The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), a major national youth sports organization, has come under scrutiny for failing to adequately protect children from sexual abuse despite promising significant reforms in 2011. Following a child sex abuse controversy that year, the AAU committed to implementing "historic" reforms, including mandatory training and barring coaches banned for misconduct by other youth sports groups.

However, investigative reporting by ProPublica and The Post revealed that in the last five years, eight coaches who had been banned or suspended by other organizations continued to work with children under the AAU. Additionally, the AAU has attempted as recently as 2024 to force sex abuse claims into arbitration, limiting victims' ability to sue. This includes a lawsuit filed by a teenage girl in Florida who alleged abuse by her AAU volleyball coach.

Arbitration clauses have also prevented former players of a coach from suing the AAU, despite families arguing the organization failed to enforce its 2012 safety policies, such as banning coaches from sharing bedrooms with players.

The AAU's troubled history includes a 2004 Seattle Times investigation that found dozens of convicted felons, including a convicted murderer, coaching AAU teams in Washington and Idaho. In response, then-AAU official Dodd pledged to consider background checks for the organization's 65,000 coaches to ensure greater integrity.

Notably, Dodd himself had been banned by USA Volleyball from coaching girls since 1995 after the governing body concluded he had sexual relations with three teenage players years earlier.

The AAU's president at the time of the 2011 reforms, Stout, died unexpectedly in September 2012, just months after committing to the changes. Roger Goudy, a longtime leader of the AAU volleyball program, was elected president in 2014.

This summer alone, hundreds of thousands of children participated in AAU events, including 100,000 at the world’s largest volleyball championship in Orlando, Florida; 8,000 at basketball championships at Disney World; and over 15,000 at the Junior Olympics in Iowa.

ProPublica's investigation highlights ongoing concerns about the AAU's ability to protect young athletes from sexual abuse despite public commitments to reform.

Sources