OAKLAND – If you’ve followed the trial of former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State Doctor Larry Nassar, you’ve seen the gut-wrenching testimony of young women who say Nassar used his position and power to molest them.
Nassar has already been sentenced to 60 years in prison on child pornography charges, and has plead guilty to three accounts of criminal sexual misconduct. It is extremely unlikely he will ever see the light of day as a free man again.
Nassar was an osteopathic physician at Michigan State University when Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green attended the school.
“My niece is actually a gymnast,” Green said at Warriors shootaround Tuesday when he was asked about Nassar. “She’s nine. She has aspirations of competing in the Olympics. I kind of just try to think about it in the sense of like, ‘Man. She’s a few years younger, maybe she dealt with that, and then maybe I’d have a completely different look on it.
“Not that I don’t feel sorry for the victims now but I just can’t…it would be impossible for me to say I understand what you’re going through. I don’t understand. But do I feel for them. And I wish them well.”
Nassar’s name might be a stain on the name of Michigan State that can never be fully wiped clean, and Green says it’s disappointing what the actions of one individual can do to the name of an entire University.
“It’s tough,” Green said. “Very disappointing. But I know he doesn’t represent what Michigan State stands for.
“They say one bad apple spoils a bunch. Maybe he hurt the name of Michigan State, but one thing I know is it’s a very resilient University, that we’ll recover. I know they’ll do the necessary things to make sure that they correct the problem, and make it right as much as you can do to make that right.”