USA Swimming

Protecting youth athletes from becoming victims of sexual predators involves much more than criminal background checks of coaches before they are hired, says a longtime interscholastic sports administrator.

The Penn State scandal didn’t occur in youth sports.  Yet, it is one of the rare occasions that sex abuse by coaches, which is a major problem in youth sports, got the type of national publicity that allowed the problem to penetrate the public consciousness.  The big question is whether we as a sports society are up to the task of doing to more to prevent future abuse.