We all know how this story ends…
But let’s look at the timeline to see how we all got here. Starting in February 2010 when highly-recruited University of Missouri swimmer Sasha Menu Courey was allegedly raped.
In August 2010 – Shasha informed the MU athletic department that she’d been hospitalized for a “major depressive disorder” and had a herniated disc.
Next in December 2010 – Shasha contacted an online rape crisis hotline, saving a transcript of that conversation. Then near the end of that month, she told her campus therapist for the first time that she’d been raped.
In January 2011 – head swimming coach Greg Rhodenbaugh benched Courey from workouts and competitions. He told “Outside the Lines” that “he had no idea she allegedly had been raped. He said his decision to separate her from her teammates was made to motivate her to continue regular counseling.”
Shasha was in a back brace for the disc issue and getting benched was an enormous blow to her already fragile state. She felt “kicked off the team,” and sent a text to her coach saying as much. Rhodenbaugh said, “Swimming was something important to her, [so] we were trying to get her to go to the counseling.”
No longer participating in her sport and away from her friends on the team, Shasha’s spiral continued and she began to experience severe mood swings. Continue reading
It’s not my birthday, is it?
