A volunteer basketball coach for the Amateur Athletic Union in Yakima, WA has been arrested after one of his 13-year-old players reported that the coach had sexually assaulted him.
The 46-year-old, who is preparing to be charged on Wednesday, also served as a volunteer coach for a ninth-grade football team last year.
According to police, the boy told investigators that he was sexually assaulted by his basketball coach on four separate occasions earlier this year. The first allegedly took place in Oregon during a team road trip from Reno, in May, and twice at the coach’s home. According to police, the most recent took place while the boy was sleeping in the same bed as his coach’s son in a hotel room during a family trip to a theme park in August.
AAU Yakima Director Paul Campbell said the suspect was registered AAU coach for the past four or five years. Campbell also said the AAU last year ran background checks on all of its Washington state coaches and found 31 of about 7,000 had felony records. Cases like this serve to underline the need for thorough background checks on all volunteers and coaches, no matter the cost.
