Meet Peter Verdin

Former Division I Baseball Player, Author & Advocate

Dr. Peter Verdin played four seasons of Division I baseball at the University of Georgia and was drafted by the Washington Nationals. He holds a PhD in human and sport performance, with a specialization in pediatric motor learning—the study of how children’s bodies learn to move.

From the age of nine until just before he turned fourteen, Peter was sexually abused by his youth baseball coach, a man trusted by his family and present in their home. The abuse came to light during his freshman year of college, when his abuser fled the country. Peter recorded an appeal for his arrest on America’s Most Wanted while continuing to play, with only his head coach on campus aware of what was happening. His abuser was later convicted and is serving a fifty-five-year sentence.

Dr. Verdin is the author of Gold in the Cracks: A Memoir of Silence, Performance, and Repair, which examines how high achievement can function as concealment, and why male survivors so rarely come forward. He serves as the volunteer Idaho state ambassador for Our Rescue, an anti-trafficking organization, and speaks on delayed disclosure, the justice process, and what the adults around a high-performing child routinely miss.