"His words will weigh heavily on the audience at the two-day Safe to Compete summit in Alexandria, Va., because Ehrmann — minister, motivational speaker and onetime Gilman coach — is himself a survivor of child sexual abuse.
"He still feels tremors from that trauma.
"It hemorrhages your soul for a lifetime," said Ehrmann, who, at 12, was raped by two men at a campground near Buffalo, N.Y. "That's the leukemia [of sexual abuse]. It might go into remission, but it never goes away....
"Joe is both survivor and coach. He has lived through this, and his innate ability to reach down and grab you by the heart makes you really understand the issue," said Steve Salem, president of the Ripken Foundation...."
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