This National Youth Sports Organization Is Failing to Protect Kids From Sexual Abuse

ProPublica and The Washington Post have found that the Amateur Athletic Union, the youth sports organization with seven hundred sixty thousand athletes and coaches nationwide, is failing to protect kids from sexual abuse despite promising sweeping reforms after a two thousand eleven scandal involving its own CEO. The investigation found the AAU doesn't verify that coaches complete its own abuse-prevention training, quietly softened its website language on that requirement once reporters raised it, and has let at least eight coaches previously banned by other sports organizations keep working with children. According to the investigation, its abuse hotline simply redirects to a general office line, and registration forms push sex abuse claims into confidential arbitration rather than open court — a tactic that shielded the AAU from lawsuits even after a coach convicted of abusing hundreds of players was sentenced to one hundred eighty years in prison. The AAU says it remains committed to athlete protection through background checks and its compliance department, but it declined to answer most of the reporters' questions over more than a year.

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