{"id":9104,"date":"2026-08-14T07:05:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T07:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=9104"},"modified":"2026-08-14T07:05:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T07:05:20","slug":"this-national-youth-sports-organization-is-failing-to-protect-kids-from-sexual-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=9104","title":{"rendered":"This national youth sports organization is failing to protect kids from sexual abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
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(Photo illustrations by Sarah Blesener for ProPublica)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

This story was reported by The Washington Post and ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. <\/i><\/p>

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IN THE COMPETITIVE WORLD<\/b> of youth sports, few organizations have a reach as vast as the Amateur Athletic Union.<\/p>\n

With 760,000 athletes and coaches nationwide, the AAU hosts competitions in dozens of sports across the country. This summer alone, hundreds of thousands of children competed in AAU events for elite young athletes: a staggering 100,000 at the world\u2019s largest volleyball championship in Orlando, 8,000 at its storied basketball championships at Disney World, more than 15,000 at the Junior Olympics in Iowa.<\/p>\n

To the hundreds of thousands of parents whose children play under the red, white and blue AAU badge, the organization offers more than a place to compete. The AAU promises that their children will be safe \u2014 that its coaches are vetted, monitored and trained; that strict rules govern how adults interact with children; and that it responds effectively to allegations of abuse within its ranks.<\/p>\n

But that trust is misplaced, according to an investigation from ProPublica and The Washington Post. The AAU is failing on nearly every level to adequately protect the hundreds of thousands of children in its care from sexual abuse, the investigation found, misleading the public about its prevention measures and suppressing allegations of sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n

In doing so, the AAU is breaking many of the pledges it made<\/a> in the wake of a 2011 sex abuse scandal involving its CEO and young basketball players. AAU leaders at the time said they would build a \u201cnew culture in which the overarching priority\u201d was protecting young athletes, committing the organization to sweeping safety reforms. But they did not implement the majority of those reforms, ProPublica and The Post found, putting many children at risk. Some AAU athletes have had devastating experiences.<\/p>\n

The AAU does not offer child abuse prevention training, though it claims to the public<\/a> that it does. It does not verify whether coaches take the training it does offer, though it calls the course \u201cmandatory\u201d<\/a> on its webpage for parents.<\/p>\n

The AAU has become a haven for coaches suspected of abuse, ProPublica and The Post found, based on a review of public disciplinary lists and interviews with current and former executives from six national sports governing bodies and other key stakeholders. Those sports officials say the AAU has earned a reputation as a place where coaches can escape discipline and are not bound by strict safety laws, making it more difficult to protect young athletes. ProPublica and The Post identified eight coaches who continued to work with children under the AAU in the past five years after being banned or suspended by other youth sports organizations \u2014 even though the AAU pledged in 2012 that it would ban such coaches.<\/p>\n

Serious allegations of sexual misconduct against coaches in the AAU are handled by its Board of Review, a group of four elected AAU members and a chair whose names are not made public. Asked about written guidelines for when to ban coaches, one former member who sat on the board for nearly 25 years said the group \u201cjust decided on our feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n

The abuse reporting hotline AAU promised to create as part of the reforms redirects to the AAU\u2019s general office line with no option to report abuse, though callers can press 5 to reach a department for \u201cmedal orders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of protecting children, the AAU has prioritized building an ever-bigger footprint across youth sports through cheap and easy team registrations, ProPublica and The Post found, allowing it to dramatically grow its revenue in recent years.<\/p>\n

The scope of the consequences for young athletes nationwide is impossible to quantify, ProPublica and The Post found, because the AAU operates with a secrecy that is unusual for a nonprofit that serves children.<\/p>\n

The AAU declined to answer questions from ProPublica and The Post over the course of more than a year, including whether the organization trains its coaches, how it investigates abuse claims, and how it enforced policies and safety rules. It would not verify whether specific coaches overseeing AAU-registered teams had been authorized and background-checked by the AAU, as its rules require. While other youth sports organizations post public lists of coaches found to have abused children, the AAU does not.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the AAU said it is \u201ccommitted to protecting its athletes through comprehensive protection policies overseen by our Compliance Department.\u201d<\/p>\n

Athlete protection \u201cis at the forefront of our safety measures such as a verified identity check and mandatory background screenings for all non-athlete AAU members, including coaches,\u201d it said. The statement also cited \u201csupplemental medical benefits\u201d and \u201cmandatory concussion protocols\u201d as measures that it said prioritized the \u201cphysical well-being of its members.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese safety measures reflect our ongoing commitment to providing a safe, secure, supportive, and trusted environment where athletes can thrive,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

The AAU did take action on some points raised by the news organizations. After ProPublica and The Post asked the AAU last year whether it actually mandated training for coaches, as its website claims, the organization quietly changed its website<\/a> to say the training was \u201cencouraged.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the first time, using thousands of pages of internal, legal and court records and interviews with key stakeholders, ProPublica and The Post were able to document how the AAU handled some child sex abuse claims in the years after it promised reform. Several years after allegations were made against a former AAU president, ProPublica and The Post found, its review board exonerated another top AAU executive accused of sexual abuse by a former player without interviewing a single witness or considering a past allegation from a different player, court records show. A current AAU official, Jim Fox, said he believed the AAU\u2019s handling of the case was an attempt to \u201ccover it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The AAU has taken other steps that have had the effect of keeping sexual abuse claims out of the public eye, ProPublica and The Post found. Clauses in AAU registration forms require all claims against the AAU to be resolved through confidential arbitration hearings instead of jury trials in open court. The AAU uses those agreements to quash lawsuits over child sex abuse \u2014 arguing in court that children who were victimized by their coaches had signed away their right to sue when they registered for an AAU team, records show. That practice is extremely rare in sex abuse cases at other major youth sports organizations, according to attorneys, court records and sports groups, and was mostly banned by a Biden-era law in 2022.<\/p>\n

ProPublica and The Post found that the AAU has attempted to force sex abuse claims into arbitration as recently as 2024, in the case of a lawsuit filed by a teenage girl in Florida who said she had been abused by her AAU volleyball coach. The case was settled out of court last year.<\/p>\n

The AAU\u2019s use of arbitration agreements meant that even in a high-profile case in which an AAU coach was convicted of decades of prolific abuse, the AAU itself escaped scrutiny.<\/p>\n

The co-director of an influential basketball club in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Greg Stephen, was accused of sexually exploiting more than 400 of his young basketball players in 2018 and sentenced to 180 years in prison on multiple charges. But arbitration clauses prevented his former players from suing the AAU, ProPublica and The Post learned, even though boys\u2019 families initially argued that the AAU was partly responsible because it had failed to enforce its 2012 safety policies, including a ban on coaches sharing bedrooms with players.<\/p>\n

The AAU declined to comment on this practice or any of these cases, saying it could not comment on \u201clegal matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

A judge sided with the AAU and ruled that the victims could not sue the wealthier parent organization, allowing the AAU not to respond to the claims in court. The club, Barnstormers Basketball, denied the claims.<\/p>\n

The Barnstormers\u2019 AAU-provided insurance limited payouts for sexual abuse claims to $1 million, said Guy Cook, the families\u2019 lawyer, the equivalent of a few thousand dollars for each young victim.<\/p>\n

Cook said the AAU had grown \u201csophisticated\u201d in its attempts to suppress child sex abuse lawsuits: \u201cIt\u2019s not unlike what the Catholic Church has done.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2018, in the wake of revelations about sexual abuse by USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar and other powerful figures in Olympic sports, Congress created a new oversight system to prevent sexual abuse. The law charged the U.S. Center for SafeSport with investigating allegations of sexual abuse in sports overseen by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee \u2014 made up of national sports governing bodies like USA Gymnastics \u2014 and enforces strict new rules about safety and training.<\/p>\n

But the AAU exists outside of that system, allowing it to benefit from a gap in the law. Because it is not a sanctioned national sports governing body, the AAU is not overseen by SafeSport and does not have to follow its rules or mandate that coaches take its trainings. ProPublica and The Post found that it does not abide by SafeSport suspensions or bans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should scare parents,\u201d said former Florida state senator Lauren Book, a child sex abuse survivor and prevention advocate who was a member of a task force established by AAU to reform its abuse prevention practices in 2011. Along with most other members of the task force, she said she has since lost faith in the organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat AAU does is protect institution over children,\u201d Book said. \u201cThey have never done the right thing when it comes to child protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

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(Sarah Blesener for ProPublica)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

BEFORE HE WAS CAUGHT<\/b> at the center of a scandal, Bobby Dodd saved the AAU. When the former youth basketball coach took the helm of the nonprofit in 1992, it was struggling. It had been founded in the 19th century to oversee amateur sports, but Congress had given that role to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and its national sports governing bodies in 1978. The AAU\u2019s relevance had been declining since.<\/p>\n

Dodd saw youth sports for what they would soon become: a booming business. He built the AAU of the 1990s and 2000s into the juggernaut of youth basketball, the home of virtually every future NBA star; invested in a Junior Olympics brand that brought in thousands of children from across track and field; and moved the organization\u2019s headquarters to the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex inside Disney World.<\/p>\n

Under Dodd, there were few barriers to becoming an AAU coach: Anyone who paid a $16 membership fee could start a team, no background check required. By joining the AAU, basketball and other sports clubs got perks like cheap and easy liability insurance. More important, they got access to a circuit of organized tournaments, from local weekend events to major national championships.<\/p>\n

But along with Dodd\u2019s stewardship of AAU came criticism<\/a> that the fast-growing organization was becoming a free-for-all.<\/p>\n

After a 2004 Seattle Times investigation<\/a> found that dozens of people with felony convictions were coaching AAU-sanctioned teams in Washington and Idaho, including a coach who was a convicted murderer, Dodd pledged to consider background checks for AAU\u2019s 65,000 coaches. \u201cWe are going to try to ensure more integrity in the process,\u201d Dodd told the paper.<\/p>\n

The AAU still had not introduced those background checks when, in 2011, ESPN reported<\/a> that two men had accused Dodd of molesting them as youths in the 1980s, when he was their basketball coach. Dodd denied the allegations but stepped down as president, collecting a $1.5 million<\/a> payout from the organization and putting the AAU back in an uncomfortable spotlight. He was not charged with a crime, and <\/b>he could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n

Again, the organization promised change.<\/p>\n

Under a new president, Louis Stout, the organization convened a task force of child safety experts. It vowed<\/a> in June 2012 to implement all of the task force\u2019s recommendations, which it called \u201chistoric child protection measures.\u201d<\/p>\n

The AAU rolled out mandatory background checks. It also pledged to train all adults in safety and child sex abuse prevention and create policies that would \u201cprevent adults from being alone with children.\u201d Participation was a privilege, AAU vowed, not a right: \u201cAnyone who is prohibited from participating in an organization that serves youth or who violates the AAU\u2019s child protection policies should be barred.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most important change, the AAU said, would be cultural. Child safety would now be \u201can overarching priority.\u201d<\/p>\n

WITHIN A MATTER OF MONTHS<\/b>, there were signs that little was actually changing.<\/p>\n

That year, the AAU gave a 2012 leadership award<\/a> to a man named Rick Butler, one of the country\u2019s most prominent girls\u2019 volleyball coaches at the time. Butler had been instrumental in building AAU volleyball into a powerhouse.<\/p>\n

But he had also been banned by USA Volleyball from coaching girls since 1995, after the sport\u2019s governing body concluded that he had had sexual intercourse with three teenage players years earlier, when he was in his late 20s to mid-30s. Butler\u2019s attorney called them \u201clegal, consensual relationships in the 1980s,\u201d noting that there was no law or rule against coach-player relationships at the time.<\/p>\n

Months before giving Butler the award, the AAU had promised it would bar anyone \u201cbanned by other youth-serving organizations\u201d from coaching children. But Butler continued coaching girls under the AAU until 2018. That year, USA Volleyball pulled its affiliation with the AAU over Butler\u2019s membership, and the AAU subsequently banned Butler, according to a letter reviewed by ProPublica and The Post. Butler\u2019s attorney said he has not been accused of more recent misconduct.<\/p>\n

Stout died unexpectedly in September 2012, just a few months after he committed the AAU to the list of reforms. (After an interim period, Roger Goudy, who had run the AAU\u2019s volleyball program for decades, was elected president in 2014.)<\/p>\n

When the AAU published its first youth protection handbook<\/a> in December 2012, there was no rule barring coaches banned by other groups. The handbook did say it was following another key reform: All AAU coaches were now taking an \u201ceducational course.\u201d<\/p>\n

The organization had repurposed training it had used since before the Dodd scandal \u2014 an online seminar called \u201cDouble Goal Coach\u201d from the nonprofit Positive Coaching Alliance. The course was focused on sports psychology and coaching techniques, not sexual abuse prevention training. The AAU claimed that \u201call registered non-athletes\u201d were taking the course, even though no one verified whether they did, according to officials, stakeholders and a person directly familiar with the training.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s never been mandatory,\u201d said Peg Adams, a longtime regional official at the AAU who spent more than two decades reviewing abuse claims against AAU coaches as part of its Board of Review. \u201cIt should be, but that\u2019s something they [AAU] have to work out.\u201d<\/p>\n

WHEN THEY WERE FIRST ANNOUNCED<\/b>, the AAU\u2019s child safety rules, if implemented, would have put the organization at the vanguard of youth sports. But in 2018, Congress passed a landmark new sports safety law, known as the Safe Sport Act, that forced much of the rest of the sports world to make sweeping changes.<\/p>\n

Under the new law, the U.S. Center for SafeSport was charged with investigating sexual abuse allegations in all 50 national sports governing bodies, the organizations that oversee and set rules for specific sports. SafeSport could ban or suspend accused coaches in these groups, placing their names in a searchable public database known as the SafeSport list. It required adult coaches and volunteers to take SafeSport-provided child abuse prevention training annually and follow strict new safety rules governing how they interacted with athletes.<\/p>\n

But because the independent AAU is not a national governing body, SafeSport could not require the AAU to follow its disciplinary list, rules or training. Only a few provisions tucked at the end of the 2018 bill<\/a> applied to AAU \u2014 including a requirement that all sports groups \u201coffer and provide consistent training \u2026 regarding prevention and reporting of child abuse.\u201d Only Congress, not SafeSport, could enforce that provision.<\/p>\n

The new Center for SafeSport was far from perfect. Underfunded and understaffed<\/a>, the center quickly racked up a backlog of unresolved complaints and closed many others<\/a> without findings or with what critics said were inadequate<\/a> investigations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

SafeSport has since resolved many of those issues, improving its process to resolve cases more quickly and cut down its backlog, the organization said. In a statement, the center\u2019s new CEO, Benita Fitzgerald Mosley, an Olympic gold medalist, said the organization \u201cacknowledges the challenges we have met as the first national sport safeguarding organization in the world. We are on surer footing today.\u201d<\/p>\n

SafeSport also drove up costs for the governing bodies, who were required to help fund the center\u2019s investigations and often pay for expensive background checks and compliance staff. That meant higher membership fees for their athletes.<\/p>\n

The AAU was not required to pay for any of that. So while governing bodies and SafeSport inched toward reform, ProPublica and The Post found, the AAU did not.<\/p>\n

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Ashlee Orndorff, in 2026, with photos from her time as a youth basketball player. (Sarah Blesener for ProPublica)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

IN 2018, THE YEAR THAT<\/b> the Safe Sport Act took effect, the AAU faced a test of its most significant promise: to remake its culture to protect children.<\/p>\n

That January, a woman named Ashlee Orndorff claimed on social media that she had been groomed and sexually abused as a teenager by an AAU executive, its second vice president, Matt Williams, who was also a paid employee of the organization at the time.<\/p>\n

Orndorff had been a teenage basketball phenom in the tiny unincorporated town of Hawthorne, Nevada, two hours outside of Reno. She won three state titles and was named the state Gatorade player of the year during her senior year of high school in 2000, setting records that she still holds<\/a>. But for many of the years that she excelled on the court, Orndorff said, she had carried a terrible secret: Williams, her AAU club coach, had been sexually assaulting her. The abuse began when she was 15, she said, and carried well into her adulthood, resulting in the birth of a child she gave up for adoption at 19.<\/p>\n

Williams was more than just a storied coach. He founded the Western region\u2019s most prominent AAU basketball brand, Jam On It, which generated revenue for the AAU through the enormous tournaments it hosted every year.<\/p>\n

After Orndorff\u2019s allegations, the AAU pledged<\/a> to investigate, saying Williams had \u201cvolunteered\u201d to be placed on administrative leave. Orndorff\u2019s allegations went before the AAU\u2019s Board of Review a month later. The small group of AAU members, one elected to represent each region, had no training in law, investigation or child sexual abuse, according to Adams, the former board member.<\/p>\n

Transcripts reviewed by ProPublica and The Post show the hearing frequently resembled a contentious criminal trial. Williams had a lawyer, but Orndorff said she had not been able to afford one at the time.<\/p>\n

In a statement to the AAU, Williams denied sexually abusing Orndorff as a minor. But he admitted that he fathered Orndorff\u2019s child, who was born when she was 19 and he was over 30 and just a year out of coaching her \u2014 a violation of the organization\u2019s policy against having sexual relationships with former players, which was part of the 2012 reforms. The attorney asked Orndorff if her \u201canger\u201d at Williams \u201cis what has prompted this complaint.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, sir,\u201d she responded. \u201cBeing fingered by my coach at 15 in a gym and him making me think that that is all that I was good for, was to be his sexual satisfaction, that is where my f—ing anger comes from. Next question.\u201d<\/p>

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The board did not interview any witnesses or introduce records that could corroborate Orndorff\u2019s account. Orndorff had submitted a 34-page narrative of the alleged abuse that included dates, locations and names of potential witnesses, 10 of whom later corroborated aspects of her story in depositions for a 2019 lawsuit she filed against Williams and Jam On It, according to a review of thousands of pages of court records. (Williams and Jam On It denied wrongdoing. Orndorff settled the case in 2023, and Williams died of cancer the following year.)<\/p>\n

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An altered photo, left, shows Orndorff when she was one of the country\u2019s best teenage basketball players. (Sarah Blesener for ProPublica)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n
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Now 44, Orndorff says she still carries the trauma of abuse but is almost nine years sober and rebuilding her life. (Sarah Blesener for ProPublica)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Adams, who is a former Georgia gymnastics coach and gym owner, sat on the board during the Williams case. She said board members did not interview any witnesses because Orndorff had not provided a separate list of their names and phone numbers.<\/p>\n

The hearing also did not consider an accusation of sexual abuse against Williams by a different player in 2005, the case records show. Rod Seaford, the board chair and the attorney running the hearing, had personally responded to the allegations in 2005, court records show. But Seaford did not mention them at the hearing, and Adams said Seaford had not told her they existed. (The girl who made the accusation declined to speak to police or the AAU at the time, records show, and that case did not proceed. Now an adult, she did not respond to an interview request from ProPublica and The Post.) Seaford declined multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n

By May 2018, within six months of learning of Orndorff\u2019s allegations, the Board of Review cleared Williams of wrongdoing<\/a> and reinstated him to his <\/b>$84,000 position as an AAU officer. He was free to coach at Jam On It.<\/p>\n

Internal records show that the board cited a lack of evidence and questioned Orndorff\u2019s credibility because of an admitted history of drug use and what the board called \u201cdisturbing\u201d discrepancies in her story. She had alternately claimed, for example, that Williams had \u201ctaken her virginity\u201d at 15 but that they had first had sex when she was 16. In the hearing, Orndorff tried to explain that she had been referring to Williams digitally penetrating her when she was 15.<\/p>\n

Adams spent more than two decades on the Board of Review before leaving in 2024. She was never aware, she said, of any written rules used to decide whether a coach should be allowed to return to working with children.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we just decided on our feelings,\u201d Adams said of the board\u2019s process.<\/p>\n

She told ProPublica and The Post that the board had not considered sanctioning Williams for having a relationship with Orndorff because there was no regulation against having relationships with former players at the time. The AAU said in 2012 it had implemented that rule.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt certainly would be [a violation] now,\u201d Adams said. \u201cAnd after, well \u2014 it was not a very pleasant \u2014 that was one of my unhappiest decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orndorff said she still carries with her the trauma of Williams\u2019s abuse. She left college during her freshman year as a result of the relationship with Williams, she said, eventually turning to drinking and drugs for much of her adult life. She is now 44 and says she has been sober since 2017.<\/p>\n

But the AAU\u2019s handling of the case when she was finally ready to step forward has made it much more difficult for her to heal. \u201cI tried so hard to get the truth out, and I don\u2019t know why I couldn\u2019t do it,\u201d Orndorff said, her voice choked with emotion.<\/p>\n

Jim Fox, a basketball club owner who joined the AAU Board of Directors after the case was resolved, in 2019, said he believed the \u201cold boys\u2019 network\u201d of the AAU had worked to suppress Orndorff\u2019s allegations to avoid \u201cembarrassment.\u201d Fox tried again to persuade the board to ban Williams in 2022, internal AAU records revealed in the court case show, citing new evidence in Orndorff\u2019s civil suit, but it refused to even consider the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnybody could look at it and see that it was true,\u201d Fox, a former probation officer, said of Orndorff\u2019s allegations. \u201cPeople tried to cover it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goudy, the president, died in 2020. Fox told ProPublica and The Post that Williams was stripped of his membership shortly after a new president, Jo Mirza, was elected in October 2022. Mirza, who court records show also advocated to terminate Williams\u2019s membership in 2022, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n

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(Sarah Blesener for ProPublica)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

SOMETHING DID CHANGE<\/b> inside the AAU in 2021: It started making money.<\/p>\n

Since 2015, the nonprofit had been spending more than the $20 million it took in annually, losing money each year.<\/p>\n

But that year, the AAU\u2019s revenue jumped to $24 million, and two years later, the number had grown to $34 million. In 2024, the most recent year the AAU\u2019s nonprofit tax returns<\/a> are public, the organization brought in nearly $44 million. It reported cash and investment reserves of around $30 million \u2014 triple what it held in 2019.<\/p>\n

The organization\u2019s momentum wasn\u2019t in basketball. It was everywhere else. In boys\u2019 volleyball, the AAU had become the dominant force, and in sports like martial arts, gymnastics and flag football, it was staking out a growing presence. The expansion meant that the AAU was increasingly competing with national sports governing bodies overseen by SafeSport.<\/p>\n

In swimming, some large clubs joined the AAU, where they could register less serious swimmers<\/a> for $20 apiece instead of the more than $70 cost of USA Swimming. In 2023, USA Swimming\u2019s registrations fell by almost 5 percent.<\/p>\n

AAU meets are \u201cshort, fast, easy and quick,\u201d said Chris Davis, whose juggernaut Georgia swimming club, SwimAtlanta, has moved hundreds of kids to the AAU. \u201cI could theoretically have a senior in high school run the meet. I don\u2019t have to have an official.\u201d Davis said he opts to use officials, and all of his coaches take SafeSport training because they are also members of USA Swimming.<\/p>\n

The AAU\u2019s cheaper fees weren\u2019t the only selling point. On one swimming website\u2019s list of reasons for clubs to switch to the \u201ceasier\u201d AAU, the top of the list<\/a> was a lack of \u201cmandatory training hoops.\u201d<\/p>\n

BY 2023, FIVE YEARS AFTER<\/b> the Safe Sport Act\u2019s passage, the AAU was publicly acknowledging that the law required all organizations to offer some form of child sex abuse prevention training, even if it isn\u2019t created by SafeSport. Its new youth protection handbook<\/a> cited the law \u2014 and said that the AAU\u2019s mandatory course, offered through the Positive Coaching Alliance, now included \u201cchild abuse prevention training.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason Sacks, the CEO of the Positive Coaching Alliance, told ProPublica and The Post in a statement that the material \u201cwas not an official training by any stretch.\u201d It constituted \u201ca few slides with resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

The links<\/a> to those resources from AAU\u2019s website are currently broken.<\/p>\n

As an organization, Sacks said, PCA\u2019s focus is not sexual abuse prevention but youth sports culture, with trainings that emphasize positivity and character development. He noted its courses can play a role in preventing emotional and physical abuse by discouraging coaches from mistreating athletes. But Sacks said they \u201care not currently built to satisfy the Safe Sport Act requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though some 20,000 AAU coaches took the PCA course in its earliest days, Sacks\u2019s statement said, those numbers have declined steadily in the decade since. In 2024, AAU reported more than 100,000 adult volunteers.<\/p>\n

On Nov. 10, 2025, ProPublica and The Post tried to contact the AAU with questions about whether the organization offered sexual abuse prevention training and whether the PCA course was mandatory for all coaches.<\/p>\n

Eight days later, the AAU approached PCA, Sacks said in his statement. Officials had two requests: \u201cThey wanted to incorporate more abuse prevention material in the PCA online coach course training, and make it mandatory for all coaches.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Aleesa Bravata told SafeSport last year that her former volleyball coach groomed and inappropriately touched her while she was in high school. (Sarah Blesener for ProPublica)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

SAFESPORTS\u2019S PUBLIC DISCIPLINARY<\/b> list quickly became a central part of the sports landscape. By 2025, there were more than 2,500 coaches on the list \u2014 some temporarily suspended during investigations and hundreds more banned permanently from any sport that fell under the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.<\/p>\n

Though they were not required to do so by law, many independent organizations, including Pop Warner and Little League, implemented rules to keep coaches on the list out of their programs, too. In 2012, the AAU had said it would bar anyone \u201cbanned by other youth-serving organizations.\u201d But it never adopted the rule, according to a review of its written policies.<\/p>\n

Instead, ProPublica and The Post found, the organization has become known as a refuge for coaches who are suspended or banned by SafeSport and national governing bodies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe AAU has absolutely developed a reputation that they are the place to go if you are banned from our world,\u201d said the president of one national governing body, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he still works with the AAU.<\/p>\n

The issue has been raised repeatedly to the U.S. Center for SafeSport, top governing body officials, attorneys and former SafeSport executives told The Post.<\/p>\n

ProPublica and The Post identified eight people who coached AAU-affiliated teams within the past five years despite being banned by SafeSport or national governing bodies. The AAU\u2019s director of compliance, Aaron Oandasan, would not verify whether any of them were registered with the AAU, but ProPublica and The Post confirmed they were coaching teams registered with the organization through interviews with parents, administrators or the coaches themselves, as well as online records and social media posts.<\/p>\n

Among them were three elite gymnastics coaches who had been suspended by either USA Gymnastics or SafeSport over emotional and physical abuse allegations in the wake of the Nassar revelations but continued working with AAU athletes. Another was a fencing club owner who started advertising his gym as affiliated with AAU while SafeSport investigated allegations of sexual misconduct against him that it eventually substantiated. And a Georgia basketball coach who was suspended for three years by SafeSport over allegations that were not publicly disclosed even took his team of boys to AAU nationals.<\/p>\n

Last year, a regional governing body official said he contacted the AAU to warn it about a local volleyball club owner who had told parents he planned to join the AAU to evade a SafeSport suspension for alleged sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n

The AAU\u2019s response to the official was curt, the official told ProPublica and The Post: \u201cSafeSport does not apply.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adams, the former review board member, said that the AAU does not check the SafeSport list unless it receives a report about a coach. The AAU then conducts its own investigation, she said, because it does not trust SafeSport. That is because SafeSport is prohibited from sharing confidential details of cases, she said, but also out of concern that the center punishes coaches for frivolous reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt times, SafeSport hasn\u2019t liked the way somebody dressed or they drank in college,\u201d she said, without providing examples. SafeSport\u2019s vice president, Hilary Nemchik, called Adams\u2019 characterization \u201cnot accurate\u201d and \u201cconcerning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSafeSport\u2019s cases are proven through evidence, and our process allows for appeals by the accused,\u201d Nemchik said.<\/p>\n

Adams said the AAU board does sometimes ban coaches who have been barred by SafeSport.<\/p>\n

She recalled one case in which the board ruled that a coach banned by SafeSport should be allowed to continue working with the AAU. That coach was later seen acting inappropriately with an AAU athlete, Adams said, and the AAU banned him at that time. She declined to name the coach, and because the AAU does not make a public list of banned members, the claim is not verifiable.<\/p>\n

ONE OF THE COACHES<\/b> WHO<\/b> was still working with children under AAU following a SafeSport suspension <\/b>was Elias Perez in Southern California.<\/p>\n

Aleesa Bravata told SafeSport last year that Perez, her former volleyball coach, had groomed and inappropriately touched her while she was in high school.<\/p>\n

But a few weeks after his name appeared on SafeSport\u2019s disciplinary list, temporarily suspending him, Bravata saw Perez\u2019s truck in the parking lot of the local volleyball gym. Perez was still coaching.<\/p>\n

Bravata had met Perez when he began coaching the girls\u2019 volleyball team at her high school in Huntington Beach, California. He was 33; she was 16, a junior. As her senior season began, she said, Perez began to isolate her from her teammates and text her with increasing frequency about things other than volleyball, including making comments about her appearance.<\/p>\n

ProPublica and The Post reviewed interviews and records that were part of SafeSport\u2019s investigation, including text messages between Bravata and Perez, and corroborated parts of her story with a former coach in whom Bravata confided while she was still in high school.<\/p>\n

In September 2024, around the time Bravata turned 18, Bravata said Perez asked her for a ride home from training because his car was broken down. Parked outside Perez\u2019s apartment, Bravata said her coach told her, \u201cYou know how I feel about you.\u201d<\/p>\n

She asked him what he meant. Bravata said she remembers his reply word for word: \u201cI\u2019m going to put this in a way you understand. I have a crush on you. I like you. I want to hold your hand and take you on dates.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI froze,\u201d Bravata told ProPublica and The Post. \u201cIt scared me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
An altered photo, left, shows Bravata when she played volleyball in high school. (Sarah Blesener for ProPublica)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Now 19, Bravata is a sophomore in college. (Sarah Blesener for ProPublica)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Perez went inside, Bravata said, but a few days later, he asked her to come to his apartment to drop off a set of keys to the high school gym. Parked outside his apartment, Bravata recalled, she sat in the passenger seat of her truck and, with the door open, Perez came to stand close to her, his body between her legs.<\/p>\n

Bravata told Perez that she didn\u2019t want to have sex, she said, and Perez said he would never do anything that made her uncomfortable. <\/b>Then, she said, Perez began to touch her, rubbing his fingers under her bra strap and touching the waistband of her pajama pants.<\/p>\n

Perez tried to kiss her, Bravata said, and Bravata turned her head. He then took her wrist, she said, and pressed her hand against his clothed penis, which was erect under his loose pants. When he let go, Bravata said, her hand dropped loosely into her lap.<\/p>\n

Bravata got out of the passenger seat to return to the driver\u2019s side, she said, and Perez asked her, \u201cHey, if anyone asks, Eli accidentally touched your ass, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

With the volleyball season over, Bravata and Perez stopped spending time together. Later in her senior year, her confused feelings turned to something else: \u201cIt took me till the end of the school year to realize that he had been grooming me, basically brainwashing me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Bravata confided in a former coach, SafeSport records show, who escalated the issue to school administration and the school resource officer. By then, Perez had left the high school. Bravata said Huntington Beach police told her that because it was possible the incidents had occurred when she was no longer a minor, the district attorney was unlikely to prosecute. (The police declined to release any records to ProPublica and The Post because the case is still open.)<\/p>\n

Last August, when Bravata learned Perez was coaching a team of 14-to-15-year-old girls at Balboa Bay, a prestigious local volleyball club, she called SafeSport\u2019s reporting hotline.<\/p>\n

Within weeks, SafeSport issued a temporary suspension against Perez while it finished its investigation \u2014 a measure it typically takes only in limited cases where allegations are serious and recent.<\/p>\n

Perez did not respond to requests for comment. But in an interview with a SafeSport investigator, a transcript of which was reviewed by ProPublica and The Post, he denied any inappropriate contact with Bravata, saying that they had rarely texted and had not been close.<\/p>\n

Balboa Bay was a member of two organizations: USA Volleyball, which is legally bound by SafeSport, and the AAU, which is not. So while Balboa Bay eventually stopped Perez from coaching girls on its USA Volleyball teams, it allowed him to continue coaching teenage boys on its AAU-affiliated teams for several months.<\/p>\n

The club director, Travis Turner, said he initially decided to keep Perez because AAU rules did not forbid it and the alleged misconduct had not taken place at Balboa Bay. After ProPublica and The Post contacted him in November, Turner said, he decided to fire Perez. He said he had not initially understood the severity of SafeSport suspensions.<\/p>\n

This April, SafeSport issued a permanent ban against Perez for sexual misconduct and an intimate relationship \u201cinvolving a power imbalance,\u201d its online database<\/a> shows.<\/p>\n

But Bravata said she fears that there is nothing to prevent Perez from finding another AAU club \u2014 and another chance to coach children.<\/p>\n

Emily Giambalvo, Albert Samaha and Gus Garcia-Roberts contributed reporting.<\/i><\/p>\n

About the images: <\/b>To create the collages, photographer Sarah Blesener made present-day portraits and worked with Ashlee Orndorff and Aleesa Bravata to alter the archival images using acrylic paints, gel markers and physical collage to anonymize some people in the photos. Blesener also photographed youth volleyball tournaments, using disposable film cameras to anonymize those present.<\/i><\/p>

Read more Chatbots are doing the work of Congress with little oversight<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over a decade after the Amateur Athletic Union promised to implement \u201chistoric child protection measures,\u201d it hasn\u2019t done so, leaving hundreds of thousands of athletes at risk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nThis national youth sports organization is failing to protect kids from sexual abuse - Moving Insider USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=9104\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"This national youth sports organization is failing to protect kids from sexual abuse - 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