Lawmakers seek to raise awareness about coach sex abuse following Courier Journal report

Yahoo

12-02-2025

A bipartisan bill filed Tuesday is the first by a Kentucky legislator to raise awareness about child sex abuse in sports.
Senate Bill 120, filed by Sens. Cassie Chambers-Armstrong, D-Louisville, and Steve West, R-Paris, will update an existing law for high school sports to add information regarding mandatory reporting around child abuse and neglect for students, parents and coaches. Sex abuse is a form of child abuse.
The bill comes two months after The Courier Journal published a four-part project, Silence & Secrets, which found at least 80 cases of alleged child sexual misconduct in the last 15 years by Kentucky middle- and high-school coaches.
"Protecting our student-athletes is a responsibility we all share," West said in a press release. "This bipartisan legislation strengthens our ability to identify and report abuse, ensuring that Kentucky's young athletes can compete in a safe and supportive environment. By equipping coaches and school personnel with the tools they need, we are taking a necessary step toward preventing harm and holding offenders accountable."
Kentucky High School Athletics Association Commissioner Julian Tackett said the association is in support of the bill.
"Nothing is more important than the safety of these students who parents have entrusted to our school programs," Tackett said in a press release. "Any step we can facilitate to help our school administrators, coaches, parents and students know the right steps and their obligations under current law will be beneficial to students."
The Courier Journal requested an interview with the KHSAA, but did not immediately receive a response.
The bill is the first to focus on mandatory reporting in athletics, based on a Courier Journal analysis of legislation filed by the General Assembly since 1998. State law already requires all public school employees to take training on child sex abuse within 90 days of being hired and then every two years after.
Senate Bill 120 would expand that requirement to all schools participating in KHSAA sports, including private schools.
It includes a two-pronged approach:
First, the bill will require information to be added to the KHSAA's Athletic Participation Form, known as a sports physical.
The information will:
Specify that an athlete may report instances of child abuse to any adult;
Specify that anyone who has reasonable cause to believe a child is being abused must report under Kentucky law;
Include references to instructions on how to report child abuse.
The KHSAA's physical is currently seven pages long, including a two-page health history and a one-page physical examination form that asks questions about eating disorders, heart health and concussions. No question on the form refers to abuse, sexual or otherwise.
A sports medicine committee — including members of the Kentucky Medical Association and two athletic trainers — advises the KHSAA on the form.
Secondly, the bill will require the KHSAA to include notification about the duty of mandatory reporting and the procedures for reporting into any training for administrators or coaches, such as the rules clinic that all coaches — from head coach to volunteer — are required to attend before each season they coach.
"It's sort of a reminder that Kentucky law considers you mandatory reporters: Here's what that means and here's what you have to do," Chambers-Armstrong said.
Since both parts of the bill are just additional reminders to existing paperwork and training, there would be no cost to school districts if the bill were to become law.
Following two Louisville school coaches charged in separate cases of sex abuse of students on the same day, The Courier Journal began to try to answer the questions: How often are coaches sexually abusing children, and what's being done to stop it?
Following 18 months of reporting and digging through archives, the newspaper learned there is no central database or clearinghouse that lists all coaches accused or convicted of sex abuse of a student, and the KHSSA said it was a personnel matter for individual schools and school districts.
The investigation explored the many ways the legislature, school districts and even entire communities remained silent about child sex abuse in sports. From Paducah to Prestonsburg, it explored multiple cases, including everything from inappropriate text messages to rape.
"(Silence & Secrets) did such a good job of laying out that it's not just as an issue impacting one person, one community, one sport, but this is a huge systemic problem," Chambers-Armstrong said. "And systemic problems require systemic solutions — and that's our job as a legislature is to pass systemic solutions and when we see something that is impacting so many kids. We have got to do something about it."
The Courier Journal's series also highlighted several solutions, including one regarding the statue of limitations for sexual abuse survivors who often take decades to come forward about their abuse.
Rep. Lisa Willner, D-Louisville, also filed a bill during this year's legislative session to remove the statute of limitations on civil lawsuits for child sex abuse. Willner has filed a similar version of the bill every session since 2022.
"We know that this is a huge, pervasive problem — that this is going to have lifelong impacts on kids," Chambers-Armstrong said. "We should also be training people on this as well, particularly when you read the stories, and you talk to kids who have been through this.
"There is always someone who knew something was happening, who saw something was happening, and if we can just remind those folks that they have an obligation under the law to do something about it and protect kids, hopefully that's how we begin to change cultures and keep kids safe."
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Stephanie Kuzydym is an enterprise and investigative sports reporter, with a focus on the health and safety of athletes. She can be reached at [e-mail]. Follow her for updates at @stephkuzy
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Courier Journal Silence and Secrets project prompts legislation