In 2018, Jennifer Fox made an Emmy-nominated movie referred to as “The Story” about her pieced-together reminiscences of what she now describes as childhood sexual abuse.
Laura Dern starred within the HBO drama, by which Fox unspooled what she remembered concerning the relationship she had as a 13-year-old along with her 40-year-old coach.
The main points had been horrific and unsettling, and the lingering ache of the principle character, additionally referred to as Jennifer, was palpable. However the coach was given a pseudonym within the flippantly fictionalized movie.
Now, a half century after the connection resulted in 1973, Fox has come ahead with the title of the person who she stated abused her. She stated it was Ted Nash, a two-time Olympic medalist in rowing and nine-time Olympic coach who had mythic standing within the sport. Early in his athletic profession, Nash additionally coached women and girls in operating.
“He was a really esteemed, very proficient manipulator and beloved and appeared good and acted proper and had all the correct credentials,” Fox instructed The New York Occasions in a collection of interviews, including that Nash, who died at 88 in 2021, appeared like somebody she and her mother and father may belief. Fox has filed a grievance in opposition to Nash with U.S. Rowing, the game’s nationwide federation.
When instructed of the accusations, Aldina Nash-Hampe, Nash’s first spouse, stated they had been “type of a shock to me.”
“However then,” she added, “he appeared to have affairs with numerous ladies, and that’s one of many causes I left.”
Nash-Hampe, 87, stated that she and Nash divorced in 1972, after she discovered letters from Nash to a few of these “many, many ladies,” and in addition that Nash had “type of deserted” her and their two younger sons. She stated that she didn’t know something concerning the experiences Fox described, and that she was not conscious of Nash having been concerned with underage women. However, she stated, it was as if Ted Nash had two lives.
“He’s obtained an enormous fame for being a beautiful man,” she stated. “However he does have this historical past.”
His widow, Jan Nash, stated she was shocked and saddened by Fox’s allegations and that “it’s simply not honest” for Fox to call Ted now that he can’t defend himself.
“Look, I didn’t know Ted on the time, so I can’t say something about that point,” she stated of Fox’s accusations.
Within the rowing world, Nash was revered due to his résumé, charisma and, in lots of circumstances, standing as a father determine each on and off the water. In a 168-page guide referred to as “The E-book of Ted,” written by Sean P. Colgan, one in every of Nash’s former collegiate and nationwide workforce rowers, Colgan quotes one other rower saying that Nash’s crew may hardly inform the distinction between Nash and God.
Colgan, in an interview from his house in New Zealand, stated that he had identified Nash for practically 60 years, and that he by no means noticed “any dent in his ethical credibility, whether or not it’s cursing, mendacity, dishonest, something like that.”
Nash had accompanied Colgan on holidays with Colgan’s spouse and 5 youngsters and was the godfather of Colgan’s oldest daughter, Colgan stated, and Nash by no means confirmed any sexual attraction to “youthful individuals.” He referred to as Fox’s accusation’s “preposterous.”
“People who know Ted know that he’s an upstanding man — essentially the most upstanding I’ve ever met in my life,” Colgan stated.
After receiving Fox’s grievance final fall, U.S. Rowing, aided by america Olympic & Paralympic Committee, introduced within the legislation agency Shearman & Sterling to analyze. Its inquiry is constant.
Fox’s grievance included an in depth, nine-page account of her experiences. She additionally despatched a replica of an English task she wrote when she was 15 that alluded to her relationship with Nash, and a hyperlink to her movie. She submitted the title of a childhood good friend, Brenda Hughes Miller, who stated in an interview with The Occasions that Fox instructed her in center faculty that she was having intercourse with a 40-year-old man.
Establishing the details in sexual abuse circumstances is commonly troublesome. Victims might not report their abuse due to denial, disgrace or concern that they gained’t be believed, all of which Fox stated had been elements for her. However her case is especially difficult as a result of the abuse she described occurred 50 years in the past and Nash is lifeless.
Fox, 63, stated she had little management over when she could be emotionally able to saying Nash’s title publicly. She stated she hadn’t even been able to name herself a sexual abuse survivor till she was 45.
However after Nash died, Fox stated, she learn the “glowing, vomitous” obituaries about “how wonderful this human being is,” and it pushed her to talk out. She stated she needed abusers to know that even dying wouldn’t spare them from being caught.
“I used to be so offended,” she stated.
It’s common for victims to come back ahead years after they had been sexually abused as youngsters, and uncommon to have a false accusation in these circumstances, stated Marci A. Hamilton, who testifies as a authorized skilled in youngster abuse circumstances and is the chief govt of CHILD USA, a nonprofit centered on youngster abuse prevention.
“The science says it takes a long time for victims to come back ahead,” she stated. In a research CHILD USA carried out of hundreds of abuse victims who had been Boy Scouts, Hamilton stated, half had come ahead earlier than they had been 50, and half after.
Amanda Kraus, the chief govt of U.S. Rowing, stated she couldn’t remark about Fox’s case as a result of the investigation is constant. She stated, nonetheless, that it was the federation’s responsibility to take the abuse allegations significantly.
The U.S. Heart for SafeSport declined jurisdiction over the case as a result of Nash is lifeless, Kraus and Fox stated, so the rowing federation took over. The actions the federation may take in opposition to Nash, if any, rely on the end result of the inquiry, Kraus stated. Whereas the federation doesn’t have the ability to strip him of his Olympic medals, she stated, it may select to deal with his legacy otherwise sooner or later.
Kraus stated that she had been confronted with the difficulty of sexual abuse greater than she anticipated after becoming a member of U.S. Rowing in 2020.
“We’re not going to bury our heads within the sand as a result of each time we try this, we’re permitting extra younger individuals to get harm sooner or later,” Kraus stated. “So let’s speak about it. Let’s deliver it to the floor.”
She added, “I’ll say this on a regular basis, nothing is extra necessary than the security of younger individuals.”
Nash, who, like Fox, lived outdoors of Philadelphia, possible got here into contact with hundreds of athletes throughout his lengthy profession in sports activities. After successful medals on the 1960 and 1964 Olympics, he coached crew on the College of Pennsylvania till 1983. The college’s indoor rowing middle is known as for him.
Nash additionally was an early supporter of girls’s athletics. He co-founded the Nationwide Ladies’s Rowing Affiliation and served as an unofficial operating coach on the Padukies Observe Membership in Philadelphia, the place women and girls competed.
“All Ted has carried out for girls’s rowing, beginning it, selling ladies, serving to ladies, all of these items that he’s carried out, is all of it forgotten as a result of one lady comes out with an allegation?” Jan Nash stated. “It’s simply not proper that one lady can say one thing and all the good he has carried out will get smeared.”
‘Probably the most tentative, frightened little soul’
Fox, then 13, met Nash in the summertime of 1973 when she was taking driving classes from Susie Buchanan, a farm proprietor who died in 2013. Nash, a muscular, 6-foot-4 Olympic gold medalist, lived subsequent door and served as a operating coach for Buchanan and the driving college students who lived along with her that summer time.
The group would meet at 5 a.m. to go on lengthy runs, “to understand health and the health of our horses,” stated Pamela Burdett, one of many handful of riders who lived on the farm with Fox the 12 months Fox stated she was abused. Burdett was 15 then.
“Again then, Jennifer appeared asexual, like an 11- or 12-year-old boy, and she or he spoke in a whisper,” Burdett stated in an interview. “To me, she was essentially the most tentative, frightened little soul you possibly can ever think about.”
Burdett stated she didn’t discover something unusual happening between Nash and Fox. However she recalled Nash as soon as commenting on Burdett’s weight reduction, and it gave her “a lascivious vibe.”
“I used to be like, yuck, and was disgusted as a result of he was my dad’s age,” she stated.
Fox, although, stated she had loved Nash’s consideration. She remembered his saying that she, not like the opposite women, was mature and extraordinary. Her mother and father didn’t perceive her, he instructed her. Nash and Buchanan, the farm proprietor, additionally instructed her that they had been lovers, Fox stated.
One evening Buchanan introduced Fox to Nash’s home, Fox recalled, in order that Fox may spend the evening. The scene is captured in “The Story,” by which Dern performed the character of Fox as an grownup.
Fox, a prepubescent lady with braces who hadn’t had her first kiss, ended up in Nash’s bed room. It was the start of an intimate relationship that might result in Nash having intercourse with Fox a number of occasions, together with coercing her to carry out oral intercourse on him, she stated.
Sooner or later, Fox requested her finest good friend in center faculty, Brenda Hughes, if she had ever kissed a boy. The response was no. After which Hughes requested Fox the identical query.
She recalled Fox responding, “I’ve truly gone all the best way.”
In a latest interview, Hughes — now Brenda Hughes Miller — stated that she had been shocked that Fox had already had intercourse, and that Fox had claimed that the individual she had intercourse with was a 40-year-old whom she referred to as her boyfriend.
“My mouth was on the ground, however I used to be making an attempt to not choose,” Hughes Miller stated. “I do not forget that I used to be making an attempt to not be a complete sq. as a result of she was telling me not from a spot of concern, of ‘What do I do?’ She was telling me, on the time, from a spot of confidence, which was so bizarre to me.”
She added, “The best way she was telling me, it didn’t happen to me on the time, like, go run round and inform anyone.”
Fox stated her sexual contact with Nash continued for a number of weeks within the fall of 1973, when Fox was a seventh grader. She ended the connection on an evening when she was supposed to fulfill Nash and Buchanan at a resort. The plan was for a 19-year-old faculty pupil named Robin Stryker to hitch them there for a foursome, Fox stated. Fox backed out as a result of she felt sick.
Stryker stated in an interview that she had been having intercourse with Nash, however had no concept that Fox was, too. She stated the resort assembly was speculated to let all of them “speak about our lives and the way we love one another and the way we care about one another and what we imply to one another.” However she knew that the assembly may result in sexual acts, she stated.
“I used to be relieved that Jenny wouldn’t be there,” Stryker stated, explaining that she was glad that somebody underage wouldn’t be concerned. The assembly was canceled.
Stryker stated she additionally felt she was groomed by each Nash and Buchanan, who had launched her to Nash.
“There’s little question in my thoughts that he did it,” she stated, concerning Fox’s abuse allegation. “I may see him doing that. Individuals must be held accountable.”
A stunning faculty essay
For many years, Fox stated, she believed that Nash had simply been her first boyfriend, and nothing extra. When she was 17, she went into remedy as a result of she felt she may by no means love anybody after what had occurred with Nash.
Acknowledging that she had been abused — or worse in her thoughts, that she had been a sufferer — would have damaged her, she stated. She wanted to cling to the concept she had been robust and answerable for the scenario, she stated.
Fox lastly noticed the darkish aspect of her relationship with Nash when she was in her 40s and was interviewing dozens of girls worldwide for her documentary “Flying: Confessions of a Free Lady.” She was shocked to listen to that different ladies had had experiences that gave the impression of hers — however they referred to them as sexual abuse.
In that movie, she used the phrase abuse onscreen when speaking about her personal life.
“It dawned on me I wasn’t particular in any respect and that oh, I used to be simply his goal,” she stated in an interview. “I may deal with it at 45 as a result of I used to be a profitable filmmaker who’d had a life, who had an ego, who was sufficiently big to deal with it.”
Her mom, Geraldine Dietz Fox, noticed the movie and commenced trying by way of memorabilia from Jennifer’s childhood. She discovered and skim a decades-old English writing task by which Fox described her relationship with Nash and Buchanan, whom she didn’t title.
Within the task, Jennifer described having a loving relationship with two adults. She wrote {that a} man had invited her into his bed room and touched her physique and her breasts as she remained frozen.
The place Fox wrote, “Even his kisses made me sick to me abdomen,” her trainer merely modified “me” to “my” and later commented: “If what you speak about right here had been correct, I’d say that you’ve got been taken benefit of by older individuals.”
The trainer wrote, “thanks for sharing — imaginatively conceived piece of writing,” and gave the paper an A-minus.
Her mom frantically requested Jennifer if what she had written was actual. Informed that it was, she needed to confront Nash instantly, she stated in an interview this month, however deferred to her daughter, who wasn’t able to take that step. However Fox instructed her mom that she needed to make a movie concerning the expertise, and her mom supported her.
Fox determined that it was the correct time to write down “The Story.” The movie was necessary to her; she needed individuals to understand how lengthy it may take a baby to appreciate that she had been abused.
After the movie, Fox stated, she tried to seek out methods to prosecute or sue Nash. However there was no going to the police for a case that was a long time previous as a result of at the moment the statute of limitations had expired. She additionally thought of hiring a lawyer for a civil case, however the ones she consulted implied that Nash’s property wasn’t giant sufficient to make the case worthwhile, Fox stated.
So she gave up — till she learn how he was eulogized.
“The grownup a part of me needs to maneuver on, however that youngster in me, she needs to face him and get it over with and title him,” Fox stated. “There was part of me saying, I can’t allow you to relaxation till you title him.”