ESPN: Beckie Francis: I was abused by dad

(ESPN) ROCHESTER MICH. (AP) — Beckie Francis remembers sitting on her couch last year, staring in amazement as she watched Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts reveal on TV that he was a survivor of sexual abuse.

Francis turned to her husband and told him she could do the same thing.

The women’s basketball coach at Oakland University shared her story with parishioners at her suburban Detroit church and with her players. And now, she is telling everyone else to encourage victims of sexual abuse to seek help, and in hopes that it will assist parents and children to avoid what she endured.

Until now, Francis had not publicly disclosed that she was sexually assaulted by her dad, who is now deceased, from age 4 until she was in seventh grade. Francis says she doesn’t know when her dad died and can’t recall the last time she saw him because she blocked him out of her life and mind after the abuse he inflicted on her.

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