I don't know, this doesn't really weird me out either. I played sports in HS and college, and weird coach-pupil relationships pop up. It gets even dicier when the coach is just out of school and the kids aren't much younger. When I rowed in college, one of my shellmates was dating the assistant coach for a bit (he graduated the year before we came aboard).

I can think of about 5 couples where the now-husband met the wife when he was coaching her. Granted, none of the girls were 16, they were all 18-22, but they're still married 20+ years later.

um. this totally happened with one of my sorority sisters. He was her basketball coach from like middle school on, AND they started dating when she was STILL in high school! :eek: He was like 40 at the time, and they dated throughout college, she pledged my sorority, and continued with school. I believe she JUST graduated and they've already been married a year. plus... he is SUPER CREEPY........ I wasn't really close with her but I was her APM and lived down the hall from her after she moved into the house.... She was a nice girl but a little off herself.... the family didn't agree at all btw, but basically accepted it after so long...

Besides the fact that there is a violation of the coach/student relationship (this is inappropriate even if the coach was a 20 year old ass't) AND the fact that the parents signed off on this before the girl even graduated from high school (mind-boggling IMO), other issues bother me.

Problems I have with it:

1. Apparently the inappropriate contact started at 14, I assume under any statuatory age of consent. I don't care how mature or provocative she was at 14.

2. A 24 year age difference. He is old enough to be her father in a normal age range, not even in a teenage fatherhood-type deal. At least at 18-42, the young woman would be a legal adult (hopefully graduated from high school).

What could you possibly have against the dude from Hootie and the Blowfish?

ETA: I think any big age difference is weird and that teacher/coaches shouldn't date their students regardless of how close they are in age.

That said, I've always kind of wondered why we criminalize only some of the cases with big age differences. In my state, a teacher who "dated" any person who could possible be considered a high school student anywhere (no matter if the "student" was 18 and didn't go to his school) could go to jail and lose his teaching certificate forever but a random creep who was 40 and wanted to date a 17 or 18 year old girl could do so without legal penalty. Doesn't that seem kind of odd? Shouldn't all the creeps be penalized, rather than only the teacher creeps?

Why are they creeps?

Honest question. If you like someone and its legal why is it creepy to date them? If you believe in the concept of love . . maybe that is their true love. I dunno, its not for me, but I don't think of it as inherently creepy.

At first blush this feels so wrong on so many levels...BUT...what if there is true love there. Only time will tell that....not that I would want that for my child. (daughter two married the day before she graduated HS to a man 5 years older than her...so far so good, 3 years later)

Different times this would have been a nothing.


My great grandfather was 12 years older than my great grandmother. He saw her for the first time when she was about 3 days old (at church, he was a neighbor)..and told her parents she was the most beautiful thing he ever saw and one day he was going to marry her. He did 16 years later. They were married for almost 70 years when he died. She died a year later. They had 22 children.

Sometimes it works.

My grandfather was well over 17 years older than my grandmother who was 18 when they were married. They stayed married until he died . . . Over 30 years I believe . . .

Maybe the human race has somehow changed in the intervening years. . . which would be pretty fast for genetic alterations.

No offense to your family's history that you talked about earlier, but in today's world, I don't think 16 year olds really know what love is enough to settle down and get married. In this case the sexual relations started when the girl was 14, that is a coach taking advatage of a young girl. 16 year old girls want to be loved and if they feel they are loved by a boyfriend no matter what the age, they wil do what ever it takes to keep that love. This girl isn't thinking about her furture, she could have gone to college or pursued a career instead of being married to her old highschool couch and proabaly having a a kid by the time she is 18. Its just plain sad!

What kind of name is Windy?

The age difference doesn't bug me as much as the fact that he is a pedophile. Hell, my boyfriend is 11 years older than me. The article says this guy started paying "special attention" to her when she was 14. That is a child! That's 8th grade in my state!

Yeah, they may be just getting married now, but the relationship has been going on for a while, and sorry, that is sick.

Yeah, that pretty much goes along with what I was saying earlier. When I was 15, I dated a guy who was 20 (he was the older brother of one of my friends), and I'm sure at the time, I would have married him if I had the chance, because I was 15 and didn't know any better.

I didn't get from the article that they were having sex when they were 14, just that they developed a friendship when she was 14. I don't see anything that weird about that.

I know an older couple that married when the wife was 15. Still married and happy many years later. You note that in today's world 16 year olds aren't ready, but it really depends on the 16 year old, IMO. There are people of all ages who aren't ready for marriage and relationships.

My husband said the same thing. I blame her parents for signing.

When I read the article the first thing that popped in my mind is they (the girls family) are probably very conservative, live in a sheltered community, and probably wanted her married if they knew she had sex.

It is usually spelled Wendy, and was originally short for Gwendolyn.

Somehow I don't think her name is a variation on the spelling of Wendy.

I don't think we can say that a couple who has such a larg age gap between them is doomed to fail. I know a few couple who have 20 some odd years between them and they are very happy.

Let's say they really do love each other, I don't know why he wouldn't wait till she was at least 18 to get married? This leaves me to believe that this guy is a total creep.