Congressional Commission Report’s Measures Are Still Sidelined – While Safe Sport Center Promises to ‘Expand Efforts’

PREVIOUSLY:

“In Order to Take Down the Amateur Athletic Union, ProPublica / Washington Post Investigation Has to Puff Up the U.S. Center for Safe Sport. That’s the American Way,” August 13, https://concussioninc.net/?p=16781

by Irvin Muchnick

The failed and fatally flawed U.S. Center for Safe Sport “says it will expand efforts to stop banned coaches from working with kids.”

This according to the latest installment from the Washington Post, in partnership with ProPublica. The WaPo version of the story, behind a paywall, is at https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2026/11/05/safesport-says-it-will-expand-efforts-stop-banned-coaches-working-with-kids/. The same content is viewable for free at https://www.propublica.org/article/safesport-child-abuse-notification-system-impact.

(And yes, in this corner we favor “Safe Sport,” so as not to reward the cutesy space-free postmodern branding “SafeSport.”)

Thanks a bunch!

Three months ago I referenced here reporter Molly Hensley-Clancy’s hard-hitting takedown of the Amateur Athletic Union’s lapses on coach sexual abuse. I also criticized Hensley-Clancy and her outlets for not giving their investigation the context of a 2024 congressional commission report offering legislative reforms, to correct the existential failures of the youth sports establishment to police its own house.

In the new article, Benita Fitzgerald Mosley, the new CEO of the Safe Sport center, says new instances of sanctions against coaches will be tied to “a publicity initiative.” This will be applied, going forward, to a volleyball coach in Texas, Ryan Richardson, named in Post-ProPublica reports. Richardson was found to be continuing to be involved in youth programs in the Rio Grande Valley for an unaffiliated league.

This latest increment in stepping up Safe Sport publicity echoes the original efforts of the late, disgraced USA Swimming chief Chuck Wielgus, who in 2010 began publishing his organization’s banned list, after national broadcast reports rendered legacy stonewalling tactics no longer feasible. This cat-and-mouse game improves matters only at the margins, gives sports organizations more leverage in their selective prosecution of cases, and serves last and least youth athletes and their families.

By email, I asked Hensley-Clancy, with whom I had previously corresponded, “whether structural changes recommended by the congressional commission have ever been cited or addressed by the new SafeSport regime — and if not, why not. I raise this in the form of a question, in case I’m missing references and analysis in earlier installments of your series.”

I added: “Your new piece refers to a new House Energy Committee inquiry but does not — oddly, in my view — mention the congressional commission. Episodic new positive steps by Congress are really shown by the history to be feints of concern by politicians for public consumption in response to exposure of particular bad actors and scenarios, scapegoats du jour. They are calculated not to lay a glove on the Olympic movement, at the end of the day, nor to upset the skewed priorities of the youth sports system. I remain bewildered by why stories at outlets like yours fail to press elected leaders on the root-and-branch reform proposed by the very commission they appointed.”

Hensley-Clancy has not responded. If she ever does, I’ll let you know.

Two years ago the blue-ribbon congressional commission recommended divorcing the Olympic movement from grassroots programs populated by youth athletes uninterested in the elite ambitions of international medals and college athletic scholarships. And it called for the Safe Sport center to be rescued in its mission by federal government funding – which would make it no longer beholden to the U.S. Olympic Committee and its national sport governing bodies.

The New York Times didn’t even run a story about the release of the commission report. “We can’t and don’t publish every study,” a Times spokesperson sniffed in response to a query.

The Washington Post did a little better in the moment, publishing a several-graf book report on the commission recommendations. However, there were no analysis, interpretation, or quotes from stakeholders, experts, or even the senators and congresspersons who had driven the commission’s  formation.

Now the Post and its nonprofit partner are touting the fallout of their recent reports in the youth coach abuse space, and citing supposed pressure by a House committee, but continuing to self-censor fundamental reforms that were already put on the table, studiously and credibly.

This is what “investigative journalism” looks like at our major newspapers today.