If you hadn’t heard of him before, the past two years made Larry Nassar a household name. Recently sentenced to anywhere from 40 to 175 years in prison, this physician sexually harassed more than 150 women over the course of 20 years. As we sift through victim testimonies, courtroom recaps, and the impact on USA Gymnastics and Michigan State, it’s easy to succumb to the sense of relief that Nassar is behind bars; however, his sentencing should not be the last time you think of his name. In a period of time plagued by similar accounts of sexual assault, the Nassar verdict should serve as a steadfast reminder of four crucial things.

#1. Nassar is not a minority. Sexual harassment is not a random occurrence perpetrated by mentally unstable individuals; it is a societal epidemic upheld by social norms, gender expectations, and a lack of accountability. In a survey conducted by the Huffington Post, it was reported that approximately 1 in 3 women between the ages of 18 and 34 experience sexual harassment in the workplace, but 71% of women do not report it (Vagianos, 2017). The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported 12, 428 reports of sex-based harassment allegations in 2017, with 53.87% being attributed to sexual harassment; this number, as seen by this table, has been fairly consistent since 2010 (2017). Despite our desire to label Nassar’s behavior as uncommon, we must accept the frequency with which sexual harassment occurs in order to acknowledge it as a societal epidemic and institute effective change.

#2. Predators don’t wear a name tag. There seems to be a misconception that potential dangers stick to dark corners, alleyways, or perceptibly hazardous environments; however, there is not a set of guidelines that help you identify a predator. The majority of sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone the victim knows; this degree of comfort acts as a tool in creating opportunities to take advantage of the other party. This is not to serve as a means for distrust, but more so a reminder that certain safety precautions, such as scheduled phone check-ins or group outings, can serve as vital means of preventing rape and other forms of sexual assault.

#3. Not all victims feel comfortable articulating their trauma. Admit it: when you read about Nassar harassing victims for over 20 years, one of your first questions was why didn’t someone say something. This question does not always serve as victim blaming, but more so a genuine lack of understanding as to why the safe space did not exist for someone to bring their experience to the correct authority. There are so many mental and emotional tribulations that accompany sexual assault, such as depression, PTSD, and anxiety, that it is often difficult to come to terms with the abuse. This internal battle is heightened when the environment does not exist to articulate your trauma without fear. To combat this, steps must be taken to prioritize the comfort of victims.

#4. It is our job to hold people accountable. Whether it’s sexual comments, inappropriate jokes, or mild touching, no act of sexual harassment should be considered too meaningless to address. It is the oversight of these behaviors that creates a sense of normalcy around harassment. If we begin to hold others accountable for less extreme behaviors, it defines a more concrete line between what is inappropriate and what is welcomed.

Larry Nassar is a prime example of an individual using a position of power to take advantage of vulnerable parties. This is a pattern; the United States has fallen victim to a rampant cycle of sexual harassment sliding through the cracks. It is our job going forward to not forget his name, his actions, or the outcome. It is our job going forward to create an environment that prevents victimization and holds predators accountable. It is our job to stand with the 1 in 3 women facing sexual harassment and ensure the next Larry Nassar isn’t given the opportunity to become a household name.

*Here is a link to the Larry Nassar article this opinion piece follows up

Larry Nassar, a physician who worked both for Michigan State and USA Gymnastics, was recently sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison after sexually harassing more than 150 women over the past 20 years. Some of those women came forward even years after they were sexually abused. One accuser even said she was harassed as young as six years old. Nassar had also been sentenced to 60 years in July 2017 for child pornography charges.

“I’m giving you 175 years which is 2,100 months. I’ve just signed your death warrant.”

“It is my honor and privilege to sentence you. You do not deserve to walk outside a prison ever again.”

– Judge Rosemarie Aquilina

This disgusting human being is finally going to go where he belongs; however, this is not the end of this horrific ordeal. Mike Golic and Trey Wingo on the ESPN Radio show “Golic and Wingo” noted this is only “the first chapter.”

“I thought that training for the Olympics would be the hardest thing that I would ever have to do. But, in fact, the hardest thing I would ever have to do is process that I am a victim of Larry Nassar.”

-Jordyn Wieber

Nassar was both an assistant professor and team physician at Michigan State. The school fired him in 2016 after the Indianapolis Star newspaper reported allegations from gymnast Rachel Denhollander. Once Denhollander came forward about what Nassar did, waves of victims, including notable gymnasts Jordyn Wieber, Gabby Douglas, McKayla Maroney, Simone Biles and Aly Raisman, began to share their experiences, with the arguably most notable and impactful testimony coming from Raisman:

“Imagine feeling like you have no power or voice. Well, you know what, Larry? I have both power and voice and I’m only beginning to just use them. All these brave women have power and we will use our voices to make sure you get what you deserve.”

“Larry, you do realize now that we, this group of women you so heartlessly abused over such a long period of time, are now a force and you are nothing. The tables have turned, Larry. We are here, we have our voices and we are not going anywhere.”

Eerily, on the “Today” show, Raisman painted a gut wrenching picture when she described how Nassar would make consistent eye contact with her during her testimony, ensuring not to break it when her eyes met his.

Another powerful moment during the trial came from another of Nassar’s patients, 15-year-old Emma Ann Miller, who started getting treatment from Nassar when she was 10. “I am possibly the last child he will ever assault,” said Miller during her testimony.

But despite justice being served, this is only the beginning of the story. “This is bigger than Larry Nassar. We have to get to the bottom of how this disaster happened,” said Raisman. The scary part of this scandal is that there are probably more victims than cases reported.

“You seem to have a hard time looking at me now, but you didn’t when I was half-naked on your table. What kind of doctor can tell a 13-year-old they are done growing by the size of their pubic bone?”

-Arianna Guerrero

After the trial, USA Gymnastics announced that the entire board of directors resigned in wake of the trial per the request of the U.S. Olympic Committee. Lou Anna Simon, who was the Michigan State president, also resigned.

Recently, a report from The Athlete’s Nicole Auerbach came out saying that NCAA president Mark Emmert was informed about 37 incidents at Michigan State in 2010 and did nothing.

In the lawsuit, it was said that USA Gymnastics covered up the ordeal by making McKayla Maroney sign a $1.25 million non-disclosure agreement. Michigan State had also been accused of enabling Nassar to continue doing what he had been doing.

“The Olympics were just one year away. And I just couldn’t take any more of the abuse. I was broken. Larry, my coaches and U.S.A. Gymnastics turned the sport I fell in love with as a kid into my personal living hell.”

-Mattie Larson

Shortly after the publication of the Indianapolis Star’s investigative report, the Michigan Attorney General’s office brought a criminal case against Nassar for the three charges of first degree sexual misconduct with a person under 13 in November 2016 (this was later increased to 12 in June, 2017). This initial filing led to a number of other court cases, a lawsuit against Michigan State University, US Gymnastics, and Nassar and a sexual assault allegation in Texas. Nassar also plead guilty to an unrelated child pornography charge, for which he was sentenced to 60 years in federal prison.

In 2006, Italy was engaged by scandal. No, it did not involve politicians, celebrities, or societal unrest. This was the Calciopoli scandal, whereby Juventus and several other major Italian soccer clubs fixed matches by having the league select referees which were favorable to them. For more information, see the excellent, but brief overview of Calciopoli and its effect, from Tifo Football.

American sport has never encountered a scandal quite as broad as Calciopoli. But that does not mean to say that scandal has not occurred, of course. I bring up the subject of Calciopoli, and scandal in general, in light of the New England Patriots making another Super Bowl. The reason being, I recall seeing several memes about supposedly questionable refereeing decisions in the Patriots-Jaguars AFC Championship Game, and that lead me to thinking about this particular comparison. Do I hold any stock in the Patriots cheating in this years AFC Championship Game, in line with those memes? Not in the slightest. Do I think Deflategate was overblown? Yes, but full disclosure, I am also a Jets fan, so any opportunity to hate on the Patriots is reason enough for me.

The reason this comparison between the Patriots cheating scandals and the Italian match fixing scandal intrigued me was more as a function and form of cheating, and our collective responses to cheating in sport. I follow Italian soccer relatively closely, and greatly admire Italian clubs, particularly Juventus, who was the keystone club to the match fixing scandal.

So what is the difference? Why am I able to leave Juventus’ cheating in the past, but I still feel hard done by the Patriots?

Well, if you watched the above video, you would see the result of the Calciopoli scandal. All the teams involved were docked points. But Juventus lost two Italian championships and were demoted to Serie B- the second level of Italian soccer. (For those not familiar with promotion/relegation system, it would be like the Yankees being sent down to AAA for a season for selecting umpires that ruled in their favor). There is a sense that justice was served.

Can we same the same with the Patriots?

Tom Brady was suspended for four games, then came back and won the Super Bowl that season. Which, in the context of the actual “crime” of Deflategate, seems well enough.

But then we have the Spygate. And the sense that I have always felt that not only was justice not duly served to the Patriots, but also that the NFL did not allow us in the public to truly ever know the extent to which the Patriots taped opposing teams during practice.

It supports a sense of unease and lack of trust about the sport in general, but also about the Patriots. We do not know what they did in full, it was never disclosed to us in the public. And then the tapes the Patriots used were eventually destroyed, meaning that we will never know what happened. Only Paul Tagliabue, Bill Belichick, and the guy filming the Spygate tapes will ever really know to what extent the Patriots gained an advantage on their opposition during the 2001 NFL Season. And that sense of not knowing does not sit well- it breeds a sense of distrust.

But with Calciopoli, we know exactly what happened, because Italian football conducted a full investigation, with a fair amount of transparency. The Italian national sports newspaper, La Gazzetta Dello Sport, covered the story for months, making sure the public knew every last detail, as it came to light, about what these teams were doing.

I think also having some distance from the events and perpetrators of Calciopoli helps as well. Nearly everyone involved in the scandal has left Italian football, and Juventus had several years in the wilderness. Luciano Moggi, the man at Juventus who engineered the system, is banned from football for life. Now Juventus have been at the top of Serie A every season since 2012. But those who designed the match-fixing have left the club. Any residual hatred of Juventus is likely tied to them being successful, and not as a result of their cheating, or of a conspiratorial belief that Juventus is still cheating.

While the perpetrators in Italian football were banned, Belichick and co. are still with the Patriots and winning championships. The residual distaste for their success (as comes with any successful franchise) is bolstered by a sense that we don’t know to what extent they have cheated, so they still may be cheating. There is no evidence for this sentiment. It is only a feeling. The success of the Patriots since Spygate or Deflategate is not evidence of their cheating. Only the Spygate tapes and the texts Tom Brady and his equipment managers traded serve as evidence of their cheating.

Do we need to move past all of this and embrace the Patriots? No. I do not feel so. They do not feel the need to be embraced, or at least, certainly Belichick does not feel the need to be loved by the masses.

But do we need to at least acknowledge that the achievements of the Patriots are more earned than stolen, and ignore sentiments to the contrary? Yes, because we have no evidence to anything else. Five championships with the opportunity for another is bound to lead to hatred from rivals. It is a bitter, arsenic-laden pill for this tired Jets fan to swallow. But in the interests of being free from as much delusion as possible, we have to admit the merits of the New England Patriots. Just as equally as I admire Italian football, I can admire the achievements of Belichick and Brady.

I have a coworker named Laura, who is a truly compelling person. She recently graduated with an MBA, is exceptionally gregarious, comes from a large Irish Catholic family, and is brilliant with children. She taught me the phrase and mindset, “set the child up for success.” She is also (perhaps ironically considering the mantra that she gave me) a Cleveland Browns fan. There are untold numbers of otherwise unique and complete people who also spend their time and energy following, supporting, and watching bottom-dwelling franchises.

This is a topic that has confounded me for some time: why do people invest their energy in teams that disappoint them? I had my own hypothesis, but I also asked Laura why she roots for the Browns. “It’s part of my identity,” she said. “Cleveland is my hometown, I’m not going to root for anyone else, and I want to have pride in where I come from. Even if the team is bad, the Browns are still a part of me.”

This sentiment about maintaining a sense of pride in one’s hometown through local sports was echoed by my friend Doug, a Redskins fan. I asked him why he stayed a Redskins fan despite their franchise problems. “I’m very much still a DC-first person at heart…. A lot of it just ties to the fact that I’m a native of the city and I always want to see the teams of this area win. And get the people from here some good times. Especially when we have such a unique status and culture between a predominantly black city and a city with no congressional representation.”

I think of myself, as a Jets fan. I was born in upstate New York, and my father was a Jets fan. We moved to Maryland when I was young, just as I was starting to become interested in sports. And despite the franchise’s incompetence over the past 45 years or so, I can look to the bond I have with my family, galvanized by our shared fandoms, as a source of pride. We feel that our fandom is a special relationship. And it is. It sets me apart, in a smaller minority, from all the Redskins fans and Giants fans and Cowboys fans and Steelers fans in the DC intake of people from all across America. I have a tie to a team with a smaller portion of the fandom market. It allows the failings of the Jets to get overlooked, when compared to the failings of the bigger teams.

I look at the way the Redskins treat their fans and the media, and think, “well, at least my team isn’t THAT bad.” My friend Doug put his relationship to the Redskins’ management woes succinctly: “I root for them to more and more begrudging levels when we consider the racist name, abhorrent owner, and incompetent management. It’s to the point where I root from them with a little more distance between myself and them.” But if I am honest with myself, I have no knowledge if the Jets’ management on a day-to-day level are as bad as the Redskins, since I get to keep their failings at a distance. I root for the team, but I need not consume all the information about them. I get to maintain the sense of loyalty and identity from a safe distance, at an intensity level that is comfortable for me. That is a relatively low intensity level, as I have little expectation of the Jets winning a Super Bowl in the near future. But it does not hurt to dream.

If fandom is, at its most extreme, about identity (and not necessarily about the team and its success) then one’s fandom, as a byproduct of where an individual comes from, is a core part of one’s identity. Moreover, if one’s team is bad, then all the fans of that team who remain are compelled by a sense of loyalty. To leave when the team is at its most vulnerable would be disloyalty, and a departure from the fanbase. One would lose a small part of their identity. And those who stay, may generate the benefits of loyalty through difficult times: a sense of superiority over those fans who have left, and over those fans who bandwagon upon other teams. This sense of moral superiority is only bolstered by a Messianic hope of a change in fortune for the team.

But this is just my thought experiment about the possibilities of what Laura told me. I’m not sure any fan would tell anyone else, to their face, that they possess a moral superiority because they are loyal. However, in light of our political times, we must be keen upon the depths to which identity affects us as individuals. How we hold these aspects of identity so dear, how they are expressed in our values. Fandom, increasingly, is a representation of our identity, alongside religion, race, and class, because it can reflect all of these markers of identity, as well as where we come from and where we live.

I would not overstate the role of fandom within identity- fandom is not universal to everyone. But to be a fan of a bad team, just as being a bandwagon fan, is an action related to an expression of a particular set of values. If we think critically about the way we support our teams, about our relationship to them from the point of view as fans, I believe that we can learn much more about ourselves in the process.