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Wednesday, October 21, is the date the House Energy and Commerce Committee gave the Amateur Athletic Union to brief lawmakers on how it handles abuse complaints and banned coaches. The AAU is one of the biggest names in grassroots sports, and for a lot of basketball families it is the summer schedule.

The committee's bipartisan leaders, Chair Brett Guthrie of Kentucky and ranking member Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, opened the inquiry earlier this month. According to ProPublica, the letter asked for records on abuse allegations, internal investigations, how coach suspensions and bans are enforced, and child-safety training. The AAU said it plans to cooperate. No public account of the briefing had surfaced as of Tuesday night.

What the ProPublica and Washington Post AAU Investigation Found

The inquiry follows a joint investigation by ProPublica and The Washington Post that found the AAU never carried out most of the child-protection reforms it promised after its 2011 scandal. Among the findings in the original report:

Reporters identified eight coaches who worked with children under the AAU in the last five years after being banned or suspended by other youth sports organizations.
The abuse hotline the AAU promised redirects to its general office line, with no option to report abuse.
AAU registration forms require claims against the organization to go to confidential arbitration rather than open court.

The AAU disputes the characterization and says it protects athletes through policies overseen by its compliance department.

The SafeSport Gap: Why AAU Isn't Covered

Here's the part many parents don't know. The U.S. Center for SafeSport, created by Congress in 2017 after the Larry Nassar case, only has authority over national governing bodies under the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. The AAU is not one of them, so SafeSport bans don't automatically follow a coach into AAU gyms.

SafeSport CEO Benita Fitzgerald Mosley told Buying Sandlot this week that her organization can't widen its reach on its own. "Without that federal mandate, it's very difficult to expand our remit," she said. She added that SafeSport received close to 10,000 reports last year.

One fix floated in that conversation: require every youth sports organization to check SafeSport's public database of banned, suspended and restricted coaches. Buying Sandlot noted that idea would not need a new agency, just a rule that the list gets used.

What Youth Sports Parents Can Check Now

Families don't have to wait on Washington. The SafeSport centralized disciplinary database is public and searchable by name. Operators on the same Buying Sandlot panel also pushed a simple standard for programs: every interaction between an adult and a child should be observable and interruptible.

The next marker is whatever the AAU tells the committee, and whether Guthrie and Pallone move from letters to a hearing or a bill. BallerTube will keep tracking it alongside its AAU basketball coverage.