Stewie: I Am a Victim, Too

By Bob Phillips

The burgeoning list of women who have recently come out and announced a history of sexual abuse hit close to home today when UConn legend and former Seattle Storm star Breanna Stewart announced that she, too, was a victim as a child. According to a report published today by several news organizations, Stewie authored a letter that she entitled “Me Too” for the Players’ Tribune,  a new media company that provides athletes with a platform to connect directly with their fans, in their own words. You can read the moving essay by clicking HERE.

While a plethora of reports have surfaced recently, Stewart cited former U.S. Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney’s allegation two weeks ago that Larry Nassar, the former physician for USA Gymnastics, repeatedly molested her starting at the age of 13, as the impetus for her going public with her own history.

In the article, Stewart identified a man she would only refer to as “a construction worker” who “had ties to the family” as the culprit. According to Stewie, this monster assaulted her repeatedly at all hours of the day and night, and often in public.

“My family was close,” she explained. “I used to sleep over at relatives’ houses all the time. He lived in one of the houses I slept at the most.”

According to the 23-year-old superstar, the abuse began when she was nine—shortly after she began her athletic pursuits—and lasted for two years.

“Basketball became a sort of safe space for me,” she penned. “But no space felt completely safe.”

Indeed, to this day she uses basketball as an activity that allows her to escape from those horrific memories that continue to haunt her.

“I’m still working through what comes next now that I have told my story,” Stewart said in the essay. “In sharing, I know that no matter how uncomfortable I typically am making things about myself, as a public survivor, I now assume a certain responsibility. So I’ll start by saying this: If you are being abused, tell somebody. If that person doesn’t believe you, tell somebody else. A parent, a family member, a teacher, a coach, a friend’s parent. Help is there.”

Stewart was the nation’s top female high school basketball player in 2012 when the Syracuse native chose UConn over a plethora of colleges. She led the Huskies to four consecutive NCAA titles, and was named College Women’s Player of the Year in three of those four years. Drafted No. 1 overall by the Seattle Storm in 2016, Stewie was a near-unanimous choice as WNBA Rookie of the Year her first year, earning 38 of a possible 39 votes, was a member of the 2016 Olympic gold-medal-winning U.S. Women’s Basketball Team in Rio de Janeiro (where she was reunited with Geno Auriemma), and was named to the WNBA All-Star Team this season. In addition to the WNBA, Stewie also plays professionally in China.

—with staff reports