I am not sure whether we would have known what raping boys entailed. We avoided knowing too much; the urge to repress and avert was overwhelming, not only for the victims but also for the bystanders, who understood that for whatever reason they had been left alone. As far as I know, none of the boys who were abused talked about it to other members of the team. The Poly board chairman has said he learned about the abuse of his brother only last year. Back then, we were uncomfortable and embarrassed, unwilling or unable to make sense of what was highly threatening to teenage boys in the homophobic hothouse of a Brooklyn boys’ school. (Poly Prep went coed in 1977, two years after I graduated.)

But there is little doubt that senior administrators were told about the abuse on multiple occasions. The lawsuit recounts specific meetings between boys, their parents, the headmaster and the athletic director. That athletic director, who went on to become dean of students and assistant headmaster, reportedly witnessed abuse in the showers and walked away. In 1991, the headmaster allegedly told one of the victims that Coach was a bitter, sick old man who should be left alone. Coach Phil was powerful, intimidating, successful, not to be trifled with. And so for a quarter-century, he freely abused vulnerable boys, virtually in plain sight.

WHAT should we have done? We should have told our parents and teachers and other school officials that Coach was hanging out by the showers and it made us feel weird. Maybe we should have reached out to the boys who were riding off in the Impala and warned them away. We were just kids, of course, but in retrospect our lack of curiosity, our lack of action and our lack of courage were inexcusable.

Pedophilia remains endemic, a powerful, difficult-to-treat compulsion. Prosecutions are rare, and victims who come forward years later are often barred from court by inflexible rules. Statutes limiting lawsuits should be altered to recognize that these crimes emerge slowly. Every school should have an investigative protocol available to parents online. There should also be at least one experienced person in every institution to whom incidents can easily be reported on a confidential basis.

Sexual abuse of children presents itself in confusing, ambiguous ways, so pedophilia education should be a mandatory part of the curriculum, repeated in elementary, middle and high school, at age-appropriate levels of detail. Abused children need to understand that they have done nothing wrong, that it is safe to come forward.

Shame ruined lives at Poly Prep; our great successes of youth have turned to ashes. I am angry at the school for failing to protect so many boys. But I am also ashamed of myself, that I was so intimidated, so desperate for Coach’s approval, so eager to be a boy winning football games, that I failed to be the man I know I should have been.