16 Year Old Marries Her 40 Year Old High School Track Coach

[Axver]

FSH raised the point that the age of consent is in fact 16, though by the sounds of things, I have my doubts this guy kept his hands off her prior to her 16th birthday. And I was under the impression that some limitations are placed on 16 and 17 year olds even when the age of consent is 16?

was this guy actually her teacher or just her coach? because from the article it sounded like he was just her coach - if so, while not making it right, it would not be as bad as a teacher getting together with a student.

Whether he's a coach or a teacher, he's still in a position of authority, so I don't think it changes things much, if at all. And I don't know how things work in the States, but all the sporting coaches at the schools I attended in New Zealand and Australia were qualified teachers.

 

[BVS]

was this guy actually her teacher or just her coach? because from the article it sounded like he was just her coach - if so, while not making it right, it would not be as bad as a teacher getting together with a student.

Are you serious?

He is still a figure of authority, he still has the power of saying: "you have to stay with me, because if you don't I can ruin your record...". Etc...

 

[butter7]

It's hard to say in this case, but...well...When I was in high school, one of the female student in my grade did something opposite.

She told the PE teacher to divorce and wait for her to reach the leagal age of marriage. The teacher refused, and she simply took him to court and said he tried to take big advantage from her. The guy lost his job, his wife, got to spend about 3 yrs behind bars. And she took her new boyfriend did the court appearance.

The PE teacher taught my class as well, and personally I think he's a nice guy. Not sure what exactly happened between them, but the girl was quite mean, IMHO.

 

[A_Wanderer]

It must be dangerous to be a male teacher these days because all it takes is one accusation to really hurt your career.

 

[maycocksean]

I actually knew a girl in high school who ran off with a guy in either his late 30s or early 40s.

She was my date ("as friends") for a school event and she ran off with him the night before the event. Nobody could find her for awhile but eventually she turned up with him. She married, they had a couple of kids and they are absolutely miserable. He is reviled by everyone who knows him (I don't know him myself, but this is from mutual friends), apparently he is a vile person and treats her like dirt. Last I heard they were still together, but they may not be now.

My wife had a close friend who had a relationship with their history teacher. They got married as well while she was in high school. They split up.

Usually people pursuing these types of relationships are pretty unhealthy emotionally, and unhealthy people don't make for great marriages.

They way all of this has come down for the coach and girl doesn't suggest a lot of maturity or emotional health on the part of either.

 

[maycocksean]

It must be dangerous to be a male teacher these days because all it takes is one accusation to really hurt your career.

You just avoid all appearance of impropriety. No hugging. Keeping a door open during a conference with a student. Stuff like that.

I've never worried too much about it, but then I've never done anything that would give me cause to worry.

 

[butter7]

I think it's very different from condition to condition. Depends on not only what the teacher behave, but also the student.

Not sure if anyone here ever saw the whole grade of young girls chasing one male teacher, all the stalking, spying...etc, etc... And the school has to take him off the position not because he's not good at his job, but for his looks.

It's not necessary to have a relationship or something, but more like make a very unique impression (good or bad) and win a spot in someone's heart. Stupid teenage thing. But well... I was one of them.

 

[dazzlingamy]

You have to question what a 40 yr old man wants with a 16 yr old? I mean in their photo they look like Dad and daughter. So wooooooo after all the 'we;re so naughty, im a hot stud sleeping with a 16 yr old' high has worn off on him, where doe it leave them? She wants to go to a hilary duff concert and he sits how with a beer and plays cards? does he "chaperone her" and why would she want some saggy assed old man in her bed when she could get some hot 17 year old track star?

The worst of it though is her parents giving in. If she was my daighter, i'd have kept her at home, and sent my husband and friends around to kick his fucking ass. How dare he turn their professional relationship of a trusted coach into a sneaky sms and hidden dates type thing. While i don't go into the "impressionable" route because shes not mentally retarded and knows what shes doing - i think he's a sad fuck for trying to regain his youth by marrying a 16yr old. I mean in this day and age, with society the way it is, its never going to last. This isn't the polite oldie days where young was in, or Africa where its the norm and understandable. This is a sad old fuck and a very confused girl wanting to be old before her time.

Sad sad situation

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

It must be dangerous to be a male teacher these days because all it takes is one accusation to really hurt your career.

which is why you never... EVER... allow yourself to be in a position where you are alone with a student/athlete, regardless of gender btw.

as long as you do that, it's really not that difficult.

 

[WildHoneyAlways]

It must be dangerous to be a male teacher these days because all it takes is one accusation to really hurt your career.

It's not easy being a female teacher either. A female teacher in my district a few years ago was "asked" to resign after rumors of inappropriate conduct with male students were circulated.

I think the boys are just as aggressive as the girls. I had to write a kid up this year for saying "I'd tap that" after I walked away from him in class.

 

[yolland]

Even at the college level, these kinds of policies are standard...I never close my office door when meeting with a student, and neither do any of my colleagues. It really is a fairly straightforward question of appropriate professional conduct--your students are not there (and a captive audience at that) in order to supplement your social circle or dating pool.

 

[anitram]

Even at the college level, these kinds of policies are standard...I never close my office door when meeting with a student, and neither do any of my colleagues.

When I was still an undergrad student, this was my experience. The Profs would leave their doors open, unless you were discussing something that was confidential, like grades, etc.

But in law school, the profs almost always close the door. The only time they don't is if I drop in to chat about something that's almost more social in nature. Otherwise, the door is almost always closed, whether you are working with them on research, or going over cases or getting some pre-exam help. Then again, the average age of a first year law student is 25, so maybe we are past the point of concern about what it looks like?

 

[yolland]

Are these professors who also teach undergrads, or is it a purely graduate-level program? I conduct myself the same with undergrads and grads as far as that goes, it's just an automatic habit for me that if I have a student in my office then the door stays open, period.

I suppose it's fair to say though that I do tend to view my undergrad and grad students somewhat differently in terms of how exactly I construe my relationship to them...it's less a question of "past the point of concern about what it looks like," and more a general sense that undergrads (traditional-age ones, anyhow) are not yet fully formed as personalities, a greater proportion of everyday adult stressors are still relatively new for them and in that sense they're carrying a more precariously piled-up plate psychologically, you don't expect quite as much of a professional self-directed attitude from them, and so on. That's a generalization of course, and it doesn't tie directly into whether one might date a student or not (which in any case is seldom a legal issue at this level), but I can see to a point where if I had only grad students, I might perhaps be less inclined to think in terms of the importance of things like not unwittingly ratcheting up psychological tensions or creating an 'appearance of impropriety' by closing the door.

I found it rather bizarre in the case in question that the principal apparently found nothing inappropriate in the coach's relationship to his student despite the parents' records of him exchanging text messages with her at 2 AM when she was 14 years old...

 

[deep]

Have any of you ever seen the David Mamet play Oleanna?

It was a film, too.

I say leave the door open
and have someone else in the room, if possible.

 

[Varitek]

When they saw that to be untrue, they approached the school principal, the school board, and finally the county sherriff's office. None of these entities could find proof of any illegal activity - immoral & inappropriate perhaps, but not illegal.

As discussed upthread, while this may not have been against the law, it was clearly unethical, immoral, inappropriate, abusive, whatever you want to call it. Most professionals in positions of power (doctors, lawyers, social workers, nurses, camp counselors with 1 year age difference, even bosses within some adult working environments, and most teachers) have already committed to uphold these standards or be not only fired but stripped of their licenses. I think most schools in the country, if they found proof of "immoral and inappropirate" behavior without proof of illegal activity, would already have it within their contracts/rules/whatever (and teachers' unions too) and would have fired the guy.

I fault the parents for signing the consent, because they should have done something like pack her off to boarding school or if that was unaffordable transfer her to another school or something. But if they really did do everything they could to get the school to get rid of the coach, then the school is also majorly at fault for the progression of the relationship (with the parents being at fault for the marriage).

 

[shart1780]

OK I don't care what anyone says. That's just messed up.

I don't even see why this needs to discussed, really. It's so messed up it's not even debateable in any way.

 

[intedomine]

If there is genuine love between the 40 year old and the 16 year old, I can't see much wrong.

What if you've got a 40 year old with the character, spirit and looks of a 25 year old and a 16 year old with the character, spirit and looks of a 25 year old. There's no reason why they can't share a similar maturity and embark on a strong relationship.

Mind you, I've alwaysbeen one to struggle to identify any immorality or "wrong-ness" in relationships where there might be a significant age difference between a couple.

Love will and should come through, regardless of the petty issue of age difference.

Feel free to savage me, but I'm just unable to see anything "wrong" about such a relationship.

 

[BVS]

If there is genuine love between the 40 year old and the 16 year old, I can't see much wrong.

What if you've got a 40 year old with the character, spirit and looks of a 25 year old and a 16 year old with the character, spirit and looks of a 25 year old. There's no reason why they can't share a similar maturity and embark on a strong relationship.

Mind you, I've alwaysbeen one to struggle to identify any immorality or "wrong-ness" in relationships where there might be a significant age difference between a couple.

Love will and should come through, regardless of the petty issue of age difference.

Feel free to savage me, but I'm just unable to see anything "wrong" about such a relationship.

You keep overlooking the HUGE issue that he is an authority figure over her... How can you not see wrong with that?

 

[shart1780]

Whether it's morally wrong or not I can't say with 100% certainty. More like... 99.9999% certainty. I have seen a lot of relationships between two people who shared a much smaller age difference and they always ended disasterously. My first judgment on this relationship would be that it's most likely a case pedophelia.

The reason I don't think this should be legal is because the chances of this being an honest, mature and intelligent relationship are just so miniscule. A 16 year old is not capable of making decisions so important. Most girls at this age are so idealistic and inexperienced they shouldn't legally be able to make decisions like this. There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of pedophiles out there who would just LOVE to get their hands on a girl this age.

Using the "age is just a number" logic can get you in a ton of trouble. A 16 year old girl is a child. Maybe one in a million has the maturity of a 25 year old. But we can't be so idealistic as to allow these things because the relationship has a one in a million chance of actually working. Things just can't be run that way.

Should a 10 year old boy be able to marry a 50 year old woman? Age is just a number, right?

 

[intedomine]

I'm probably coming from a different set of values and experiences, but I personally think 16 year olds are of a more heightened maturity then society tends to stereotype them as.

There is an age where the loose "age is just a number" concept cannot apply, but I think 16 is perhaps too high. I'm thinking that anything 14 and under is when moral questioning should be undertaken and that a case of peadophilia might indeed be at hand.

And I did overlook the issue of authority before, and again I'm coming from another mindset all together, but I've always felt that for kids over 13, teacher's should no longer necessarily be figures of authority but figures of support. Tutorers more so than teachers if you like. I feel that teens would enjoy and get more out of their learning experience if the educators were more friendly with the students, rather than being the traditional "mean, old bossy boots" Guidance officers if you like, and ones who don't mark student exams And a good guidance officer is not one would take advantage of someone who might lack maturity.

But it's a contentious issue. I respect your views, and I might be strongly influenced (biased) by my long held grievance that people in their mid-teens are becomingly increasingly more patronised and dismissed by their elders. They still can't vote for bloody sake!

 

[*browneyedgirl*]

I was 16 when I met Mr. Brown and he was 31 and we've been married 24 years though they are even 10 years more age difference than us.

 

[anitram]

There is an age where the loose "age is just a number" concept cannot apply, but I think 16 is perhaps too high. I'm thinking that anything 14 and under is when moral questioning should be undertaken and that a case of peadophilia might indeed be at hand.

They started dating when she was 14....

 

[BVS]

I'm probably coming from a different set of values and experiences, but I personally think 16 year olds are of a more heightened maturity then society tends to stereotype them as.

There is an age where the loose "age is just a number" concept cannot apply, but I think 16 is perhaps too high. I'm thinking that anything 14 and under is when moral questioning should be undertaken and that a case of peadophilia might indeed be at hand.

From what experience or values do you come from where you think kids of 15 are emotionally capable of these types of relationships?

And I did overlook the issue of authority before, and again I'm coming from another mindset all together, but I've always felt that for kids over 13, teacher's should no longer necessarily be figures of authority but figures of support. Tutorers more so than teachers if you like. I feel that teens would enjoy and get more out of their learning experience if the educators were more friendly with the students, rather than being the traditional "mean, old bossy boots" Guidance officers if you like, and ones who don't mark student exams And a good guidance officer is not one would take advantage of someone who might lack maturity.

Authority figure doesn't equal "mean, old bossy boots", and you are right a GOOD guidance officer wouldn't take advantage, but as you and I know they aren't all good.

I'm very good friends with my boss, but I understand the lines that are there due to our work relationship. I also had teachers that I was very close with, but once again understood the lines of the relationship.

 

[shart1780]

well, I definitely agree with you on your second point about how young people are patronized. I'm in college and I've felt man times that the younger students in the class (including me) were treated much differently than the older students (some in their 40's). My last math teacher would constantly yell at the younger people for talking even a tiny bit (I didn't even notice they were talking until he had coniption fits about it). But when the adults did the same thing, but worse, he just looked at themwith a sort of awkward smile on his face. A lot of these teachers know what they can get away with, and they take advantage of it.

The way to help students is to provide them with help and information as they need it. Not dump busy work on them, push silly rules on them and treat them like imbeciles. It's ridiculous how a lot of my professors treat their students. And I'm talking young people even in their early twenties.

But about 16 year olds, yeah, I agree they're getting more mature. In a way. I know a LOT of young people around 15-18 and I find them extremely immature and silly sometimes regarding important things.

 

[Irvine511]

ultimately, we cannot allow each 16 year old to decide for him/herself whether or not they are mature enough to decide to be able to participate in an adult relationship with someone significantly older. i can look back at myself at 16, and if some hot athletic 30 year old guy at the gym wanted to have a relationship with me, i'd like to think that i would have been able to make a good decision at the time. but i might have been wrong. so, as a society, we have basically determined a specific age when one is considered an adult: 18. and it makes sense -- at the age of 18 you have presumably finished the education the state is required to provide you. you can vote, you can drive a car, you can buy cigaretts and porn and get a credit card and you can be drafted and have your legs blown off. (but you still can't have a beer). so it makes sense, then, that if you are entrusted with all this responsibility at 18, then you ought to be able to pick and choose your sexual partners so long as they, too, are adults.

the cut-off line is somewhat arbitrary, but it seems to me that there's more logic to 18 than to 16.

is it possible that these two will be in love and stay together forever? of course. but this exception doesn't do anything to alleviate the great potential for the abuse of power by an authority figure, and that's a greater concern to me than the possibility that we're keeping two individuals -- one of whom is a child -- apart. for 2 years.

for the life of me i don't see why they couldn't have waited until she was 18.

 

[Bono's shades]

is it possible that these two will be in love and stay together forever? of course. but this exception doesn't do anything to alleviate the great potential for the abuse of power by an authority figure, and that's a greater concern to me than the possibility that we're keeping two individuals -- one of whom is a child -- apart. for 2 years.

for the life of me i don't see why they couldn't have waited until she was 18.

Bingo. If this girl is so mature, wouldn't she be willing to wait two years? The fact that she is insisting on getting married right now and won't listen to anyone tells me she isn't that mature. Of course there's no guarantee she will automatically become more mature upon reaching the age of 18, but at least there's a chance.

 

[intedomine]

From what experience or values do you come from where you think kids of 15 are emotionally capable of these types of relationships?

If someone forced me to end a relationship with an older woman, merely because of my age, I would have been furious.

When I was 15-16, there were a lot of sheilas going out with blokes around 19-22. They were not mere sexual relationships, they were proper relationships based on love and sex and faith and fear and all the things that keep us here. Some of those couples are still kicking on. Age shall not weary or deny them...

If anything, it is the advantage of youth that will can make an individual better at entering a relationship with someone. At 15-16-17, there is no pressure to marry by a certain age, no birth-clock, and the advantage of fresh and updated sexual education.

You're more likely to enter a relationship with someone who you really want, rather than someone you just wanna marry so you can share a bank account, or in an urgency to have kids, only for a marriage to deteriorate a few years later and for everything to end in tears, not just for the couple, but also for the kids.

And 15-16-17 year olds, at least in my experience, never viewed someone as eligable for the fact that they might have money or their parents might be rich. They valued the person more than their fortune (or lack of).

 

[BVS]

If someone forced me to end a relationship with an older woman, merely because of my age, I would have been furious.

So? Oh no a 16 year old is pissed off at his parents, that's something new...

When I was 15-16, there were a lot of sheilas going out with blokes around 19-22. They were not mere sexual relationships, they were proper relationships based on love and sex and faith and fear and all the things that keep us here. Some of those couples are still kicking on. Age shall not weary or deny them...

Not sure what a Sheila is... But 19-22 is completely different from 14-16.

If anything, it is the advantage of youth that will can make an individual better at entering a relationship with someone. At 15-16-17, there is no pressure to marry by a certain age, no birth-clock, and the advantage of fresh and updated sexual education.

There's also a huge lack of emotional maturity, big disadvantage.

You're more likely to enter a relationship with someone who you really want, rather than someone you just wanna marry so you can share a bank account, or in an urgency to have kids, only for a marriage to deteriorate a few years later and for everything to end in tears, not just for the couple, but also for the kids.

So the difference from 16 to 25 becomes bank accounts? Come on. Give me something, you're reaching...

And 15-16-17 year olds, at least in my experience, never viewed someone as eligable for the fact that they might have money or their parents might be rich. They valued the person more than their fortune (or lack of).

This is bullshit...

 

[A_Wanderer]

Kids have sex, 16 seems to be as good as any time to make it legal, abuse of authority is an entirely different matter than a 16 year old having sex with a 40 year old. And as far as manipulative and warped relationships go is it really the duty of the law to prevent them?

If only the naturally annoying nature of teenage girls was able to repel more of the time.

 

[BVS]

And as far as manipulative and warped relationships go is it really the duty of the law to prevent them?

It's the law's duty to protect children.