Crouse, Karen, “A Sanctuary for Coles: Mansion Gives Jets Receiver Space and Distance from Past,”  The New York Times, 23Jul06, Sports: 1,6.

 

Crouse, Karen, “Pro Football: New Trust Lets Coles Share Secret,” The New York Times, 18Sep06.

 

OVERVIEW

 

Laveranues Coles is a talented and successful wide receiver with the New York Jets. He has built himself a very secluded mansion on 21 acres of land south of Jacksonville, Florida. Coles began building after signing a $35 million contact.

 

The $8 million, 8-bedroom mansion itself is 25,000 square feet with a five-car garage, “movie theater that seats 8, gymnasium with bleachers, indoor golf simulator, an outdoor kitchen and dance floor.”

 

The house, which is surrounded by woods where deer and wild turkey roam, is more than a monument to making it. It has been Cole’s shelter during a stormy season in which he lost the pillars that formed the base of his attachment to the Jets. (Coles’s beloved coach, Herman Edwards, and closest teammate, Chad Pennington, both left the Jets. He himself went from Jets to Redskins back to the Jets.)

I’m so tired of change at this point (Coles said). It’s frustrating.

 

The extra-solidly constructed house (the gymn’s walls are extremely, soundproof-thick making it an unusually safe storm shelter) and the privacy of its location gives Laveranues a sense of security amidst change. But his need for such a sanctuary also reflects the pain of “childhood and college troubles.”  “I look at this house as more of a place where I can hunker down.”

 

Coles’ mother was 16 and unmarried when he was born. His biological father was never a part of his life.

 

I always wanted the attention my uncles got from my grandmother.  She went to their games, and she’d come home saying how well they played. I think I craved that same attention they were getting.

 

It’s easy to understand how such craving drove Lavernaues to excel in sports. It also describes a father-hunger that many suffer. Instead, into the boy’s life came a man whom his mother would marry. He began to molest Laveranues and continued to do so for three years. The pain of such abuse is unimaginable. Throughout those three years, the boy was unable to tell anyone about it.

As a result of the abuse, Coles says, he has a hard time trusting people. It is not by happenstance that he is drawn to solitary pursuits like playing video games. Stepping into the game room during a house tour, Coles said, “After what happened, I turned my whole life into a game. I try to extract myself from reality.”

 

Such trauma can also produce “pain-based behavior.” It was after a bloody schoolyard fight that police pried from him the secret of the abuse. The fight came about when friends taunted the young Coles about being gay—something the stepfather had spread in the neighborhood to perversely protect his secret. The man was arrested and sent to jail—remaining a fearful part of Coles’ life to the present.

 

Otherwise inexplicable behavior may be related to his past. While at Florida State, he and a teammate received improper discounts on a clothing purchase. Publicity from that incident still haunts Coles. While dining along in the summer of 2006, a woman came up and nagged him, “Aren’t you the Florida State player who stole the clothes from Dillard’s (department store)?” On top of his original trauma, Coles has come to realize how mean people can be—and how best to respond.

 

Worse than the restaurant affront, a Buffalo Bills’ player, during the Jet’s final game in the 2005-6 season, taunted him with a homosexual comment. Typically, Coles just turned away. Overhearing, one of the officials told Coles, “Laveranues, you have nothing to be ashamed of.”

 

Laveranues protects the identities of these who have hurt him—even the man who abused him those three years. “Coles went public about his story of childhood sexual abuse to help others who might have been similarly traumatized.”

 

Although he has been in counseling, he finds that the athlete’s tendency in dealing with past hurts is more like getting over a dropped pass—shrug it off and move on to the next play or game.

 

Coles presents an interesting contrast: he is “immensely popular with his teammates and intensely private”… sociable yet reclusive.

 

The contradiction at the core of Coles is that he is wired for sociability; his personality can be so engaging, his younger teammates frequently call him for counsel. And yet he can wall himself off from those same teammates, as he did in mini-camp when he was the only player who took part in the collegial stretching sessions with his helmet strapped on.

 

Laveranues’ iPod is packed with songs that express his deep feelings, that try to make sense out of life’s ambiguity, and serve to motivate him. One of the Gospel songs on that iPod is Fred Hammond’s:

 

Throughout my struggles  

You kept me strong

Throughout my troubles   

You helped me to hold on even when I felt like letting go.

 

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION & DISCUSSION

 

1. What do you find most interesting about this athletic celebrity?

2. What characteristics do you most admire in Laveranues Coles?

3.  What does his story reveal about pain and trauma?

4.  How many people around you have a story similar to this?

5. What are the benefits, and what the cost of his having told his story?

6.  What would you like to talk with Laveranues Coles about? What questions would you like to ask him?

IMPLICATIONS

 

1. It is important to know the statistics of sexual abuse of boys and girls in our society—and to be familiar with its consequences.

2.  It is so difficult, yet critical, that each of us traces our stories back to whatever early pain hinders our relationships, our ability to trust and enjoy intimacy with others.

3.  The telling of personal stories must be done appropriately. When done so, they can be of great value.

Dean Borgman    cCYS