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This video contains descriptions of sexual abuse.
On Feb. 19, the U.S. Center for SafeSport ruled that Texas girls’ volleyball coach Ryan Richardson was banned from coaching. An oversight group found that he had engaged in sexual misconduct with a minor, among other allegations.
The next day, Richardson was back to training players — and posting them on his Instagram. He has not stopped since.
When Richardson opened Elite Sports Performance in 2013, there was little like it in the Rio Grande Valley. Richardson’s players said he often told them that he and his volleyball club were their only path to a scholarship.
Reporter Molly Hensley-Clancy has spent more than a year investigating how major sports organizations have failed to keep Richardson from interacting with kids. Watch her break down her investigation.
Note: After ProPublica and The Washington Post’s reporting, Richardson is now facing a federal child exploitation probe.
Transcript
This coach is banned from working with kids because of sexual misconduct with a minor, but he's still coaching, and he's making no effort to hide it. What? What? So Rank Richardson was actually a football player, but when he got into sports training, his specialty became volleyball. He told some of his players that it was because he had dated a volleyball player in college. I heard a lot of disturbing details from Richardson's former players. He wasn't just verbally abusive. He would pull them down onto his lap. He would say I love you, he would want them to say I love you back, have them come to his hotel room on tournaments where he would be drinking without his shirt on. One player told me that he often FaceTimed her while he was showering. And then there was the bed he kept in the back room of his gym. He said it was used for recovery and massages. That's where the mom of one player I spoke to found Richardson alone with her teenage daughter one day in 2022. Maggie Gutierrez, which is her maiden name, one day she went to pick her daughter up from practice, opened the door to this back room. Richardson quickly turned his back to her and it looked like he was tying up the strings of his pants. Her daughter was 16 and Richardson was 36. Maggie was really upset. She confronted her daughter and Richardson, but they both said that nothing had happened, and she felt like all she could do was just keep a watchful eye on them. Then her daughter left for college. She got a call from her daughter's college volleyball coach who said, I think they're dating. I read some of the best that Richardson sent no a 17 year old player that I think made it really clear what was going on. He said, I don't like that we are only sex right no, so I really would love to get past this high school shit when you are on your own pretty much. After Maggie got the call from the college volleyball coach, she went to police in two different jurisdictions, but they basically told her there was nothing they could do if her daughter wasn't going to cooperate. At that tier, her daughter was over 18. She then goes to Lone Star, which is the regional volleyball association in Texas. By the time Maggie goes to Lone Star, Richardson has already been suspended for several months over his social media worst. And once Maggie speaks to them, SafeSport steps in and starts investigating. There are multiple levels of oversight in the system. They all failed to keep Richardson from interacting with kids. Richardson's suspensions at the regional and national level made no difference. Then he was ruled permanently ineligible to coach by SafeSport, and I found that made no difference. There's a loophole where SafeSport law doesn't apply to private nonprofit groups. He was able to join those groups. Under USA Volleyball, his team was registered in the name of an employee. Richardson is still coaching teenage girls. Hey, y'all better get more competitive over there. The system that was put in place to protect kids in youth sports is still pretty new. If you're someone that wants to take advantage of these loopholes, it's not that hard to do it.
