Center for SafeSport is Doing Great Work
By Ken Reed
There’s a sports organization in the United States that almost nobody has heard of, but nevertheless, is doing outstanding work: The U.S. Center for SafeSport.
The Center for SafeSport’s mission is to create a safe sports environment by preventing abuse in athletics — sexual, physical and emotional. Following a growing number of sexual abuse reports in SportsWorld in the 2010s, SafeSport was authorized by Congress to not only fight abuse but to educate stakeholders in every sport about the lurking dangers of sexual, physical and emotional abuse in sports.
The Center, a 501c3, was created by the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017. The Center is the first of its kind globally.
“Abuse in sport has has persisted for far too long,” says the Center’s CEO, Ju’Riese Colon. “Changing that culture to make athletes’ well-being the top priority is our mission at the U.S. Center for SafeSport.”
The Center has dealt with more than 7,000 abuse and misconduct reports since 2017, and delivered more than 3 million online trainings to over 900 organizations. SafeSport offers a wide-variety of abuse-prevention resources.
Most importantly, the Center is continually restricting bad actors from sport. As of March of this year, over 1200 individuals have been sanctioned by the Center and over 1,600 adults listed in the Center’s Centralized Disciplinary Database.
“It’s a great responsibility to be trusted by victims, particularly those of sexual abuse, and it’s something we take seriously,” says Colon.
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans

Sports Forum Podcast
Episode #27 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Kids’ Sports: How We Can Take Back the Game and Restore Quality Family Time In the Process – Linda Flanagan is author of “Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports and Why It Matters.” We discuss how commercialized and professionalized youth sports are hurting kids and their families. Linda writes extensively about how youth sports can hijack families, and family outings, non-sports activities and bonding time are lost in the pursuit of the next club team game or travel tournament.
Listen on Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Anchor and others.
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More Episodes on Apple Podcasts; Spotify; Google Podcasts; PocketCasts; & Anchor
Episode #26 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: How Can We Fix Youth Sports? – John O’Sullivan is Founder and CEO of Changing the Game Project and author of “Changing the Game: The Parents Guide to Raising Happy, High Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids.”
Episode #25 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Physical Education Should Be a Critical Component of K-12 School Design – Michael Horn is co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.
Episode #24 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Mental Health and Athletes: Ending the Stigma – Nathan Braaten and Taylor Ricci are the founders of Dam Worth It, a non-profit created to end the stigma around mental health at colleges and universities through sport, storytelling, and community creation.
Episode #23 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Olympian Benita Fitzgerald Mosley Talks Title IX, Youth Sports and the Olympics.
Episode #22 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Rethinking Sports Fandom with Author Craig Calcaterra – We discuss Calcaterra’s new book “Rethinking Fandom: How to Beat the Sports-Industrial Complex at Its Own Game” and explore new ways to be a fan.
Media
"How We Can Save Sports" author Ken Reed appears on Fox & Friends to explain how there's "too much adult in youth sports."
Ken Reed appears on Mornings with Gail from KFKA Radio in Colorado to discuss bad parenting in youth athletics.
“Should College Athletes Be Paid?” Ken Reed on The Morning Show from Wisconsin Public Radio
Ken Reed appears on KGNU Community Radio in Colorado (at 02:30) to discuss equality in sports and Title IX.
Ken Reed appears on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour (at 38:35) to discuss his book The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place, and to talk about some current sports issues.
- League of Fans Sports Policy Director Ken Reed quoted in Washington Post column titled "What happened to P.E.? It’s losing ground in our push for academic improvement," by Jay Mathews
League of Fans is a sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to fight for the higher principles of justice, fair play, equal opportunity and civil rights in sports; and to encourage safety and civic responsibility in sports industry and culture.
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
Books