NEW YORK TIMES Column: JUST after Christmas, Poly Prep Country Day School, the venerable Brooklyn institution, settled a lawsuit alleging a more than 40-year cover-up of the predatory pedophilia of its legendary football coach, Philip Foglietta. The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed, but the lawsuit charged that school administrators were repeatedly informed from the 1960s until his forced retirement in 1991 that Mr. Foglietta was sexually abusing boys — on campus, in his apartment and during trips. Mr. Foglietta, who died in 1998, fondled and raped dozens, if not hundreds, of children…
We [as students] knew something was going on. We joked with one another about the showers and the car rides. One of my teammates wrote on a Web site created for Coach’s victims, “How is it that as a 14-year-old Poly freshman, I just knew that something was very wrong?” Another former student wrote, “I am heartbroken that I lacked the wits and guts to comprehend what was happening to classmates, friends, and the guys that followed me.”…
Shame ruined lives at Poly Prep; our great successes of youth have turned to ashes. I am angry at the school for failing to protect so many boys. But I am also ashamed of myself, that I was so intimidated, so desperate for Coach’s approval, so eager to be a boy winning football games, that I failed to be the man I know I should have been. (more)
