“Irvin Muchnick: Parents have the power to compel Congress to act to protect young athletes” … Today on the Chicago Tribune Op-Ed Page
Is Real Reform at Hand to Curb Youth Coach Sexual Abuse? … Today at Salon
March 10, 2024More Than a Year Later, State Bar ‘Interviews’ University of California Lawyer Michael R. Goldstein About My Ethics Complaint; Declines to Hold Hearing Over His Lies
March 18, 2024Just months before the Paris Summer Olympiics, a little-noticed Commission on the State of U.S. Olympics and Paralympics, or CSUSOP, a blue-ribbon panel created by Congress that includes former Olympians, has produced a report with recommendations of grave importance. The commission calls for reforming America’s chaotic youth sports system and keeping kids safe from coach sexual abuse.
Now, in order to get these crucial reforms to the finish line with relevant legislation, it’s up to the parents of young athletes to support the commission’s two most important recommendations.
Recommendation No. 1 calls for Congress to establish a new federal office to take control of grassroots sports. The commission wants to keep Olympic-track competition in the hands of the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) and its national sport governing bodies while wresting away casual, recreational and life-skills programs in such sports as swimming….
In the other key recommendation, CSUSOP proposed spinning off the U.S. Center for SafeSport as a truly independent agency, fully funded and administered by the federal government. SafeSport is a nonprofit that serves as investigator and adjudicator of abuse claims….
FULL TEXT AT https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/03/13/opinion-usa-swimming-coach-abuse-youth-sports-congress-reforms/. (The full text is behind a paywall; Concussion Inc. will publish it 30 days from now.)
Irvin Muchnick’s book UNDERWATER: The Greed-Soaked Tale of Sexual Abuse in USA Swimming and Around the Globe will be published later this year by ECW Press.
