Parents in youth sports rarely learn how enforcement works until they need it. They may assume that a national suspension or permanent ban means a coach will immediately stop working with children. A ProPublica and Washington Post investigation into Texas volleyball coach Ryan Richardson found something very different.
The first sanction came in early 2024, when Lone Star Region Volleyball suspended Richardson following complaints about posts on his public Instagram account. USA Volleyball upheld that suspension weeks later. Richardson nevertheless continued working with teenage players at Texas Fierce Elite, attending practices and appearing at tournaments run by other volleyball organizations.
The U.S. Center for SafeSport later found that Richardson had engaged in sexual misconduct involving a minor, had an intimate relationship with a minor, and had committed physical misconduct and bullying. One mother told the news organizations that Richardson began a sexual relationship with her daughter in 2022, when the girl was 16 and Richardson was 36. The source says the alleged relationship began four years before publication, not that it lasted four years.
Richardson previously denied wrongdoing and described the complaints against him as an attempt to retaliate against him and damage his reputation. He did not respond to multiple requests for comment from ProPublica and The Washington Post before their August 2026 report. The news organizations reported that he had not been charged with a crime.
Congress established the Center for SafeSport’s statutory authority in 2018 following revelations about sexual abuse in Olympic sports, including the prolonged abuse committed by former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. SafeSport is an independent nonprofit authorized to investigate and resolve misconduct allegations within the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic movement. National governing bodies and their regional affiliates are responsible for applying its restrictions within their sports.
Richardson’s case did not move through those layers in one clean sequence. USA Volleyball referred the initial social-media matter to SafeSport, but the Center reportedly declined to investigate because the allegations presented at that point were not sexual. SafeSport accepted the case after the mother brought the more serious allegations to Lone Star in May 2024.
SafeSport did not place Richardson under a temporary suspension until February 2025, roughly one year after his initial regional suspension. On February 19, 2026, the Center found him permanently ineligible. The investigation documented Richardson training Texas Fierce Elite players again on February 20 and reported that he continued posting videos of himself working with them afterward.
That timeline matters because the original sanctions did not all come from SafeSport. Lone Star and USA Volleyball suspended Richardson in early 2024, SafeSport temporarily suspended him in February 2025, and SafeSport imposed permanent ineligibility in February 2026. Collapsing those events into a single two-year SafeSport ban obscures where enforcement failed at each stage.
According to the investigation, federal law required USA Volleyball to ensure that Richardson was not working with its athletes once SafeSport suspended him. The SafeSport Code also makes national governing bodies responsible for enforcing the Center’s sanctions. A senior USA Volleyball official told the reporters that enforcement was left to regional affiliates such as Lone Star.
ProPublica and The Washington Post reported that USA Volleyball and Lone Star received multiple reports that Richardson was still coaching. The reports allegedly included photographs, videos, messages, and material taken from Richardson’s public Instagram account. Lone Star nevertheless allowed Texas Fierce Elite to remain a regional member, while another coach was listed as the club’s director.
USA Volleyball told the news organizations that an internal review found it had complied with SafeSport requirements, the Center’s regulations, and its own policies. Lone Star disputed several factual assertions and characterizations in the investigation but declined to identify which details it considered inaccurate. Those responses do not resolve the documented gap between Richardson’s disciplinary status and his continued presence at practices.
SafeSport Vice President Hilary Nemchik acknowledged that some banned coaches move to organizations outside the Olympic movement. She also said some national governing bodies had been reluctant to use all the powers available to keep banned individuals away from athletes. Her statement distinguishes a jurisdictional limitation from a failure to enforce sanctions within an organization that is already covered.
Geography added another layer to the case. Pharr and nearby Rio Grande Valley communities are more than 90% Latino and have poverty rates more than twice the national average, according to the investigation. Richardson had developed a track record of helping players reach college programs, and former players said he repeatedly presented his club as their path to scholarships.
That history helps explain why some families feared that losing their coach could also damage their daughters’ recruitment prospects. It does not excuse continued access to young athletes, but it shows why a system that depends heavily on families voluntarily leaving can be fragile. A public warning works differently when parents believe there are few comparable alternatives nearby.
The Center’s database overview explains that permanent ineligibility bars someone from participating in the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic movements. That scope is important. The sanction is not a criminal sentence, a court order, or an instruction that automatically closes a privately operated gym.
Organizations outside the Olympic movement are not necessarily bound by SafeSport’s disciplinary decisions. That can allow a suspended coach to work at private facilities or events run by other organizations. Inside the USA Volleyball system, however, the investigation found that Richardson’s continued involvement was reported repeatedly while Texas Fierce Elite remained in good standing.
The case was also affected by problems within SafeSport’s investigation. The investigation reports that Jason Krasley, the SafeSport investigator assigned to the matter, was fired in November 2024 after being arraigned over allegations related to his previous police work. He was arrested in January 2025 on sex-crime charges and was awaiting trial when ProPublica published, while his attorney argued that the case should be dismissed.
The theft and other charges connected to Krasley’s earlier arraignment were eventually dropped. SafeSport audited 114 cases Krasley had handled and reopened three of them, although it did not identify those cases publicly. This does not by itself explain every delay in Richardson’s case, but it is directly relevant to the investigation’s handling.
SafeSport can record a sanction, and USA Volleyball can bar someone from its sanctioned events. Neither organization can independently arrest a coach, terminate a private lease, or padlock a gym. Those actions require law enforcement, courts, property owners, or other authorities with legal control over the facility.
That distinction does not remove the sports organizations’ responsibility. They can terminate memberships, prevent affiliated clubs from entering competitions, discipline people who help banned coaches continue working, and warn organizations within their networks. The Richardson case raises questions because the investigation found that reports and evidence were available while several of those tools went unused or proved ineffective.
For parents, the SafeSport database remains an important screening tool, but it cannot function as a shield on its own. Families still need to check who is actually running practices, while clubs and event operators need to compare coaches against disciplinary records. A permanent ban can draw the line, but the Richardson case shows that the line protects young athletes only when institutions enforce it in the places where coaching continues.
