Over at ESPN.com, the great Dan Wetzel has a long, horrifying, and vitally important story about the death of Jordan DeMay.
DeMay was a prominent multi-sport athlete at Marquette High School in Michigan who, one night in March 2022, answered an Instagram message from who he thought was a girl around his age. In reality, DeMay was messaging with a group of young men in Nigeria who enticed him into a sextortion plot. Within hours, the group had pressured DeMay into sending them a nude photo, then demanded $1,000 or, they told him, they would "make your life miserable."
Within hours of the first message, DeMay committed suicide.
DeMay's story is tragic on its own, but made even more tragic that his death is not an isolated incident. Far from it, actually. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, "dozens" of teenagers have taken their own lives after falling victim to sextortion plots, though experts acknowledge the true number is unknowable. In DeMay's case, his motive for suicide would not have been discovered if the criminals hadn't also messaged his girlfriend, who reported the message to authorities. What is known is that the window of time in these cases can be stunningly slim. In 2021, a 15-year-old high school football player in Ohio committed suicide within 27 minutes of receiving his first sextortion message. "There is no advanced warning," John DeMay, Jordan's father, told ESPN. "Someone came into my house and murdered my son while we were sleeping."
The reason we're writing about this here is that DeMay and others' status as high school athletes is not an incidental fact to this type of crime -- it actually puts them at greater risk for this type of attack. Scammers flatter their way into obtaining compromising photos, and then use these boys' status against them. From ESPN:
This predatory web has snared victims from all kinds of backgrounds. But growing numbers of young, male athletes are particularly vulnerable because of both their elevated social status locally and the desire to project a perfect image for potential college recruitment, according to Abbigail Beccaccio, the chief of the FBI's Child Exploitation Operational Unit.
"If you look at our numbers and you look at how the bad actors are targeting victims, your school athletes are going to have a larger [online] footprint," Beccaccio said. "It is going to make them more vulnerable to these types of targeted attacks. They have more to lose than another individual. ... They're looking at being scouted. They're putting videos of their [highlights] out on social media."
Though the tactics are advanced, sextortionists use the same playbook as any other abuser: they attempt to isolate their victims from their support system, then convince them they have no way out. Again, from ESPN:
The parents' advice for teens getting targeted is simple: Shut off the computer as soon as a questionable message pops up, walk away and then go tell a trusted adult. The criminals are looking for money, and if they think an avenue has dried up, they'll likely move on. It's like a fish wiggling off the hook. But if they believe a fish is still on the hook, there is no amount of appeasement -- or payouts -- that will stop them from pushing for more.
I am not a high school football coach, and I know every school, every district, every state is different. I don't know if this conversation is best had among staff, from coaches to parents, or from coach to player directly. But I do know it may be the most important conversation a high school football coach has all season.