When arriving at a USA Baseball event, you might be thinking to yourself, ‘What is the big tent at the front of the complex? Why is it there?’ To answer your questions: stationed underneath that tent is USA Baseball’s Athlete Safety team.

Allow us to provide more context about what Athlete Safety is and what they do. The Athlete Safety team is responsible for ensuring that anyone interacting with an athlete at a USA Baseball event is fully compliant with both government and organizational standards for protecting minor athletes before they are allowed to interact with athletes who take the field at a USA Baseball event. They are the people behind the scenes who help coaches, staff, umpires, and others complete background checks, undergo abuse awareness education, and receive general education, tips, and training.

“It is USA Baseball’s responsibility to make sure that the athlete and adult participant interactions are within the guidelines set forth by the U.S. Center for SafeSport and our Minor Athlete Abuse Prevention Policy,” said USA Baseball Executive Director and CEO Paul Seiler.

It is a responsibility that USA Baseball, as well as the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee and the United States government, have prioritized over the past decade. The undertaking has not been insignificant, with substantial standards and policies that need to be implemented and maintained.

In fact, in addition to ensuring compliance for USA Baseball’s events and national teams annually, one of the biggest responsibilities the Athlete Safety department faces each summer is an annual audit conducted by the U.S. Center for SafeSport, an independent nonprofit organization committed to building a sports community free from abuse and misconduct.

The audit consists of two parts: an administrative and an event audit. In the administrative audit, the auditor ensures that all of USA Baseball’s athlete safety policies and procedures adhere to the requirements set forth by the Center, and they review and evaluate data from various events. They also conduct an on-site event audit, where an auditor from the Center attends an event to observe and witness the implementation of all policies and procedures in action, ensuring that participants are compliant.

Since its inception in 2019, USA Baseball’s Athlete Safety team has passed each of its annual audits. That success is no accident, as one of the primary reasons the Athlete Safety team is able to pass these audits every summer is due to the unwavering dedication and support from the staff at USA Baseball.

“One of the strengths of our Athlete Safety program is the fact that all of our program directors and associated staff have bought into the critical importance of that program. When you have a collective buy-in from everybody in the organization, it allows us to perform at a gold standard,” said Seiler. “It just validates for me… that we have the right people in the right places—and that’s organization-wide—to make sure that we’re doing the absolute best that we can with this responsibility.”

The initiatives put in place by Athlete Safety are supported by everyone at USA Baseball, especially by the national team program directors and baseball operations staff, who are living these initiatives daily. They are the ones who hold our national team and event participants to that gold standard, whether on the international stage or right here at the National Training Complex. They are responsible for hiring staff for events and national teams; they are the ones who serve on the front line in finding the right people to represent Team USA and ensuring that they also understand the value of athlete safety.

After ensuring USA Baseball’s staff, events, and national teams met all relevant policies, standards, and best practices, the Athlete Safety team expanded its efforts to provide resources to the broader baseball community. An effort that would reinforce USA Baseball’s role as a leader in the sport–and in the protection of minor athletes–while supporting those who may face challenges meeting the government-mandated requirements.

“One of the best things to come from our investment in Athlete Safety has not only been us having better systems and policies in place to ensure those safety measures are there, but it’s also educating the broader mass of the baseball population on the value of these resources,” Seiler said. “Creating resources, having them available for free, and really saturating the messaging that yes, this should be first and foremost a priority for any organization that deals with minor athletes and adults.”

USA Baseball created and launched Base Athlete Safety Education (BASE) in 2018 with the goal of providing athlete safety resources to the larger baseball community. The program is USA Baseball’s zero-tolerance campaign against any type of abuse within the game of baseball. By enrolling in the program, youth organizations gain access to and can utilize USA Baseball-provided resources to maintain their compliance with Senate Bill 534 with minimal disruption and eliminate the need to build a compliance framework from the ground up.

In addition to the BASE initiative, the team is also focused on building community and support among other national governing bodies (NGBs). A central part of that goal is working together.

“The more we can listen to other governing bodies–whose profiles in the sports world might be different than ours–and compare and contrast notes on how they would address issues, is always a positive thing,” said Seiler. “You create those relationships, those cross-governing body resources that allow you to always make sure that you’re in the best place from a best practice standpoint.”

That vision is already taking shape; that spirit of collaboration was on display in April when USA Baseball hosted an Athlete Safety and Education Summit at the National Training Complex in Cary, North Carolina. The summit welcomed 15 attendees and representatives from 10 different NGBs.

The summit was a tremendous success, bringing multiple national governing bodies together to strategize the best ways to protect athletes, ensuring that our youth and minor athletes can enjoy their favorite sports without worry or fear of harm.

When you attend a USA Baseball event, whether it’s at the National Training Complex or elsewhere, know that a dedicated group of people is working tirelessly on athlete safety initiatives. And there are individuals present who are there to assist with any circumstances that arise; they are the friendly faces who are there to help. So, be sure to stop by the Athlete Safety tent and say hello to the team that keeps the athletes, coaches, and fans safe.