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Thursday, February 9, 2006
Witty will carry flag, message
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Turin, Italy — For years, she hid. Friday night, she will be out front.
One moment, she hates herself and distrusts others. She can’t bring herself to even get out of bed for a week. The next moment, she is carrying her country’s flag into a stadium and using her platform to speak out against sexual abuse.
We don’t celebrate the Olympics because of athletes who star in burger commercials. We celebrate the Olympics because of people like Chris Witty.
She is a speedskater from Milwaukee. If this were merely about sports priorities, Witty would rank a few steps below Bucknell women’s basketball.
But athletically, this 5-foot-6 30-year-old is in select company. She is one of only nine Olympians to compete in both the Winter and Summer Games (speedskating and cycling). She becomes only the 25th to compete in five Olympics, having already hit the metallic trifecta (gold-silver-bronze).
But Friday night, Witty will carry the U.S. flag and lead Americans into the Opening Ceremony for reasons other than mere longevity and success. She personifies all that we strive for in courage and resilience.
We hear Witty skates around an oval really fast, we yawn. We hear she overcame the pain and humiliation of being abused for seven years, that she achieved athletic greatness and set a world record despite hiding a dark secret for 25 years, we care.
“This is sort of a release for me,” Witty said Thursday.
Witty was 4 years old when she was first abused by a neighbor. Clarence Platteter was in his 60s and a close friend of the Witty family. He had a key to their house. It wasn’t unusual for him to be visiting the day Walter Witty was rushing to take a shower after mowing the lawn because he had to rush to his job as a welder.
Witty remembers it being a sunny day. Her father was in the shower and her mother was on the way home. After a small window of five minutes, her life would never be the same.
“[My father] thought he could trust me with this neighbor, a good friend of his, a nice guy,” she said. “[Platteter] wants you to believe he’s a nice guy and great with kids.”
The abuse lasted until she was 11. Witty remembers the “mind games” Platteter played with her. She would go to his basement and stare in awe at the dollhouse he carved out of wood. “It even had these little rocking chairs,” she said. “I thought it was the greatest thing and I’d love to have it. But he would tell me, ‘I have this other little girlfriend, and she’s so good to me, and you’re not. She’s getting this dollhouse ‘cause she’s a good girl and you’re not.’ “
Witty was 11 when Platteter approached and she finally said, “No!” She had seen a video in school, titled “Good Touch, Bad Touch,” and it gave her the courage to speak up. But she kept the nightmare buried for several years. In 1996, Platteter was convicted of second-degree sexual abuse of another girl. Witty felt tremendous guilt for not speaking out earlier. The girl was 4. Witty was her baby sitter. She sank into deeper depression.
Witty’s turning point came before the 2002 Olympics when Platteter was paroled. She heard from her family that his wife had died and he was moving back into the house next door. Emotions bubbled to the surface. That’s when Witty revealed her story to a few family members and team sports psychologist Keith Henschen. He advised her to see a therapist after the Salt Lake City Games. Witty felt some sense of relief. She set a world record in the 1,000 meters. She went into therapy for three years, then went public with her story in late 2004 in a Salt Lake City newspaper.
She has been overwhelmed by the response. Friends and strangers have opened up about past abuses. Witty has spoken to schools. She is now the national spokesperson for the “Good Touch/Bad Touch” program, which is based in Cartersville, Ga., and designed for children in preschool through sixth grade.
Witty e-mailed Pam Church, the executive director of the program, Wednesday night when she learned she would be the flag-bearer.
“To have Chris speak out like this is huge, not just for us but for the children,” Church said. “We all need heroes. She’s a great example for kids about what you can do and for them to know that if this happens to you, it’s not your fault. There’s a lot of scary stuff that goes on in the world. But Chris obviously has taken that and turned it into something positive.”
Witty will increase her involvement with the program after the Olympics. “Abuse of any kind exists because of secrecy,” she said. “If I use this platform, maybe other people will start talking about it and break the silence.”
She is out front on the issue and will be out front to night, where she belongs.
(More information on the Good Touch/Bad Touch program is available at goodtouchbadtouch.com, or by phone: 770-607-9111; 800-245-1527.)
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Maysville’s man
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Not many famous people have come from Maysville, Ky. The late Rosemary Clooney qualified, but her very-much-alive nephew George doesn’t quite. George Clooney was born and raised in Augusta, Ky., which is eight miles down the Ohio River and which remains the site of my one and only speeding ticket. In the summer of 1974, I was ticketed for going 47 in a 35-mph zone. Tiny Augusta, you should know, is a big fat speed trap. But I digress.
I am, as some of you might know, from Maysville — born there, raised there, the whole nine yards. My mom and my brother live there still. Heather French, Miss America 2000, is from Maysville, but she kind of lost me when she married a guy even older than I am. (He happened to be the state’s lieutenant governor.) But Chris Lofton… of this young man, I’m a fan forever.
Chris Lofton played basketball at Mason County. (Full disclosure: I grew up hating the Mason County Royals because I went to Maysville — they were “farmers,” we were “river rats” — but Maysville High no longer exists. It consolidated with Mason County, and to this day it’s hard from me to think of Mason County as “my” school. Because it never was. But I digress again.) Lofton led Mason County to the 2003 state championship, and as you might know high school basketball in the Bluegrass has always been huge.
Lofton scored 39 points in the title game, making nine 3-pointers in, of all places, Rupp Arena. Like pretty much every Kentucky kid, Lofton wanted to play for the Big Blue. (I couldn’t play a lick, but I would have been the exception. I grew up a Louisville fan because my dad graduated from U of L’s dental school.) You’d have thought that the Wildcats, who’ve struggled to find a shooter in recent years, would have snapped up such a talent. You’d have been wrong.
Tubby Smith — one of my favorite people in the world — decided Lofton wasn’t quick enough and didn’t recruit him. So Lofton, who grew up 64 miles from Rupp Arena, went to Tennessee. And Tuesday night, in his second visit to Rupp as a Volunteer, he scored 31 points and beat Tubby and the Wildcats on their own floor (and on national TV to boot).
That part was pretty cool. This was even cooler. Asked by reporters after the game how he felt about coming home, Lofton said: “This [Lexington] isn’t my home. Maysville is my home.”
And that sealed it. Chris Lofton is my favorite player ever. (With the possible exceptions of my former schoolmates James Smith, nicknamed Skeet, and Fred Walker, nicknamed Bubbles, who led the Maysville Bulldogs to an epochal upset of No. 1 Louisville Central in the quarterfinals of the 1972 state tournament. But I digress yet again. Sorry.)
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