Once a dominant figure in girls’ and women’s soccer, Rory Dames in recent years has become a symbol of an abusive culture and dysfunctional regulatory system within both pro and youth sports.
Articles in The Washington Post detailed former athletes’ allegations of verbal and emotional abuse, sexual misconduct and grooming. Dames denied it all.
Former acting attorney general Sally Q. Yates, commissioned by soccer’s national governing body to investigate abuse within the women’s sport, found the coach’s alleged misconduct “was no secret but had gone unaddressed for decades.”
In August, Sen.