Kyle Lesperance, a former Grosse Ile Township varsity girls’ soccer coach, has been suspended from coaching organized sports for having an intimate relationship with a 12-year-old girl, according to the U.S. Center for SafeSport. SafeSport is a federally mandated creation of 2017 legislation amending the Victims of Child Abuse Act of 1990 in the wake of people like Larry Nassar (MSU), Robert Anderson (U of M), George Tyndall (USC), Richard Strauss (Ohio State), Jerry Sandusky (Penn State) and Robert Murphy (NC State U).
Lesperance was 31 at the time an investigation was begun into the thousands of texts he was sending a then 12 and later 13-year-old soccer player, sometimes late into the night.
https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/grosse-ile-soccer-coach-suspended-020847180.html
According to reporting, when SafeSport began its investigation in 2025, Lesperance abruptly quit as the Grosse Ile High School’s Girl Varsity Coach. However, he still runs Chaos Soccer Club on Grosse Ile, and is somehow permitted to continue organizing, managing and directing tournaments as an administrator.
Check out this letter to the “Chaos Families,” describing a “communication-policy violation,” involving “a text message sent to a player.”
Actually, it was much more than A text message and it is known as GROOMING. As discussed in this news clip, Michigan does not criminalize the grooming of children.
In fact, most states do not criminalize the grooming of children.
Which is why, especially in a state like Michigan, which has the highest documented number of institutional victims of widespread, systemic abuse by university athletic staff or campus doctors, SafeSport has proven to be so necessary. Over 1,050 (primarily male students and athletes) accused the late sports doctor Dr. Robert Anderson of abuse spanning from the 1960s to 2003 at the University of Michigan. More than 330 women and girls, including prominent NCAA student-athletes and Olympic gymnasts, came forward against former campus and USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, who worked for Michigan State University. This beats out California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, states having their own documented widespread, systemic sexual abuse by university athletic staff or campus doctors.
Think these crimes just start at the college level? Kids are sitting ducks at a very early age when it comes to this shit and that’s what the 2017 legislation recognizes.
Disgusting and pathetic. And a danger to the emotional, psychological and physical safety of minors we entrust to coaches and their staff.