This is one of those reports, kind of like the recent series of articles about the Washington Huskies football team that makes me want to vomit. The Korean sports world is on fire as of late due to a recent news program reporting that the sexual abuse and harassment of female competitors by their male coaches is not only common, but in many cases, almost viewed as a rite of passage.

Sadly this phenomenon isn’t relegated to the female professional sports world, but also high school, middle school and even elementary school level sports.

In the program, a sports insider testified that many of his fellow trainers said, “Having a sexual relationship is the first way to gain control of female athletes; violence is the second.”

These “control methods” are rampant in sports such as football, swimming, volleyball and basketball, to name just a few, where 90 percent of the training staff are men. The victims ranged from elementary school students to professional athletes, and they spoke of the effects not only on themselves, but also on their families and friends.

Just lovely, isn’t it? Tragically in a culture like Korea’s you can bet this is just the tip of the iceberg, and that this sort of thing has been silently happening for as long as females have played sports.

The program introduced the one time captain of a professional volleyball team who was warned to keep silent about the team’s coach raping nearly all of her teammates. She was told they would not be accepted in other teams if they raised the incident. The team was eventually dissolved.

Another almost identical case involved basketball players at a high school who had to keep silent about their coaches. After they testified, the coaches banned them playing or assaulted them.

There’s really nothing more I can say about this. I’m sure Koreans the world-over are as ashamed and disgusted as most. I’d hope there would be further investigations and that people will be punished. Don’t hold your breath though.