Baker’s stand against abuse
For a little more than a year now Jerome Baker has been working diligently to spread awareness about sexual assault and violence against women.
The issue hits home with the Cleveland native and University of Florida commit. Baker’s aunt was a victim of kidnapping and sexual assault, and while Baker was already involved with some domestic violence training in his area, Baker’s mentor, Ty White, asked him how that violence had affected him.
White also asked Baker if he was aware of the gruesome acts that took place at Steubenville, Ohio, where two high school football players were convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl. That conversation sparked action.
“My mentor, Ty White, challenged me to do something positive. We had the idea to have all the other athletes on the top list in Ohio to sign a pledge to speak out against violence against women,” Baker said.
When Baker was nominated to be a part of the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s top 31 area high school football players in July, Baker saw an opportunity to launch even more awareness for his cause.
So Baker went to work and devised a plan. The first step was to gather other top athletes in the area to enlist them in his efforts to spread the word. Baker and Kentucky football commit Alex Stump worked with others to set up a seminar and invited all the top athletes in the area.
More than 120 people showed up to the seminar to hear speakers discuss various issues around domestic violence and sexual assault. Baker spoke to the athletes himself, and gave each of them a challenge of their own.
“They decided to do the seminar and thought they would get maybe 50 people to show up, but there was 120 people there. The program started late, not because we weren’t ready, but because we didn’t have enough chairs in the room,” White said. “It was unreal. Jerome got a group of athletes to pledge together to not condone or stand silent if they are aware of a woman or girl being physically, sexually or emotionally abused.”
Baker and White were shocked at the impact and feedback they received. The movement is starting to gain momentum and Baker knew he had to continue moving forward.
Gabriella Kreuz is also a Cleveland native who founded the group, Love Doesn’t Shove. Kreuz was an All-American cross country runner at John Carroll University and found herself in an abusive relationship in college.
Kreuz said she believes athletics breeds a certain mentality and the culture needs to be changed at the high school level.
“It’s really important to get to people early. Not even seniors in high school, but freshmen, too. There is a lot of peer pressure and you’re building your self identity when you’re that young,” Kreuz said. “Especially if you’re an athlete in high school, it’s cool to have offensive locker-room language, say you’re with a ton of girls and all those things feed into the sexism that can kick-start domestic violence thinking. It’s important to get them that early because that’s when they’re starting to think that way.”
Constant conversation and awareness on the issue is essential, Kreuz said. The topic is typically taboo and, without real life situations and examples, it is difficult for people to realize the impact domestic violence and sexual abuse have on people around them.
Her experience with domestic violence has helped her show people how abuse can impact anyone. Kreuz’s ex-boyfriend was an athlete and their relationship turned physically violent once she went to college. Through her experience she believes that athletics played a role in her and her abuser’s mentality.
“I felt that because I was an athlete I needed to toughen up and get over it. I think there’s something about being an athlete, we’re bred to think we need to keep pushing and have no excuses,” she said. “My hair was falling out, I was anemic, I wasn’t sleeping, and that’s not being tough. What we are as athletes, I think we need to have that conversation where you can still be tough and strong, but respectful.”
Those thoughts are exactly why Baker and Stump know their efforts are warranted and timely.
Stump, who attends all-male St. Edward high school in Lakeland, Ohio, got the majority of his school involved in the movement.
“I went in front of the whole school and gave the speech to tell everyone what we were doing,” Stump said. “Then in our homerooms, everyone who wanted to sign the pledge could, and I’m pretty sure most people did.”
Outside of the seminar and the pledge, the high school students are working on a scripted film that involves football players, a coach and a sexual assault survivor. The hope is that the video will be used by all the service academies for incoming trainees.
Baker and Stump, through White’s organization, Whoaman, are currently crafting a letter to United States Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to aid in those efforts.
The two are also hoping that Hagel will take action to mandate literature in athletic recruiting material discussing the impact of sexual assault and domestic violence.
As high-profile athletes such as Ray Rice, Greg Hardy, Adrian Peterson and Ray McDonald face the legal and professional repercussions of domestic violence issues, Baker knows his voice is more important to help the culture within athletics.
“It’s a bad way to have motivation, but it’s motivation to move forward and keep doing what I’m doing. It’s disappointing to hear those stories,” Baker said. “You can’t change the past, you might as well move forward and try to change the future. We’re hoping to raise more awareness that domestic violence is not the right way.”