Center for SafeSport's Permanent Ineligibility Fails to Keep the Creeps Out A lifetime ban means little if children remain within reach

Every parent who puts a child into organized sports should be asking a very uncomfortable question: What exactly is the purpose of a permanent ineligibility ban if the person receiving that ban can simply find another way to get around it?

What is the purpose of permanent ineligibility if the individual can still have access to youth athletes and sporting events somewhere else in the country? What is the purpose of permanently removing someone from participation if that person can continue building relationships with athletes and their families through another organization, another sport, another state or another training program?

Those are not theoretical questions.

The U.S. Center for SafeSport was created by Congress to address abuse and misconduct within the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Movement. The Center says Congress gave it exclusive authority to respond to reports of sexual and other abuse and misconduct within that Movement, which encompasses more than 14 million people. SafeSport maintains a Centralized Disciplinary Database containing adults who are subject to certain restrictions or sanctions.

SafeSport has become an important part of the athlete-protection system. But there is a fundamental problem with the way the system operates.

A permanent SafeSport ban is not the same thing as a nationwide criminal prohibition.

SafeSport can determine that an individual is permanently ineligible to participate in the Olympic and Paralympic Movement. Its current database allows parents and organizations to search disciplinary records by name, location and sport affiliation. SafeSport even encourages parents to use the database to check adults who interact with their children.

But what happens when the person walks outside that system?

That is where the real problem begins.

There have been documented cases of people who were banned from Olympic and amateur sports subsequently appearing to continue coaching, training or otherwise working with young athletes. The circumstances are not identical. Some involved criminal convictions. Some involved criminal charges that did not result in convictions. Others involved administrative findings or SafeSport sanctions. Those distinctions matter. A SafeSport finding is not a criminal conviction, and an accusation is not proof of guilt.

But the existence of those distinctions should not prevent us from asking the larger question.

What happens after someone is permanently banned?

Among the cases that have drawn attention are James Feltus, Jimmy Baxley, Thomas Navarro, Robert Barletta, Ernest Bolen, Michael Strickland, Heather Adams, Thomas Hardin and Vasja Bajc.

Feltus was criminally charged in 2005 with offenses including abuse, neglect or endangerment of a child and ultimately pleaded guilty to pandering. A person with the same name, middle name and birthdate was later identified as working with a youth basketball organization in Nevada. That individual disputed that SafeSport had correctly identified him. Whether the database identification was correct or not, the case demonstrates one of the problems inherent in a system that relies on organizations correctly identifying individuals across different sports and jurisdictions.

Jimmy Baxley was charged in 2019 with molesting three family members and subsequently appeared to be coaching youth boxing in New Jersey. Thomas Navarro had been convicted of sodomy and sexual abuse involving a minor and later appeared to be teaching horseback riding in Virginia.

Robert Barletta was charged with sexual assault with intent to rape a female coach at a hockey camp and was subsequently associated with an ice rink and youth hockey team. Barletta pleaded not guilty and his attorney denied the allegations.

Ernest Bolen pleaded guilty to aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving teenagers under 17 and was later identified as working at a karate facility. Michael Strickland was charged with sexual misconduct and subsequently identified as a coach with a youth basketball organization.

Heather Adams pleaded guilty in a case involving sexual contact with an 18-year-old student and later operated a hockey league serving high-school-age players and older athletes. Adams maintained that the matter was old and that she had been cleared of wrongdoing.

Thomas Hardin provides another example of the distinction between administrative and criminal proceedings. Hardin was permanently banned by SafeSport following allegations involving a young taekwondo athlete. He was not criminally charged in connection with those allegations, but a state child-services investigation reportedly made a finding under a lower civil standard. Hardin subsequently operated a taekwondo facility and continued working with children.

Then there is Vasja Bajc, a ski jumping coach who was banned by SafeSport in 2020 and subsequently coached the Czech men's ski jumping team at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Again, these cases should not be lumped together as though they all involve identical facts or identical legal findings. They do not.

But that is actually part of the point.

Parents should not have to become experts in administrative law, criminal law and the jurisdictional boundaries of amateur sports simply to determine whether the adults around their children are legally and organizationally permitted to be there.

If SafeSport says someone is permanently ineligible, parents reasonably expect that designation to mean something.

The word "permanent" has a very specific meaning in ordinary English.

It does not mean permanent until the person finds another organization.

It does not mean permanent until the person moves to another state.

It does not mean permanent until the person changes sports.

It does not mean permanent until the person opens a private training facility.

And it certainly should not mean permanent until someone figures out how to get around the system.

There is another problem that deserves serious attention. I believe SafeSport is being asked to do something it was never adequately equipped to do.

SafeSport is a sports-governance organization. It has investigators, procedures, sanctions and a disciplinary system. But when allegations involve serious sexual misconduct, child abuse or conduct that could constitute a federal crime, why should a sports organization be expected to carry the primary investigative burden?

The FBI and Department of Justice exist to investigate and prosecute federal crimes. They have investigative resources and legal authorities that a sports organization simply does not possess.

SafeSport itself acknowledges an important distinction. Its investigations use a "preponderance of evidence" standard, meaning that the evidence must show that a claim is more likely than not to be true. That is different from the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard used in criminal law.

That distinction is exactly why I am not suggesting that SafeSport should become a criminal court.

I am suggesting that we build a much stronger bridge between SafeSport and federal law enforcement.

SafeSport should continue investigating violations of its Code and determining whether someone is eligible to participate in covered sports. But when a complaint involves conduct that may constitute a serious federal crime, the FBI and Department of Justice should have a defined role in evaluating that conduct.

SafeSport already requires reporting of suspected child abuse to appropriate authorities. Congress should determine whether certain categories of allegations should trigger mandatory referral to federal law enforcement for evaluation.

Let SafeSport do what it was created to do.

Let the FBI investigate potential federal crimes.

Let federal prosecutors determine whether criminal charges are appropriate.

And let the courts determine guilt under the criminal standard.

That is how the system should work.

But there is another piece that Congress needs to address.

Give SafeSport rules some actual teeth.

If someone has been permanently declared ineligible because of serious misconduct and knowingly attempts to circumvent that permanent ban in order to regain access to minor athletes, that should be more than an administrative violation.

Congress should create a specific federal criminal offense addressing the knowing and intentional circumvention of a permanent SafeSport ineligibility determination when the purpose or effect is to regain access to minor athletes.

The exact classification and sentencing structure should be debated by Congress and federal criminal-law experts. But there should be serious felony consequences available for deliberate circumvention, potentially including a Class C felony framework.

The same principle should apply to people and organizations that knowingly help circumvent the ban.

If a league, club, training facility, rink, gym, team or individual knows that someone is permanently ineligible and deliberately provides that person access to minor athletes anyway, there should be consequences.

Why?

Because deterrence works differently when the consequences are real.

Right now, the message can become dangerously confusing. A person can be told that they are permanently ineligible, yet if they can find another organization willing to take them, the practical consequence may be nothing more than losing access to one particular segment of the sporting world.

Imagine what happens when everyone understands that is no longer the case.

If a permanently banned individual knows that deliberately circumventing the ban could result in an FBI investigation and federal felony prosecution, that changes the calculation.

If an organization knows that deliberately helping someone circumvent the ban could expose its leadership to serious legal consequences, that changes the calculation.

That is deterrence.

And deterrence is precisely what parents should want.

This is not about putting every SafeSport complaint into the federal criminal system. That would be unreasonable and could overwhelm law enforcement. Nor should a SafeSport finding automatically become a criminal conviction.

It is about creating clearly defined circumstances in which deliberate circumvention becomes a federal crime.

SafeSport determines eligibility.

Law enforcement investigates potential crimes.

Federal prosecutors determine whether criminal charges are appropriate.

Courts determine guilt.

Congress establishes the rules and consequences.

That is a system with actual teeth.

Parents should stop assuming that somebody else is going to fix this.

Contact your U.S. representative. Contact both of your U.S. senators. Ask them to support legislation addressing the gap between SafeSport's administrative authority and the criminal justice system.

Be specific.

Ask for legislation creating a federal offense for knowingly circumventing a permanent SafeSport ineligibility determination in order to regain access to minor athletes.

Ask for meaningful penalties for organizations that knowingly facilitate such circumvention.

Ask for stronger coordination between SafeSport, the FBI, the Department of Justice, state authorities and local law enforcement.

Ask for congressional hearings examining cases in which permanently ineligible individuals subsequently obtained access to young athletes.

Ask whether permanent SafeSport ineligibility should be recognized across youth sports organizations participating in interstate activities.

Ask whether there should be a national mechanism that allows organizations outside the Olympic and Paralympic Movement to determine whether an individual has been permanently banned from covered sports.

And ask the most basic question of all:

What exactly does "permanent" mean?

Parents should also use the tools that already exist. SafeSport's Centralized Disciplinary Database is searchable by name, city, state and sport affiliation, and it currently contains records of individuals subject to certain restrictions and sanctions.

Use it.

Check coaches.

Check trainers.

Check volunteers.

Check adults who will have regular access to your children.

But understand what the database is and what it is not. It is a resource for identifying people restricted from participation in the Olympic and Paralympic Movement. It is not a nationwide criminal registry, and the absence of someone's name does not establish that the person has never been accused of misconduct or convicted of a crime.

That is precisely why we need a larger system.

Parents should not have to become private investigators simply because the adults entrusted with protecting youth athletes do not have jurisdiction everywhere.

Children deserve a system that follows the risk, not merely the organization.

There is a broader point that cannot be ignored.

Sexual predators do not necessarily disappear because one organization removes them. The concern is that someone who has demonstrated dangerous behavior can continue developing relationships with young people, gaining trust, establishing authority and finding new opportunities for access.

That is why permanent ineligibility matters.

The objective should not simply be to punish people after something happens.

The objective should be preventing them from having another opportunity to harm a child.

I have spent decades around hockey and youth athletes. I have watched parents put extraordinary trust in coaches, trainers, clubs and governing bodies because they believe those adults are protecting their children.

That trust comes with an enormous responsibility.

There should be no acceptable scenario in which someone permanently removed from youth sports can simply find another door.

If a person has been permanently declared ineligible because of serious misconduct, the system should make it extraordinarily difficult for that individual to regain access to young athletes.

And if that person knowingly attempts to circumvent the ban, there should be a real consequence.

Not another warning.

Not another administrative proceeding.

Not simply another line in a database.

A consequence.

Congress created SafeSport. Congress has the authority to strengthen it.

Now Congress needs to decide whether "permanent ineligibility" is going to be a meaningful protection for children or simply a label that can be ignored by anyone determined enough to find a loophole.

Parents should demand that it mean something.

Because a permanent ban that can be deliberately circumvented is not much of a ban at all.

It is a warning label.

And children deserve better than a warning label.