PRESS RELEASE
January 22, 2019 Please contact:
Ed Vasquez
408-420-6558 or ed@ejvcommunications.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Washington, D.C.)
Yesterday The Committee to Restore Integrity to the USOC submitted the attached twelve recommendations,
designed to better protect more than 8 million young athletes from sexual, physical, and emotional abuse by
altering the power-structure of the USOC. The proposed solutions seek to abolish the "money and medals"
and "Anti-Athlete" culture, by replacing it with an "Athletes First" mission.
The Recommendations are a follow-up to a meeting with CEO Sarah Hirshland at the USOC’s offices in
New York City on Wednesday, January 16, 2019, where each recommendation was discussed. The recent
Ropes & Gray investigation and the Congressional House subcommittee report called for profound cultural
changes to the USOC to address athlete-abuse; a reorganization that puts athletes’ interests and their wellbeing first. When current USOC Board members did not move to reconsider USOC policies that the Reports
highlighted, Team Integrity has stepped in to offer solutions.
Our solutions include reorganizing the USOC, Corporate enforcement of federal law, the Sports Act, and
establishing whistleblower protection as a result of continued retaliation against those who come forward
against the USOC. Additionally, Team Integrity calls for the creation of an independent Office of Inspector
General and an Athlete Advocate office, as well as the USOC severing ties with all law firms and lawyers
that have engaged in anti-athlete litigation.
Our prior call to remove most of the USOC Board and its Senior Leadership still stands; the USOC continues
to demonstrate that it cannot reform itself. Team Integrity also supports the bill Senator Cory Gardner
proposed, that would establish a blue-ribbon committee to re-write the Sports Act. We are hoping that it can
be accomplished much faster than the 16 months proposed.
The number of Team Integrity members, including Olympians, Paralympians, and their coaches, elite
athletes, sport leaders, sexual abuse organizations, the Army of Survivors and other victims of sexual abuse in
sport, continues to grow.
Ed Williams, J.D., Olympian, one of the architects of the Sports Act in 1978, and lawyer frequently
representing athletes, said, "Team Integrity submits its recommendations in a good faith effort to have the
USOC immediately fix its broken culture and promptly and decisively move forward in an athlete-centered
direction in which we believe will result in reducing the abuse and exploitation of all athletes. We have
asked for, and look forward to receiving a positive response from the CEO and the Board with respect to
each of our recommendations."
Nancy Hogshead-Makar, J.D., Olympian and CEO of Champion Women, said, "Team Integrity is interested
in far more than putting exclamation points on the USOC’s upside-down priorities described in the Ropes &
Gray report. Instead, our recommendations would change the structure and governance of the USOC. These
recommendations are designed to reorient the USOC down a new path, to protect athletes from all forms of
exploitation and abuse, and to truly make the USOC an "Athletes First" organization."
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