Her First Olympics, She Went For Herself. Now, She’s Going For Other Survivors.
/Kayla Harrison looked up at the judge in front of her and told him that she no longer knew how to be a child.
Harrison, then just 17, had sandwiched herself between her mother and grandmother in the Ohio courtroom, refusing to glance in the direction of her former judo coach, Daniel Doyle.
She spoke slowly and surely about the 33-year-old Doyle. She detailed how he had poisoned her passion for the sport. How he had sullied every inch of her life for years. How she had became undeniably suicidal.
When she was done, she turned on her heels and left not only the courthouse, but also the state and the life she knew, saying goodbye to her home, her training gym and Doyle, the coach whom she had trusted unequivocally ― and the man who had spent the past several years sexually abusing her.