Benita Fitzgerald Mosley on Why Youth Sports Safety Comes First

If you lead a youth sports organization, you probably talk a lot about what sports give kids: teamwork, confidence, leadership, and lifelong friendships. Benita Fitzgerald Mosley wants you to remember that none of it happens unless kids are safe first.

Benita knows sports from every side. She won Olympic gold in the 100-meter hurdles at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, and she’s since held leadership roles across the Olympic and Paralympic movement, USA Track and Field, Laureus Sport for Good, and LeagueApps. Since February 1, she’s been CEO of the U.S. Center for SafeSport, which may be one of the most important jobs in sports today.

At NextUp 2026, she sat down with Jeremy from LeagueApps to talk about what great organizations do differently, where youth sports safety falls short, and what you can do about it.

1. Coach the whole kid, not just the athlete

When Jeremy asked what makes a great youth sports organization, Benita’s answer was simple: it focuses on the whole athlete.

She saw this up close at Laureus, which works with sports-based youth development groups. Many were small, independent programs with maybe 100 to 300 athletes. They worked hard to make kids better at their sport, but they paired that with leadership and personal development. And it worked. Some of their athletes went on to college or even the pros, while others simply had fun in a supportive place.

Benita had that kind of support growing up. Long before she was an Olympic champion, she was a kid trying all kinds of sports, and her coaches cared about her well-being as much as her results. She calls what she gained from sports “the gifts that keep on giving,” and she pointed to a striking number: 93% of female Fortune 500 executives played sports when they were younger.

What to do:

• Name the life skills your program builds alongside sports skills, and make them part of practice.
• Ask coaches to check in on how kids are doing, not just how they’re playing.
• Look for ways to make every kid feel supported, whether they’re aiming for college or just having fun.

2. Don’t assume your program is safe

Benita calls athlete safety the foundation of everything sports can offer. If kids aren’t safe, they can’t get any of the other benefits. And when something does go wrong, the damage doesn’t stop with one family. It breaks trust across the whole community.

Most of us simply assume the adults around our kids are safe.

SafeSport has spent 10 years building what Benita calls the gold standard for safeguarding, but only inside the Olympic and Paralympic movement. Its staff of about 150 includes roughly 80 people who take in, investigate, and resolve reports of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse and misconduct. Last year alone, the center received about 9,600 reports, and that number has grown 20% to 25% a year as more people learn they can speak up.

That work covers a fairly small part of youth sports. Everyone outside the Olympic and Paralympic system, which includes most independent clubs and leagues, isn’t covered at all. Benita pointed to a recent Washington Post report on sexual abuse cases tied to the AAU, which falls outside SafeSport’s jurisdiction and is now facing pressure from Congress.

There’s a cost to everyone, too. When Jeremy asked the room whether insurance costs had gone up in recent years, most hands went up. He put the average increase at about 18%. Because insurers price risk across a whole category, one unsafe program can drive up rates for every program doing things right.

What to do:

• Don’t rely on assumptions. Write down exactly how your program screens and monitors adults.
• Tell parents what your safety practices are, so they don’t have to guess.
• Make it easy for kids and families to report concerns.

3. Check the SafeSport database, not just background checks

Standard background checks don’t currently search SafeSport’s Centralized Disciplinary Database, which lists about 2,600 people who’ve been sanctioned. Anyone can search it at safesport.org.

A coach under investigation for misconduct can simply leave and start coaching somewhere else, at a school or a program outside the Olympic system. Even with a clean background check, that person could end up on your sidelines. Jeremy also noted that if around 2% of applicants fail a background check, that means people with serious convictions are still choosing to apply. Wherever kids are, people who want to do harm will look for weak spots.

Benita said SafeSport is working to make the database an automatic part of background checks. Until then, it’s on you to check it.

What to do:

• Search the Centralized Disciplinary Database before you hire or approve any coach, trainer, doctor, or volunteer.
• Add that search to your onboarding checklist so it never gets skipped.
• Ask your background check provider whether they include SafeSport records.

4. Keep every interaction observable and interruptible

If you remember just two words from Benita’s talk, she hopes they’re these: observable and interruptible. Every interaction between an adult and a minor in your program should be one that others can see and step into.

SafeSport’s Minor Athlete Abuse Prevention Policies spell out what that looks like in practice. They limit the kinds of situations where harm tends to happen, like one-on-one time between a coach and a young athlete, private text messages, rides home, and time alone in the locker room. When you don’t allow those situations, you create an environment where people with bad intentions have a much harder time doing harm.

Benita also stressed that SafeSport can’t do this alone. The center doesn’t have its own athletes or coaches. It depends on organizations like yours to know what a safe environment looks like and to refuse to tolerate anything less.

What to do:

• Review SafeSport’s Minor Athlete Abuse Prevention Policies and use them as a model for your own.
• Set clear rules on one-on-one time, texting, rides, and locker rooms.
• Train every coach and volunteer on those rules before they work with kids.
• Give families and athletes a clear way to report concerns, and protect them from retaliation.

5. Safety and winning go hand in hand

Some leaders worry that more safety rules will get in the way of developing great athletes. Benita says the evidence points the other way. Over the 10 years SafeSport has been rolling out its policies, U.S. Olympic and Paralympic results have held steady or improved.

In her view, a safer environment helps kids perform. Athletes stay in the sport longer, focus better on what they came to do, and have more fun competing.

She pointed to USA Hockey as proof. Its teams brought home three gold medals in Milan, including in the Paralympics, and the organization also has some of the highest-rated safeguarding policies in the Olympic and Paralympic movement.

What to do:

• Talk about safety as part of how you develop athletes, not as extra paperwork.
• Track retention, and watch how it changes as you strengthen your safety practices.
• Learn from organizations that do both well, like USA Hockey.

6. Ask yourself, “Why not us?”

To close, Jeremy asked Benita for her best leadership advice. She shared the story behind a speech she’s given for years, called “Why Not Me?”

A few weeks before the 1984 Olympics, she was sitting on the track at the University of Tennessee after practice. She started picturing the Coliseum in Los Angeles and caught herself hoping to make the final and maybe run a personal best. Then it hit her: why wasn’t she picturing herself winning? Why not her on top of the podium, taking the victory lap, hearing the national anthem?

That shift changed how she walked into the stadium. She felt like the gold medal was already hers, and she went on to win by just four hundredths of a second.

Now she’s asking the youth sports world the same question: why not us? SafeSport plans to launch the SafeSport Alliance in the first quarter of next year, a coalition of youth sports organizations that see athlete safety as the foundation of everything else. The goal is to bring millions of athletes outside the Olympic system into a safer system, with help on policies, training, reporting, and how to resolve cases. Benita hopes every organization in the room joins before the opening ceremonies of the Los Angeles Games.

Fixing safety feels hard, but everyone agrees it’s the right thing to do. And when something is both hard and clearly right, that’s exactly when belief and conviction matter most.

What to do:

• Sign up for updates on the SafeSport Alliance and plan to join.
• Pick one safety improvement you’ve been putting off because it felt too hard, and start on it this season.
• Share Benita’s “Why not us?” challenge with your board and staff.