Jennifer Fox reveals coach Ted Nash sexually abused her as a teen
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NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Jennifer Fox's 2018 film 'The Tale' told the true story of her sexual abuse at the hands of her 40-year-old coach when she was 13. However, it was never revealed who her abuser was. Recently, however, the now 64-year-old documentary filmmaker revealed the name of the abuser - Olympic medalist and rowing coach Ted Nash.
Fox said Nash was the one who was her childhood abuser, in an interview with the New York Times. She said the 13-year-old thought the coach who was in his 40s was her lover but later felt the relationship was sexually abusive. She told the outlet, "The adult part of me wants to move on, but that child in me, she wants to face him and get it over with and name him. There was a part of me saying, I will not let you rest until you name him.”
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Who was Olympic medalist Ted Nash?
Nash, who died July 3, 2021, coached girls and women in running and co-founded the National Women’s Rowing Association while serving as an unofficial running coach at the Padukies Track Club in Philadelphia, reports Yahoo! He began coaching at the University of Pennsylvania, first as a freshman coach from 1965, then as head coach from 1969 to 1983, according to Wikipedia. He also served as a pilot and first lieutenant in the Army Aviation division.
“He was a very esteemed, very talented manipulator and beloved and looked good and acted right and had all the right credentials," Fox explained and added, "He’s got a big reputation for being a wonderful guy. But he does have this history.”
'I thought I was trading love for my sexuality'
Fox previously said that much of her adult life, she viewed the relationship with Nash as a consensual one, whom she met in 1973 when she was taking riding lessons from farm owner Susie Buchanan, reports Los Angeles Times. According to Fox, Nash and Buchanan groomed her into performing sexual acts with them. She recollected, "My goal was not to ask, ‘Did this happen?’ Because I always remembered it. It was, ‘How and why did it happen,’ and ‘how and why did I spin it as a positive story?’ I didn’t want the outcome to be that I’ve now replaced it with a negative story. The truth is that both stories exist simultaneously. As a child, I loved these people — I thought I was trading love for my sexuality. What I understood as an adult in this investigation is that the trade was an unfair one."
Describing Nash, she said, “I never, ever saw him as boyfriend material. But I was shy. I was skinny. I was short. I was underdeveloped. When I played Spin the Bottle, I was the girl everyone didn’t want to kiss. I was not Lolita. So I drank in the attention he gave me.” She added, “It was a kind of moment-to-moment torture,” and said she’d vomit after sexual encounters with Nash, whom she declined to identify at that time, "But I felt so strongly that what I was gaining on the other side was worth the price."
Ted Nash’s wife speaks out
Commenting on the allegations, Nash’s widow Jan Nash said it “just not fair." "Look, I didn’t know Ted at the time, so I can’t say anything about that time. [But] all Ted has done for women’s rowing, starting it, promoting women, helping women, all of these things that he’s done, is it all forgotten because one woman comes out with an allegation? It’s just not right that one woman can say something and all of the good he has done gets smeared.”
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