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A former gym coach has been sentenced to 50 years in prison for sexually assaulting female gymnasts in North Texas and Oklahoma.
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Skipper Glenn Crawley, 53, pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child.
Crawley was an instructor at Fort Worth’s Sokol Gymnastics when reports surfaced that he had assaulted three young gymnasts during practices.
The complaints prompted several other adult victims to come forward with tales of their own abuse by Crawley when he coached in Norman and Tulsa, Okla., in the 1990s. Some of the victims were as young as eight at the time of the abuse.
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Crawley fled after being charged with abusing 11 girls in all in Texas and Oklahoma, but was eventually arrested in Indiana.
“They were all children who dreamed of being Olympians, and believed the defendant would help them get there,” said prosecutor Darren DeLaCruz of the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office. “He used his position of authority to isolate them, and used their dreams against them.”
Dallas attorney Adrian Crane, who represented Crawley, said Friday that with his client eligible for parole in 23½ years, “it’s hard to fathom how we could do better than we did.”
“I believe that is long enough for him to pay his debt to society and, if he does show rehabilitation, to let him out,” Crane said. “He was smart enough to realize that the evidence against him was overwhelming and that the better deal would be to have a plea that would give him some hope someday of being a free man.”
Crawley was a Texas high school state champion in 1985 and a member of the University of Oklahoma gymnastics team for four years. He then became an assistant coach at the university.