Mary Bono, interim head of USA Gymnastics, resigns after 4 days
“With respect to Mr. Kaepernick, he nationally exercised his First Amendment right to kneel. I exercised mine.”
USA Gymnastics lost its latest leader, Mary Bono, just days after announcing that she had been appointed to run the troubled federation on an interim basis.
Bono, a former congresswoman who trained as a gymnast when she was young, resigned Tuesday after public complaints about her opposition to Nike’s support for Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback who knelt during the national anthem to protest social injustice and police brutality.
Bono was also widely criticized for her connection to a law firm that advised the gymnastics federation as it delayed revealing what it knew about sexual abuse committed by its national team doctor, Larry Nassar, who is serving a prison term of 40 to 175 years for the abuse.
Here is the statement I released earlier today regarding my resignation from USA Gymnastics pic.twitter.com/Oqga5FTXvx
— Mary Bono (@MaryBonoUSA) October 16, 2018
“My withdrawal comes in the wake of personal attacks that, left undefended, would have made me leading USAG a liability for the organization,” Bono wrote in a statement. “With respect to Mr. Kaepernick, he nationally exercised his First Amendment right to kneel. I exercised mine.”
USA Gymnastics has been in upheaval for several years since the revelations about Nassar, who has been accused of molesting hundreds of girls and women. The federation had hoped to regain some stability when it announced Friday that Bono would be its interim president and chief executive, replacing Kerry Perry, who was forced out in September after just nine months.
The day after the announcement of Bono’s appointment, however, Olympic champion Simone Biles posted on Twitter her frustration that Bono had covered a Nike logo after the apparel company signed a new endorsement deal with Kaepernick.
Bono had posted a photograph on Twitter of herself using a pen to black out the Nike swoosh on her golf shoes. She removed the post after Biles, the sport’s biggest star, said on Twitter: “Mouth drop. Don’t worry, it’s not like we needed a smarter usa gymnastics president or any sponsors or anything.”
USA Gymnastics’ board of directors later said that the post was disappointing and that it had been missed during the vetting of Bono’s social media accounts.
The backlash against Bono grew Monday with questions about her ties to Faegre Baker Daniels, the law firm that was representing USA Gymnastics when the abuse scandal broke. Bono, who served in the House of Representatives from 1998 to 2013, was a lobbyist for the firm.
Many of Nassar’s victims, including Olympic champion Aly Raisman, said Bono’s work for the firm should have disqualified her from leading the federation.
