Players' wives raise awareness in battle against sex-traffic trade

http://www.pgatour.com/2010/r/05/04/pga-wives-in-cambodia/index.html
Within 10 minutes, Heather Crane was physically sick to her stomach.

Her husband, Ben, was back in the United States playing in the World Golf Championships-CA Championship at Doral Resort & Spa. But Heather had left that heady world of pro sports and creature comforts to go to Southeast Asia to help raise awareness about the horrors of child sex trafficking.

She was joined on the trip by Dowd Simpson, the new bride of Webb Simpson, and Pat Perez's wife, Athena. On this singularly disturbing night in March, the three women found themselves in one of Bangkok's three red-light districts.


Together, Anything's Possible
The PGA TOUR's charity website gives users the ability to access information and donate to charities that their favorite players support. Ben Crane, whose wife Heather was one of the three players' wives who visited Cambodia, has a charity page that can be accessed by clicking here. For the main page of the PGA TOUR's charity website, please click here.


Learn more about Love146
Love146 is an organization that seeks to end child sex slavery and exploitation. To find out more about this organization, please click here for the official website.

"The one we went to was surrounded by a night market so you had normal people and children all around," Heather said, shaking her head. "You had open karaoke bars and then you'd have an S&M establishment.

"Then you'd have the kind of place ... where the girls are lined up (behind a glass window) by row according to their beauty and their price. How horrible would that be to have to do that for a living and be on the bottom level because you're one of the ugly ones?"

As they walked through the red-light district, Perez said she felt like she was in some sort of a twisted "Stephen King carnival." Women in bikinis gyrated and danced in glass walkways above the bars and alleys below.

"Every time you walked by any storefront, men walked up to you shoving menus in your face with pictures, descriptions and prices," Athena said. "I felt like I was in a nightmare. It was really creepy."

Crane, Simpson and Perez traveled with Rob Morris and Lamont Hiebert, who co-founded Love146, an international group dedicated to eradicating the sexploitation of children. The organization takes its name from a defiant little girl, identified only by the number 146 on her red dress, seen being sold at one of those brothels during an undercover operation.

The group spent a week in Cambodia, The Philippines and Thailand, three countries where this scourge of inhumanity is most prevalent. They saw safe homes as well as the searing poverty that makes families and children susceptible to these predators' promises in the first place. They learned from experts in the field but more importantly from those who lived it first-hand.

"The trip was just a constant combination of hope and despair," Heather said softly about 12 hours after she landed in Miami and was reunited with her family.

"You have a bunch of mixed emotions," Dowd agreed. "In the first place, you are repulsed at the whole thing. At the same time, this is not much different than what is happening in our own backyards."


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Heather first went to Southeast Asia in 2005 with her husband. She and Ben met Hiebert, a Canadian singer and songwriter whose Christian rock band is known as Ten Shekel Shirt, at an outreach in southern California that year.

His cause soon became the devoutly religious Cranes' cause. They have hosted a pro-am for the last four years and have raised more than $1 million to help build sanctuaries like the Round House the group visited outside Manila.

Like Heather, Dowd and Athena are active in the PGA TOUR Wives Association. Dowd had been on mission trips when she was in high school and has friends who worked domestically to help stamp out sex trafficking. This trip, however, took all three out of their comfort zones.

Courtesy of Love146In Cambodia, it's the simple pleasure of eating watermelon that can bring a little joy to children.For Dowd, the opportunity couldn't have been more well-timed. She and her husband Webb, who is in his second year on TOUR, had been talking about finding a way to serve.

"We prayed about it one night and the next day we saw Heather and she said that she was going on this trip," Dowd said. "It was like a complete open door. It was like a prayer was answered."

Athena heard about the trip 10 days before Heather and Dowd were scheduled to leave. She ran into Heather at a baby shower and asked if she could come along. Athena doubted her friend thought she was serious at the time.

"It was a scary thing, thinking about going to a third-world country," Athena acknowledged. "In your mind you're going to ghettos, slums, you're leaving the comforts of home. It's something I had to overcome.

"I had to convince Pat. He was worried about me ... but he saw how much I really, really wanted to go. ... I bought the ticket the week before we left. I said if I can make it there and get back, it's fate. So I went online and found a ticket. I was like, OK, that's it, I have to go."

And now that they're back, their lives have been changed forever.

"I went in not really knowing what to expect," Dowd said. "I came out feeling well-educated and on fire and wanting to do something. It was more of a culture shock coming home. We went from such poverty and depravity to a life of such prosperity. I can wear what I want and eat what I want. I have everything I need at my fingertips."

"I am making it a point not to forget this," Athena agreed. "... It's definitely changed how I feel about other people. Cheesy as it seems, there is not enough caring and compassion in the world."


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The women first saw hope at the Round Home, which is located in a secure location about two hours outside of Manila. When they got out of the car, the group was greeted by 16 girls, all dressed in pink, who had been rescued from brothels.

Each room in the colorful round building opens up to a circular garden in the center. There are three beds and stuffed animals in each room, as well as a library and a tree house where the girls assemble for therapy sessions.

Heather CraneDowd SimpsonAthena PerezSeeing a nearby volleyball court, Perez suggested a game and it turned out to be the "best icebreaker," Crane said. "(There was) instant laughter." The teenagers cheered when someone scored a point and then laughed at their own mistakes.

"We're playing this game for like an hour and all we can think of is we can't believe these girls have been through what they've been through,'" Crane said. "I know there's deep-rooted things there, but they're truly getting help and being restored. ... It was just a sweet, sweet interaction."

After the game, Perez, Simpson and Crane toured the Round Home and then sat in the library to listen to the girls sing and play guitar. Among the favorites was the hymn "Coming Back to the Heart for Worship." A shy 15-year-old named Fe sat down next to Crane and talked about her dreams of a new life.

"My eyes welled up with tears as the reality sunk in that these trafficked girls are real people -- full of hopes and dreams, all just wanting to be loved," Heather said.

"To be in a life like that -- to have your name stripped from you -- and to be able to overcome that is amazing," Dowd added.

Later, Dr. Gundelina Velazco, the resident therapist, told the women more about Fe, who had recently been rescued by the IJM, the International Justice Mission. Drugged and sold as a virgin, Fe had been repeatedly trafficked -- and even raped by a doctor who was examining her. The scars on her wrist were from an unsuccessful suicide attempt.

The youngest girl, who had arrived at the Round Home the previous Thursday, was just 13. When her parents died, her uncle had taken her into his family. He later passed away and his girlfriend sold her to an abuser. She once dug a hole deep into the ground in a desperate attempt to either "hide or die," Heather said.

The rescued children could see there was hope, though. A young girl named Diana had come in so suicidal the previous year that she tried to jump in front of a car. She went through therapy and later returned to her village on the island of Sabu where she fell in love with a childhood friend.

"Not only does he know about her past, but his whole family came by boat with him as he proposed to her," Heather said. "That is such a story of redemption in itself and she can now work with the girls -- not only do they trust her, they can see that a dream can truly happen. That a man can still really love and want you. That's one of the most beautiful stories."

Dowd remembers Diana picking an old brown leaf off the ground.

"She said, 'That's how I used to be when I first came here -- dead, I had no life,'" Dowd said. "Then she pointed to a tree and said, 'That's me now. No matter how many branches fall, I'll be strong."


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On Wednesday, the group flew from Manila to Bangkok where they met with Dr. Glenn Miles, who is the director of Asia Prevention for Love146. For more than two decades he has been an advocate for the rights of abused children in Southeast Asia.

"A lot of people blame it on those parents, those wicked parents who must sell their children," Heather said. "But so often, it's coercion and manipulation and fear. They really don't know what's going on. So they've come up with videos and a curriculum for schools, to teach -- so you know when a guy approaches you and says he'll give you money so you can get a job or go to school and send payment back to your family to support them, that's not legitimate.

"But these people fall for those things so easily because they are so desperate and so poor."

Courtesy of Love146In spite of her environment, there is hope in the face of this Cambodian child.Heather had what she called a "total a-ha moment" when the group met two Americans who are working with the MST Project in Bangkok. They go into the red light districts at night and approach the men -- who are overwhelmingly tourists -- and ask them to participate in a survey, which in turn leads to a discussion of why they are there in the first place.

"Their findings are that these men are hurting and they're lonely and they are trying to go to these brothels to fill some void that is not really going to be filled there," Heather said. "And so, to me, I get so caught up in the bad-guy thing. What's he doing here and a sicko and that sort of thing, the whole mentality, but a total light bulb went off with me, that they're hurting just as bad.

"So these guys think that men are part of the solution. If you can change their ways, ultimately decreasing the demand, saving souls might make a difference."

Dowd said the men that the MST Project confronts in the red-light districts often are there because they confuse intimacy with sex. "They tell the men that they know an intimacy far greater than the physical," she said. "And some of the men are finding Jesus right there in the red-light district."

Athena remembered one burly man who told them that he wasn't scared of sexually transmitted diseases. He'd been having unprotected sex for 30 years. He also told them he thought the young girls liked what they were doing -- that they liked having sex with white men.

"A lot of men, some women, too, think it's their choice," Athena said. "That's what people don't really understand. So many of these girls start as teenagers -- they're tricked into the sex trade, kidnapped, brainwashed.

"Then when they get into their 30s, that's all they know. Their pimp, their handler, has convinced them that's all they are good for."

Heather said the issue of child sex trafficking is second only to the sale of illegal drugs and hardly confined to Southeast Asia. Sri Lanka is known for young boys sold into prostitution, Cambodia for children. Young girls in Eastern Europe are lured to the United States with promises of modeling careers.

"I read a quote last night and it might have even been written by Martin Luther King but it was, one person can change the world and millions of people can create a movement," Heather said. "And that's really what we're trying to do, is create a movement of social awareness that this does happen and it's unacceptable to exploit children for sex."

That said, she knows there is a long way to go. Heather was talking with an upper class Thai man and his wife on the plane. He owned a paint shop and his wife was the proprietor of a clothing store. They employ five live-in maids at their home.

"I was telling him about what we were doing and he said, you mean, like pedophiles?" Heather recalled. "He went, what? He didn't even know it happened and his country is known for being one of the worst.

"So I think perhaps, maybe it's a coping mechanism, to just turn your ear and close your eyes and not even engage and I think that's kind of the worst thing that we can do is to pretend it doesn't even exist."


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In the five years since her first trip, Heather sees increased awareness of this disturbing issue -- particularly on college campuses where "they have more of a heart for social justice," she said.

"This trip was definitely harder than my first because I wasn't a mom," Heather said. "Seeing 2-year-olds, my daughter's age, begging for food, it's heartbreaking."

That searing poverty was strikingly evident when the group went to Poipet, a Cambodian border town known for trafficking where they visited two schools committed to helping at-risk children. At one, called Safe Haven, the kids can learn to make furniture and repair motor bikes.

Courtesy of Love146The players' wives found plenty of inspiration to raise awareness of the problems in Cambodia.The other school, an after-school facility, was located at the end of a long dirt road lined by ramshackle huts with rice paddies in the back.

"It's amazing the resilience and surviving day to day," Heather said. "We saw one old woman with a wired thing where she'd been barbequing bats. Six bats. She offered us a taste."

"She was so proud of that meal she had cooked," Dowd said.

The Crane's pro-am -- which also benefits HOPE Farm, a Christian community in Fort Worth, Texas, that disciples fatherless boys -- will be held Monday, May 10 at the Vaquero Club in Westlake, Texas. The pro-am is during the week of the Valero Texas Open.

"Ben has an incredible platform because of what he does," Heather said. "People might pay attention a little bit more and it might grow to the movement we're hoping and it will continue to take off."

One of Heather's favorite quotes comes from Gary Haugen, who is the founder of the International Justice Mission.

"He said it's not about where is God, it's where are God's people," Crane said. "Sometimes it can be overwhelming, but then you think, wow, can anything really happen here. ... It's just sharing what you're learned and connecting with other people who care."

Heather Crane and Dowd Simpson and Athena Perez made that connection when they took a step outside the glamorous world of the PGA TOUR.

What they saw during that week in Southeast Asia was ugly. It was repulsive. It made them sick.

But they want to make a difference. And now they have a story to share.

Ben Crane's Interview after Round 1

http://www.pgatour.com/video/?/video/video/pga-tour/highlights/2010/05/06/qt_10players_rnd1_crane_xm.pgatour

The Golfer and The Slugger

The Golfer and the Slugger, New York Times 5/5/10

Ben Crane and Mark Teixeira, a first baseman for the Yankees, met in 2006 at the home of the golfer Justin Leonard. “Eighty percent of our conversations are about our faith and our relationship with God,” Teixeira said.
By KAREN CROUSE
Published: May 5, 2010

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Heather Crane recently scrolled through the text messages on the phone of her husband, the golfer Ben Crane, and stumbled upon a few that raised her eyebrows. Sent to the same number, they were like echoes: “God before results. God before results. God before results.”

Crane, who tees off Thursday afternoon at the Players Championship, composed those words of encouragement for his close friend Mark Teixeira during the Yankees’ World Series run last fall, leading his wife to ask playfully, “Why don’t you take a piece of your own advice?”

Teixeira, the Yankees’ first baseman, said he has kept the messages on his phone because, honestly, with spirituality like that, who needs swing thoughts?

“Ben is kind of a mentor to me,” Teixeira said by telephone Wednesday before the Yankees’ 7-5 victory over the Orioles. “Whenever I get too wrapped up in my baseball world, Ben makes it very easy to get back to what’s important, which is living in the moment.”

The slugger and the golfer are kindred spirits, gregarious and generous men who bond over the blessed trinity of faith, family and fine wine. Talking to them, one gets the impression that sports, far from being the tie that binds them, is perhaps their weakest link.

“When we talk, we steer our conversation around material things,” Crane said. “It’s always God, family, work.”

They have been friends since meeting at a backyard barbecue in 2006 at the home of the golfer Justin Leonard in the Dallas development where they all lived.

Teixeira, 30, and Crane, 34, have remained close even as Teixeira, drafted by the Rangers in 2001, has moved from Texas to Atlanta to Anaheim to New York. Their families vacation together and were at Great Guana Cay in the Bahamas in late 2008 when Teixeira was mulling free-agent offers from the Angels, the Red Sox, the Orioles and the Yankees.

To get his mind off baseball, Crane arranged snorkeling and spear-fishing excursions and lobster dives. “He said, ‘The only thing I can’t do, Ben, is get hurt,’ ” Crane recalled, laughing.

When they returned to Texas, Teixeira agreed to an eight-year, $180 million contract with the Yankees that included a $5 million signing bonus.

Crane, a three-time PGA Tour winner who has earned more than $12 million since turning professional in 1999, said, “It’s so fun for Mark and I to have this relationship where we hold each other accountable.” He added, “We just connect on so many levels.”

They both have two children under the age of 5, though Crane quipped that Teixeira, whose wife, Leigh, is pregnant, “is about to pull ahead of us.”

One can finish the other’s reading of Scripture. In a recent conversation, they held to the light Romans 12:2, a passage that has been interpreted as being about offering the body as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God.

“Eighty percent of our conversations are about our faith and our relationship with God,” Teixeira said. “It’s very refreshing to pick up the phone and if you went 0 for 4 or hit two home runs, it doesn’t matter. The conversation’s going to be: How’s your relationship with God? How’s your family?”

Each brings to his job a focus that no ringing cellphone can rattle. Teixeira’s game-day routine includes turning off his cellphone as soon as he walks through the clubhouse door.

Crane carries two cellphones, and as soon as a tournament starts, he turns one off. Only those closest to him can reach him on the other phone, which he monitors after each round.

Both men are process oriented. Although golfers consider themselves independent contractors, Crane has borrowed a page from team sports and hired a support staff that, in addition to the caddie Joel Stock, includes a swing coach, a short-game coach, a manager, a sports psychologist and three physical therapists.

His team started a meticulous practice routine, with Crane thinking his way around the golf course on Tuesday and Wednesday so he can play without fear or reservation once the tournament starts. “My practice rounds used to be a lot more casual,” Crane said. “Now they are a lot more intense.”

Teixeira spends hours studying the game before he takes the field. “We both spend a lot of practice hours on the process, so when it comes time to play, our natural talents shine through and we let all the hard work pay off.”

Both are known for laboring. Teixeira is a notoriously slow starter, as evidenced by his .178 batting average. And Crane was voted the slowest player on the PGA Tour in a recent Sports Illustrated poll of his peers — and not for the first time.

“If that’s the worst thing someone can say about Ben, I think he’s doing all right in the big picture,” Teixeira said. He added: “I’ve never seen Ben upset. I’ve never heard him say a cross word to anybody. It’s very rare to find somebody in professional sports like him.”

In January, Crane won the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego. “I watched every stroke of that final round,” said Teixeira, who texted him afterward and said the win was well deserved.

On weeks when Crane is in contention, the Yankees’ clubhouse is Crane’s auxiliary gallery. “We’ll put golf on in the clubhouse,” Teixeira said, “and we’ll all root for him.”

Tommy at THE PLAYERS Championship

Tommy and Ben Crane on #17 during today's practice round of THE PLAYERS Championship

Radio interview with Lee Janzen

Lee Janzen interview from "Fairways of Life" 3/20/10
Matt Adams from "Fairways of Life" on the PGA TOUR Network (SIRIUS 209, XM 146 and PGATOUR.COM) visits with Lee Janzen, two-time U.S. Open champion and eight-time PGA TOUR winner, to discuss his work with the "Feed the Children" charity outreach.


http://www.pgatour.com/video/?/video/audio/interviews/2010/03/20/xm_leej.xm

Lee Janzen takes 4th place at Zurich Classic of New Orleans

4U Management client, Lee Janzen finished his Sunday round with a 69 after landing an eagle on the 13th hole. Janzen finished in 4th place and earning $307,200 at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. watch the video clip here:

http://www.pgatour.com/video/?/video/video/pga-tour/highlights/2010/04/25/mine_10zurich_rnd4_13_2nd_janzen.pgatour

Golf.com writer says Tiger should hire 4U Management

http://blogs.golf.com/flyers/2010/04/stevie-youre-fired.html

04/05/2010
'Stevie, You're Fired!'
Posted at 7:59 AM by Connell Barrett | Categories: Tiger Woods
And hit the road, Sir Charles. If Tiger's serious about changing his ways, he should start with his inner circle. Here's how.

CADDIE

You're fired! Steve Williams You're hired! Bob "Mr. Clean" Chaney

Tiger needs more negative press like he needs a Perkins gift certificate, and the camera-flinging, Phil-bashing Steve Williams is a magnet for controversy. Meet Bob "Mr. Clean" Chaney, so nicknamed for his resemblance to the face on the popular household cleaner. A 65-year-old veteran who has looped for Tour winner Bart Bryant, Chaney has experience, a low-key temperament to soothe Tiger's seething temper, and a hulking frame to part the seas of fans and foes. And who better to keep Tiger honest than a guy called "Mr Clean?"

PGA TOUR MENTOR

You're fired! Mark O'Meara You're hired! David Toms

O'Meara, who now plays the Champions Tour, and Woods are reportedly not as close as they used to be. All around good guy David Toms, 43, is still tapped in to the Big Show, has major-winning cred, and knows about rebuilding after disaster: The Louisiana native's many philanthropic works include relief efforts in New Orleans after Katrina. Bonus: They can bond over having bikini-babe wives.

SWING COACH

You're fired! Hank Haney You're hired! Butch Harmon

If Tiger wants to find the straight and narrow—on the fairway, that is—he should reunite with Harmon, who shaped Woods's swing through 2004, including 2000, when Tiger won three majors, including the U.S. Open by 15 strokes. As Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee told me, "Back in 2000, Tiger hit it farther than everyone by a mile, and was straighter, too." 'Nuff said.

A-LIST PALS

You're fired! Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan You're hired! Tim Tebow and Tim Duncan

Let's do the math. Tiger + Barkley & Jordan x Vegas = Uh oh. The trio's reported booze-and-babe-fueled nights at the MGM Grand's VIP tables created a "culture of adultery," in the words of one sports shrink. The antidote? Team Tim! Squeaky-clean Duncan is married, and his four NBA titles command respect. Tebow, the Heisman-winning stud, has publicly pledged to remain a virgin until marriage. The Tims are more likely to be spotted playing Boggle than blackjack.

AGENCY

You're fired! IMG You're hired! 4U Management

IMG is like IBM: massive, global, corporate. Tiger needs a mom-and-pop shop that feels like a home. Tommy Limbaugh heads Orlando-based 4U Management, which represents Ben Crane and Lee Janzen. He's known as a golf agent who cares. Before the 2010 season, the former college football coach gave an inspiring speech to Team Crane, getting everyone psyched about the coming year. ("Tommy, I will run through a brick wall for you!" one trainer said at the powwow.) After winning the Farmers Insurance Open in January, Crane credited Limbaugh's rah-rah meeting. By many accounts, Tiger's personal life spiraled out of control in part because he became isolated. If IMG has perfected the art of the deal, Limbaugh has perfected the art of the team.

(Bob Chaney, right, with Bart Bryant in 2005. Credit: Scott Halleran/Getty Images)