A former Casper, Wyoming youth baseball official accused of writing $6,600 worth of checks to himself from the organization's bank account pleads guilty to embezzlement. The former president of a youth baseball league in Tewksbury, Massachusetts town is indicted for allegedly stealing over $400,000 from the league. That same day, newspapers in Idaho reported on a youth baseball official pleading guilty to embezzling money from the organization while newspapers in Ohio were reporting on a woman found guilty of duping local businesses out of donations to a Pee Wee football club.

Stories of youth sport embezzlement appear in the media almost monthly. Youth sports organization embezzlers do not discriminate: Football, baseball, cheerleading clubs have all been victimized. In fact, Massachusetts holds the dubious distinction of being the first to give the phrase "soccer mom" a connotation beyond the political context when, back in 1987, a newspaper reported that a Ludlow man had stolen $7,000 from the treasury of a "soccer moms booster club" headed by his wife.

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Youth sports have become big business, bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees every year. Most youth sports organizations are run like small — and, in some cases, not-so-small — businesses, with officers, boards of directors, bylaws and annual meetings. Yet most operate with virtually no oversight beyond their volunteer boards of directors, and their often lax financial controls make them easy and tempting targets for thieves. All youth sports organizations, not just those that are organized as non-profits — which are required to file annual reports on their finances and fundraising activities with the state division of public charities — should be required to make public financial disclosures so parents and other interested parties know where all the money goes.

Because youth sports institutions have traditionally been self-regulating and independently financed, they often escape formal scrutiny or accountability. Youth sports program need to provide for greater input from parents, makes their mission statements, bylaws, and the names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of board members and other administrators publicly available, provide for term limits for directors, holds open board meetings, and engage in benchmarking.

In most places, youth sports organizations (YSOs) don't own their own facilities; they use taxpayer-funded fields, diamonds, tracks, pools, and courts instead. In order to use them they have to obtain permits. This makes them subject to public oversight by the permit-issuing authority, in most instances the town or municipality's parks and recreation department, which should establish guidelines to govern their issuance.

One of the most effective ways to start a community dialog about establishing guidelines to govern the issuance of permits to YSOs is to establish a youth sports task force with representatives from a broad cross section of the community participating in a series of forums to address the question "Are we doing the best that we can for our children with our current sports program?"

Addressing this question will inevitably raise such issues as early specialization, the appropriate age for sports cuts and competitive tryouts, the best way to recruit and train paid and/or volunteer coaches, the stratification of children based on their perceived abilities and skill level, background checks, the way independent YSOs interact and co-exist with and relate to school-based programs, and how permits are issued to use town-owned facilities.

To promote a community dialog and make the process as inclusive as possible, task force representatives can attend PTA meetings in elementary schools, hold a community-wide forum, and develop a survey to send to residents to allow every interested person an opportunity to express his or her opinion.

The objective of the meetings should be to develop an independent Youth Sports Council and a youth sports charter for adoption by the community governing the use of publicly owned facilities. Any YSO that utilizes public facilities should then be required to adhere to guidelines in the Youth Sports Charter or be denied their use.

Vietnam War-era protesters asked the government to return "Power to the People." The time has come in the 2000's for the silent majority of parents in this country who want a youth sports system that serves the interests of children, not adults to stand up and ask their elected officials to return the "Power of the Permit" to the people. It may be the best way to achieve reform and accountability.

Author: Brooke de Lench
Author bio
Date created: December 5, 2007
© 2007 MomsTeam

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