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Friday, March 29, 2024
The Observer

Raise Your Voice: Maggie Nichols finds a balance between ‘being Maggie and being Athlete A’

Editor’s note: This story includes mentions of sexual assault.

“I wanted to come out publicly because I felt like, if I could just impact one other person, it’d be all worth it,” said Maggie Nichols, former USA Gymnastics (USAG) National Team member. On Monday night, Saint Mary’s College kicked off its second annual Raise Your Voice Symposium with Nichols as its keynote speaker. Raise Your Voice is the College’s new annual sexual violence prevention symposium sponsored by President Katie Conboy’s Committee on Sexual Violence. The symposium began with Nichols’ keynote address and will end with the tri-campus Take Back the Night event on Wednesday.
Maggie Nichols, known as “Athlete A” in the Larry Nassar sexual abuse case, spoke at Saint Mary’s Monday evening.
Maggie Nichols, known as “Athlete A” in the Larry Nassar sexual abuse case, spoke at Saint Mary’s Monday evening.
Maggie Nichols spoke about her experiences on the USA Gymnastics National Team and how she has a newfound love for gymnastics competing at the University of Oklahoma.
While introducing Nichols as the keynote speaker, Conboy took the opportunity to express her thoughts on the topic of sexual violence and how she believes Saint Mary’s College should be a leader in combatting the problem of sexual violence on college campuses. “I truly believe that as a Catholic women’s college, we should unequivocally be the conveners of this type of event,” Conboy said, “We are the only women’s college in the state of Indiana and we should be the leader in furthering discussions about sexual violence, about its impact on survivors and on our own culture. We should be talking about how we can play a role in ending sexual violence in our community. Saint Mary’s is committed to highlighting voices and stories that are front and center in this conversation.” Conboy went on to introduce Nichols’ background and why her story is important. “We are welcoming Maggie Nichols to share her voice as an athlete, a survivor and an activist,” Conboy said. “[Nichols] was the first athlete to come forward and report abuse by USA gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar.” Nichols is also known as Athlete A in initial documentation surrounding the investigation of Nassar when she came forward to tell her story in 2018. After the introduction, it was Nichols’ turn at the podium. She began by recounting her early years in gymnastics and how she began her career at the age of three years old. It only took her seven short years to rise to the level of an elite gymnast. At the age of 15, Nichols made her first U.S. National Team and represented the United States on the international stage. Nichols continued to tell her story until 2015. “2015 was one of the biggest years of my gymnastics career,” she said. “At the U.S. classics I placed third in all-around and went on to place second behind Simone Biles at the U.S. Championships, I qualified to the World Selection camp where I again placed second behind Simone Biles and made my first World Championship team”. Nichols left the World Championships with both a gold medal for team all-around and a bronze medal for floor exercise. In 2016, Nichols endured yet another injury when she tore her meniscus and had to undergo surgery just months before the Olympic trials. By her own volition, Nichols says she returned to the mat too soon, but she competed in the Olympic trials in pursuit of her biggest goal: to compete in the Olympics. At this point in the address, Nichols switched gears and began to discuss her status as Athlete A. “If you don’t know I’m also known as Athlete A in the case against Larry Nassar the ‘doctor’ for USAG who sexually abused me and hundreds of other girls and young women he supposedly was treating for sports injuries at the USAG ranch as well as at Michigan State University,” Nichols said. Nichols continued by describing her personal experience with Nassar, who is currently serving 60 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges of child pornography and tampering with evidence in a federal case. He is also serving a  minimum of 80 years to a maximum of 300 years in a Michigan State prison for pleading guilty to additional counts of sexual assault. The judge in his case ordered that his prison sentences are to run concurrently ensuring a de facto sentence of life in prison without parole. “The abuse occurred multiple times while he was ‘treating’ me for a back injury,” Nichols said. “He had closed the blinds in the treatment room saying that he didn’t want to distract the other girls from their training outside. What he did was not a treatment for my back pain. It was an abuse of my body and an abuse of my trust in him as a physician approved by USAG, and clearly an abuse of his medical license." Nichols continued describing what her alias as Athlete A meant. “For those who don’t know, being Athlete A means I was the first at the training camp to come forward about my abuse.” “My coach overheard me asking another athlete if anything like what happened to me had ever happened to her or anyone else. My coach Sarah Jantzi asked me more about what occurred, and I told her. We made a formal complaint, and the rest is history,” Nichols said. “I’m grateful to [Coach Jantzi] for not just being a bystander but for being an upstander because I knew I had done the right thing about speaking up against Larry Nassar, I chose not to dwell on the disappointment,” she added. After the Olympic trials, Nichols retired from elite gymnastics and began a new chapter at the University of Oklahoma. It was at this point that Nichols began her NCAA collegiate gymnastics career where she would go on to win multiple NCAA Championships and earn several “perfect 10s”. Before the keynote address, The Observer sat down with Nicholas and asked her a few questions, specifically about how she has been able to find happiness in gymnastics again at the University of Oklahoma (OU). Nicholas responded that, “It was the most incredible experience I’ve ever been a part of. I mean, it was right after the Olympic trials and kind of right when all that stuff was happening. So going there was kind of a blessing in disguise. And if I would have made the Olympic team, I think that I probably wouldn’t have gone to OU so ultimately everything worked out how it’s supposed to and it really kind of changed my life in a positive way and helped me overcome everything that I faced.” It wouldn’t be until her freshman year when Nichols would officially reveal herself as Athlete A. She calls this one of her most important accomplishments. “That was a difficult decision to make, I debated it for sure, but I knew it was the right thing to do. I’d always prided myself on leading by example,” Nichols said. “If revealing my identity gave just one other person the courage to come forward and seek justice and help for abuse that happened to them, I knew it would be worth it,” Nichols said in closing her keynote address. After Nichols’ address, the audience was invited to take part in the question-and-answer portion of the event. Audience members were asked to text in their questions for Nichols and the director of the office of student involvement and advocacy Liz Baumann would facilitate the questions. The audience wanted to know why Nichols decided to speak out, to which she responded, "I felt like if I told my story, it would inspire someone else to either speak up or you know, help them through their healing process.” When Nichols was asked how she dealt with continuing in the same environment where her abuse had occurred, she responded, “Gymnastics has always kind of been an outlet for me through everything.... Going into the gym was kind of my safe space and my outlet." Nichols has had to balance sharing her story publicly while not feeling like her experience has defined her. She said that she has developed a balance between “being Maggie and then Athlete A.” For other survivors of sexual abuse, Nichols said it is important to know that they are not alone and to rely on their support system and people they can trust. “There’s a lot of things I want people to take away but probably just knowing that you’re not alone, if you have been in a situation similar to mine, but also I think if you haven’t just learning about sexual abuse and how much it happens on a daily basis and what you can do to help," she said.