Читать книгу I Am Nobody. Confronting the Sexually Abusive Coach Who Stole My Life онлайн

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Barry Melville, one of our hockey coaches when I was eleven and twelve, later saw me at one of my football games and didn’t realize it was me. Once he found out, all he could comment on was my changed shape. He had been so patient with me, so encouraging, so dedicated to helping me improve, and I felt proud to make him smile at the athlete I had become.

I was also lucky to have had a remarkable gym teacher, Mr. Warkentin, in Grades Seven through Nine at Ness Junior High School. He was always so kind, patient, and supportive of me as I grew into my body. There was nobody happier than he was as I went from being a kid who couldn’t hold myself up to the chinning bar to one who excelled at the flexed arm hang, a rite of passage for all Canadian kids of a certain vintage who had to complete the Canada Fitness Test.

When I look at pictures of me from back then, the change in my physical makeup through those early years was dramatic, more dramatic than I realized. But the image of that eleven- and twelve-year-old heavy, uncoordinated boy persisted with all of us, myself included, despite my new body. We saw only what we had once seen, not what was really there.