My Kids’ Hero Is a Monster (2024)

My kids are not the most coordinated, agile kids in the world. They’ve received therapy for their fine and gross motor skills since they were two, and they’ve always been far happier curled up with a book than they are in any type of organized sports situation.

And then they discovered American Ninja Warrior.

They entered the world of ANW when they were five years old, and there was no stopping them. All they wanted to do was go to the park and make ninja courses. They went from being the last kids in their class to jump to being the kids that could go all the way across the “big kid” monkey bars. They’d run around our local ninja gym, pretending to be their heroes — and one of those heroes, inarguably one of the biggest names of the entire sport of ninja, was Drew Drechsel.

And yesterday, the entire world found out that Drew Drechsel is a monster.

This article isn’t about what Drew Drechsel did. If you don’t know and want to know more, here’s an article about his arrest and the details of the investigation. In summary, Drew Drechsel was arrested for prolonged and repeated statutory rape of a minor, starting when she was 15. He exploited his star status within the community to gain access to her. The resulting situation included crossing state lines, and he had sexually explicit photos of her on his phone from when she was underage. It is really gross and scary.

But this article isn’t about his crimes — it’s about how we approach the very difficult conversations awaiting parents within the Ninja Warrior community. And yes, it is a community. There are gyms, classes, competitions. It’s a whole thing. The show has had an adult version for years and just recently introduced a kid version — which Drechsel was on all the time as a “mentor”. He even has his own gym where he works with children. He tours the country to lead kids’ training camps. My kids have met him. They have his autograph. His picture is still on the wall over their beds.

Not only was Drechsel the face of Ninja for the last few years, he has also been portrayed, at least on television, as a really stand up guy. He is shown to always be supporting his fellow competitors and having a healthy approach to competition. I have said to my husband many times that I felt Drechsel was a strong force against toxic masculinity. He was strong and athletic, but also there to hug a fellow ninja and was willing to cry when he had a bad fall.

But yesterday, in one email, I realized that I had been wrong about all of that. He wasn’t a role model; he wasn’t the kind of man that I wanted my kids to grow up to be. No. He was a monster and a pedophile and a liar and an adulterer. It really floored me. This man, whom I had once referred to as “maybe the nicest person on earth,” had fooled me completely. It was not a good feeling.

Here’s the thing — I haven’t told my kids yet. Normally, I’m what many people would call “overly honest” with my twin boys. There’s not much that I sugar coat for them. That said, they’re only seven. We haven’t really had the full out sex talk yet, and I’ll be damned if this jerk is going to dictate when and how I have that conversation with my sons. Furthermore, I will not taint their first understanding of sex, which should be a healthy and beautiful thing, by rooting it in the context of rape.

For now, if we are forced to tell them before we have the whole sex talk and before that topic has had time to sink in, we will just say that Drechsel was arrested and banned from their favorite sport because he was hurting a child and did so for many years. It’s not a lie, and it’s the best that I can do.

I try to put a learning lens on everything with my kids. No matter how awful the situation, when we’re done being angry or upset about it, we work together to decide what we can learn from it. Often, I’m processing along with them.

A lot of us were fooled by Drew Drechsel, and we need to think about why. In this instance, I think one thing that kids can learn is that just because you think that you know someone, that doesn’t mean that you really do. That doesn’t mean that you can never trust other people, but it does mean that you have to be careful about who you let in, and you shouldn’t let your idealized version of a person blind you to the reality of who that person really is. Unfortunately, this is probably not the last time that they’ll learn this lesson.

It’s hard to imagine the sport that has become such a big part of our lives without Drew Drechsel. How many past episodes will need to be moth balled or re-edited? How many gyms are having to take down pictures of the man or revise their websites? It’s hard to imagine, but at the end of the day, as our local ninja gym said in their email yesterday, the sport of ninja is a lot bigger than one person. We will focus on other strong role models within the franchise, and we will move on, and move on better.

But we shouldn’t just move forward without discussion and hope that our kids never ask any questions. We should talk this one out with our junior ninjas and help them to learn something about the rights they have to their own bodies and about the dangers that kids like them unfortunately face every day. I want my sons to grow up to be the man that I thought Drew Drechsel was — not the person he actually ended up being. In order to ensure that, it’s important to talk to them about the world around them, even when it’s not comfortable.