Yesterday, the Rick Lopez story and the issue of sexual misconduct received its first attention in the national media.

Eric Adelson published a 5000-word article for ESPN The Magazine. The article is featured on the front page of ESPN.com this morning. It offers more details about how so many parents got fooled for so long.

Adelson also wrote a companion piece looking at the issue more generally. He cites a Canadian sociologist, Sandra Kirby, whose book is fittingly titled "Dome of Silence." Kirby "found that 22.8 percent of respondents in a Canadian sample had sexual intercourse with a coach or other person in position of authority within their sport." I'm always skeptical of those sorts of numbers (ahem), but if the truth is anywhere close to that, it is absolutely stunning. Even 2% would be shockingly and unacceptably high.

One of the contributing factors (something we already know): the "stunning lack of oversight of youth sports." Adelson notes that "Lopez had no oversight from high schools, the AAU or the NCAA."

Adelson's excellent work will help bring national attention to this problem. More importantly, it may help motivate AAU, the NCAA, the WBCA, state high school associations, and other institutions to take action.

Helen Wheelock is working on a long opinion piece for the WBCA newsletter. It asks why no one is talking about this, why we aren't doing more.

A couple weeks ago I emailed several folks at AAU asking them if they were considering any action in response to the recent scandals. (Helen laughed at me for trying.) I got a terse reply from National Director Carroll Graham referring me to Jan Lyon for legal questions. I haven't been able to get any response from her.

It's time to move this to the front burner. Pretending there's no problem won't make it go away.

UPDATE: Katy asks:

On espn.com the main title suggested that title IX was responsible for this sort of problem. It seems to me like that kind of headline suggests that getting girls and women involved in sport is wrong and sounds eerily like "she asked for it". Am i missing something or is that what it implies?

Yeah, that connection is a little strange. Adelson's view is expressed this way:

Title IX has revolutionized sports and opened up a world of thrilling possibilities for women athletes, but it also has had a terrifying and underestimated side effect: sexual abuse by coaches.

That's a little bit like calling gang wars a side effect of public schools, or calling drug abuse a side effect of music. If not for Title IX, far fewer girls would play hoops, and there'd be less opportunity for abuse. But you could also say -- if not for the invention of the automobile, far fewer girls would play hoops, and there'd be less opportunity for abuse.

Examining cause and effect that way isn't important anyway. The important question is: what can we do to reduce the problem? Title IX has little or nothing to do with the answer.