DC Area Speedskating coach and former Olympic Gold Medalist suspended from coaching and may get axed for corporal punishment

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/speedskating-coach-kim-dong-sung-seeks-settlement-on-charges-of-corporal-punishment/2011/04/12/AFMGTlSD_story.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/03/AR2011030300049.html

Well in short, we have a problem in DC sports with enhanced coaching methods.

Dong Sung Kim, a former Olympic Gold Medalist in speed skating in 1998 now lives here in the US of A. He is probably most famous in the 2002 Winter Olympics for improperly cutting in front of Apolo Ohno and was disqualified for it in the 1500m short track races. His native South Korea hates Apolo Ohno for it, even today, and Korea is one of the world's top powers in short track speed skating. Here's a pic from that event which made Ohno a hero for the Americans and vilified him in Korea.



Here in the US, he is a speed skating coach, helping cultivate the new talents of the sport, some of whom may be olympians representing the red white and blue. However, it has been discovered that at least six or seven people have come out and said that Coach Kim would spank kids with skating blade guards, hockey sticks, and hammers on the butt, stomach or hands. He also allegedly verbally abused the skating students. Kim has denied hitting his kids, but he got a warning letter from US Speedskating last year to stop it or else. The investigation was also sent to investigators in Maryland where much of the alleged abuse happened and he was suspended last month. He also is facing expulsion from coaching in the US though apparently some settlement is in the works.

Well, do I think he hit the kids? Yes. Otherwise, he wouldn't be in this situation. The only factor that may save Kim's ass is cultural differences between Americans and Koreans. In America with education generally speaking, teachers and coaches don't spank and cuss out their students. In Korea however, it's a different ballgame where teachers can smack a student in the face for talking back. A male teacher can punch a girl in the face and give her a black eye for not completing a homework assignment. If a kid is really being an idiot, the teacher can give you a whooping that rivals the whippings slaves in the pre civil war days got in the plantation:



The teacher below wasn't even punished for that ass whooping though in the US, he'd be criminally charged and sued. Why? Because the rules allow for it and it's accepted in Korea. If a kid is really bad in class, a teacher can give you 40 lashes if he or she felt like it and also if not, the parents would do the same thing. Recently some school systems have stopped corporal punishment in Korean school systems, most notably Seoul, but it did prompt some negative responses. I'm not trying to paint Korean schools as institutions of where everyone fears the Master giving whippings on a whim, but the culture is different than the Western world. This is the type of culture Coach Kim and most Korean athletes went through in school and on the rink, court, or field. You don't get a routine down right and your superior will fuck you up.

When you also add the fact that many of the students who are Kim's students are Korean American with parents who are Korean, as stated in one article and a letter in support of him shows this too, a parent did allow Coach Kim to hit the kid if he or she wasn't performing well or behaving though that kid apparently wasn't hit. I bet you that ain't true.

To me, in America, that just doesn't fly and coaches who do that are kicked out and thrown in jail for that, much less sexual abuse, like Bob Oliva of Christ the King HS in Queens. I don't think Kim should be coaching here in the States, given all this, since Korea is a western country at least economically, and he should have already known that in this country, you can't put your hands on children without getting sued or thrown in jail.

That is very weird. Obvious statement, I know.

I just don't see a point in corporal punishment, at least in American culture.