Author: Jim Bartko

Publisher:

Published: 2020-03-02

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 9781734668308

For forty-four years, Jim Bartko kept a secret: when he was a boy, he had been repeatedly sexually molested by his youth basketball coach, a priest, over nearly a three-year period in the 1970s. He tried to forget the memory by self-medication, dissociation, and busying himself in his job as an associate athletic director at the University of Oregon and, later, as head athletic director at Fresno State University. When, in 2016, he broke down and told a therapist--then later went public in a story done by the "Fresno Bee" newspaper--his world would never be the same. Within a year he'd lost his job, he'd lost his marriage, and he'd lost his reputation. What he'd found, however, was priceless: courage, true friends, and the freedom to no longer allow others to define his worth. Says ESPN's Neil Everett: "As sad as it is on the surface, in the long run it is a triumph over adversity, and should be an inspiration to many."