Damn, it turns out pedophilia is just running rampant in sports. And the stuff this guy Dodd is accused of is just sick. The Amateur Athletic Union announced that it has contacted Memphis police and launched its own investigation after ESPN reported on Friday that the organization’s longtime president, Bobby Dodd, allegedly sexually abused two young basketball players during the 1980s. Ralph West, now a 43-year-old who lives in Miami, and a man who requested anonymity told ESPN they independently confronted Dodd about the abuse last month after former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky was charged with sexual abuse. The second man said Dodd, 63, apologized for the abuse during an eight-minute phone conversation on Nov. 11. The men say the abuse occurred between the ages of 12 and 16, when they played basketball for Memphis-based AAU teams directed by Dodd. The men say Dodd fondled them and masturbated in front of them while they were in their teens. Neither man reported the abuse to the police. When an ESPN reporter contacted Dodd, the AAU’s top official since 1992, for comment, Dodd’s assistant responded with an email that said Dodd had cancer and had retired from the AAU on Nov. 29 for health reasons, the network said. Other AAU officials, however, said his departure was news to them. The sports organization said Dodd would not return and named an interim leader. West and the other man told ESPN that Dodd kept hundreds of photos of players’ clothed backsides and crotches in filing cabinets. He also had bags filled with dozens of pairs of teenage boys’ underwear with names and dates on them. Dodd also had samples of boys’ hair that he kept in envelopes or affixed to the dashboard of his car with petroleum jelly. West said he once found Dodd hiding in the attic of the coach’s home, in his underwear, with a video camera. Dodd, who had told players they could use his home to party with girlfriends because he would be out of town, was apparently trying to record West and a girl. The former player said Dodd offered him $1,000 if he agreed to let Dodd perform oral sex on him while he was blindfolded and bound. The anonymous player told ESPN that Dodd had plied him with alcohol and drugged him one night, and he believes the coach abused him while he was passed out. West said he had sent an email to the AAU’s compliance department on Nov. 9 alleging that Dodd was a pedophile because he was concerned the AAU leader still had access to children through his Memphis AAU club and as the head of a national organization that serves more than 500,000 children. Nobody followed up, he told ESPN.
