because my gymnastics was so important.”

This gymnast retired at 19, even though he was considered one of the best in the country. About seven years later, USA Gymnastics flew him to its headquarters in Indianapolis to tell his story. There had been new complaints from other gymnasts against the coach, although no charges had been filed.

*

The coach, through his lawyer, denied the allegations, according to a former federation official, but he soon sold his gym and retired from gymnastics. He continued to teach physical education in elementary school until this year, when he retired. His name does not appear on the banned coaching list because his federation membership had lapsed.

If he reapplies for membership, his file will be reopened, Moskovitz said. “There are many individuals who get themselves in trouble when they are no longer a member, but we keep their names so should they want to reinstate, we can look back at the complaints.

“If someone called us about this coach, we would tell them there have been complaints.”

In another case, there was only one legal complaint filed against Robert Dean Head, a former gymnastics coach in Kentucky, but it was enough to send him to jail. On May 18, 1992, Head pleaded guilty to raping a 12-year-old gymnast.

“He was 29 years old at the time, but his maturity level was about 16 and I think that’s why he related so well to the girls--they thought he hung the moon,” the victim’s mother said. “He spent many hours working with our children at no expense because he had befriended the parents. And even though there was another girl who had been [allegedly] abused, they would not go public.”

Head was sentenced to seven years in prison, but his sentence was suspended. He served six months, then violated his five years’ probation with a drunk-driving conviction and was returned to prison. While he was free, he tried to reach the victim several times, her mother said.

The rate of repeated offenses is high among child molesters, with one study estimating recidivism at 40%. Pedophiles cannot be cured, experts say, only controlled. Under conditions of probation, abusers are ordered by the courts to stay away from children, but those orders are not always followed.

William Permenter was a health spa instructor when he was arrested for fondling a teen-age girl. He pleaded guilty April 15, 1985, and served 90 days in jail before beginning his five-year probation period. But six months after his release, he was hired by the Duval County, Fla., Community Education program to teach gymnastics.

“It wasn’t great investigative work on my part,” said Brian O’Neill, Permenter’s probation officer in Jacksonville, Fla., where the offense was committed. “I got a tip and looked in the [course] catalogue and there’s his name; it was unbelievable. He full well knew he wasn’t supposed to be around children, the conditions of his probation [five years] were fully explained to him.”

Permenter was sent back to jail for a year, although he could have received 15 years for his felony conviction.

Many sex offenders plea bargain for a reduced sentence, which also precludes the victim from testifying.

Brian Coughlan, a gymnastics, swimming and soccer coach in Bethesda, Md., was indicted last year on 32 counts of child abuse involving 14 children.

*

Coughlan--who was not a member of USA Gymnastics--later pleaded guilty to six counts of child abuse involving three children--a gymnast and two soccer players. He was sentenced this month to 2 1/2 years in prison. But his sentencing was delayed more than a year after he was arrested in Bethesda, in part because charges surfaced of a sex offense in another county involving an elementary schoolchild. Coughlan was a teacher there.

In interviews with detectives, Coughlan, 37, admitted that since he was 17 he has had a problem touching children. He said he would fondle them over their clothing. The fondling, Coughlan said, was so subtle that some of the children would not be aware it was happening.

But there were children who not only noticed, but told. A 5-year-old girl at the Bethesda YMCA complained that Coughlan had fondled her as she sat on his lap during swim class. After notifying police of the complaint, a YMCA official walked down to the building where Coughlan was teaching gymnastics and observed him through a window, court documents say. Shirley Derrick later told police that she saw Coughlan spotting boys doing handstands by placing one hand on their waists and the other over their crotches.

Meanwhile, the mother of a 5-year-old soccer player called police after her son complained twice about Coughlan.

The mother laments that she did not take her son out of the program earlier--Coughlan later admitted to fondling her son at least once a week. “You really feel alone and embarrassed and there is no way to be 100% sure that you are not ruining the life of an innocent man,” she said. “We [eventually] had that assurance because Brian confessed, but there were some parents who refused to believe that such a lovely person could do these things.”

She blames those who hired Coughlan, saying that had his references been checked, his past would have emerged. But successful background checks rely on victims finding the courage to tell their stories.

“I remember when things slowed down with me, my coach just went on to the next kid,” said the former national team gymnast, now 30.

“I remember one day, when I was a junior in high school, I took the night off and didn’t go to practice. I remember going down to the gym with some friends. [The coach’s] car was there and it was late. I looked through the keyhole and I saw him and this kid jumping on the trampoline together in the nude. I got flustered and said to my friends, ‘Let’s go.’ ”

*

When he was 13, the gymnast said he tried to tell a group of coaches that he was being molested. He was so afraid, he says, that he cannot even call it a conversation. But he does remember that it was during the summer, and it was time for him to leave the junior national training center and go back home. He told these coaches that he did not want to go back because his coach touched him all the time. That’s all he said, and nobody else said anything. It was never brought up again. “Nobody cared,” he said.

That changed 11 years later, when USA Gymnastics started to crack down on abuse. Now, the gymnast speaks freely.

“Where I suffered from this was a tremendous insecurity and lack of confidence,” he said. “I thought I was ugly, grotesque, I felt dirty. The emotional game that goes on is so overwhelming, I felt guilty if I thought anything bad about my coach, he had done so much for me.

“Now I talk with my son about this stuff all the time and tell my story to groups of children. Hopefully, by me standing up there in a USA jacket, it will help give them the strength to come up.”