For more than a year now, I’ve been investigating how youth sports organizations have failed to protect kids from sexual abuse, and the gaps in the system that have allowed coaches banned for misconduct to keep working with young athletes.
So far, I’ve shown that one major nonprofit sports organization, the Amateur Athletic Union, has become a haven for coaches accused of abuse. I identified eight coaches who are still working with kids under the AAU despite having been banned by SafeSport, a center created by Congress to protect kids from abuse in sports that has a public list anyone can check. The AAU has said it does not comment on individual cases but in a statement said that it is “committed to protecting its athletes through comprehensive protection policies overseen by our Compliance Department.”
I also told the story of a Texas volleyball coach named Ryan Richardson, who continued coaching despite having been banned by SafeSport and is now under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security. Richardson did not respond to multiple requests for comment on ProPublica and The Washington Post’s reporting, or an email seeking comment about the Homeland Security investigation. When he was first suspended in 2024, Richardson told the local news website MyRGV that complaints about him were an effort to “retaliate and defame someone’s character,” and he said he “would never do anything to risk the physical or mental wellbeing of these strong young ladies.”
