Memphis, Tennessee , Amateur Athletic Union (AAU)
Two former basketball players allege Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) CEO and coach Robert “Bobby” Dodd assaulted and molested them as teens in hotel rooms, on road trips years ago, in the 1980s. Memphis police are investigating. The AAU is headquartered in Orlando, Florida
Robert “Bobby” Dodd age 63, has been CEO of AAU for over two decades and is a former YMCA director. It is said, Dodd was dismissed from the AAU in November 2011.
One accuser said, "Must have been 3 in the morning. I was dead asleep and I don't remember anything but waking up and he has his, he's trying to put his hand in my boxer shorts. And I jumped up straight out of the bed and he's not there, but he's laying on the floor next to me down by the bed. And of course I was freaked out," he told ESPN.
Asked how Dodd could have entered the hotel room, West said, "He had a key. He always somehow had a key to whatever room I was in."
West said he tried to find ways to keep Dodd out of his hotel room when they were at out-of-town basketball tournaments.
"I was afraid to even fall asleep when he was around. And it got to where I would barricade my door, if I had a hotel room, I would take the table and chairs and I'd block it all against the door," he told ESPN. "And it got to where he couldn't assault me, but he would push his way in the room and then end up, I'd see, I wouldn't see him, I would hear him, he'd lay at the floor of the bed masturbating. And you just lay there horrified. But you don't know what to do. What, are you going to blow the lid off of this at 14 years? All you want to do is pretend it didn't happen and not address it at all. You want to hide and bury it."
Asked what evidence he has, West said, "I'm the evidence. I'm not trying to gain anything out of it. It's not like, 'Oh, wow, here, let me go on national TV and humiliate myself and possibly embarrass my family and stuff so I can tell everybody this deep, dark secret that I've had.' The guy shouldn't be around kids any more."
West said Dodd abused him or tried to abuse him six times.
Another accuser, whom ESPN did not identify, said Dodd gave him alcohol before taking him to a bedroom and touching him inappropriately.
"We were at his house and he provided us with some alcohol and, looking back on it now, I know for a fact that he put something in my, my drink that night, because the last thing that I can really remember was him carrying me into his bedroom and I can remember him, you know, touching me in ways that I, I didn't uh, I didn't want another man touching me," the accuser said.
It is not surprising that pedophiles go to where needy or confused kids are located - single parents, child care, schools, sports and correctional institutions. Pedophiles can often get the victims to keep quiet by providing the kids with drugs, alcohol, pornography or other things the kids do not want to discuss. All of society benefits when the victims can discuss the issues, seek counseling, and help get these pedophiles out of our systems and institutions.
The victims may deal with related issues for their entire lives. They may have problems with police and other authority figures. They may also become abusers and pedophiles. We need to identify those victims in need of psychological help.
