Survey: Managing parents among top reasons youth coaches quit

Most of America’s youth-sport coaches are feeling burned out and fed up with verbal harassment and abuse, mainly from parents of athletes, according to a national survey released Thursday by the U.S. Center for SafeSport.

The challenge of managing parents ranks among the top reasons coaches have considered leaving or decided to quit, with one coach saying of parents: “They created tension. They instilled distrust. They were worse than children.”

Other reasons for coaches’ disaffection included retirement and challenges within their sporting organizations. More than 35% of respondents said that they also experienced discrimination based on sex, age and physical appearance from other coaches as well as parents of athletes.

The survey results add to an already troubling picture about the future of youth sports, with coaches joining game officials in questioning whether the hassles outweigh the joys of the job.

In a 2023 survey by the National Association of Sports Officials, more than 40% of 35,813 respondents cited unruly parents attending youth sporting events as the biggest impediment to their job satisfaction.

Respondents to the SafeSport survey shared a similar sentiment, saying that parents had negative attitudes, were unable to hold their children accountable and showed abusive behavior.

The new survey also asked respondents about the behavior of other coaches toward youth and adult officials. More than half of respondents said that they were aware of other coaches who swore at officials over the age of 18. Nearly 40% said they were aware of coaches who intentionally humiliated officials regardless of their age.

SafeSport, a nonprofit organization established by a 2017 act of Congress, is tasked with policing abuse in Olympic sports. Over its nine-year history, the organization itself has been the subject of controversy regarding its effectiveness and management. Its former chief executive, Ju’Riese Colon, left SafeSport last year. Former Olympic athlete Benita Fitzgerald Mosley took charge of the agency’s reboot earlier this month.

SafeSport conducted the new survey of coaches, a first in the organization’s history, between October and November 2025 and queried 3,470 coaches from 66 sports. The greatest percentage of coaches surveyed were from soccer and identified as white and male. Most respondents said they had more than a decade of experience, and over 90% of the respondents had coached youth sports.

The survey gauged the coaches’ opinions on a variety of topics including coaching experiences and confidence in their sports organizations’ ability to deal with athlete safety complaints. It also asked about coaches’ own experiences with abuse.

Findings from the survey showed that most coaches are satisfied with their experience and are trained in abuse prevention. Most said they feel comfortable with how athlete safety is dealt with in their organizations and believe that athletes are supported when abuse is reported. But female respondents were less likely than their male counterparts to agree that athletes had a safe space to report concerns in their organization.

More than 75% of the male respondents agreed that athletes had a safe space, as opposed to only 65% among their female counterparts. They were also more likely than male coaches to say they had encountered bad coaching behavior. Female respondents were nearly four times more likely to report hearing another coach tell an athlete about their sexual activities.

The most common bad behaviors cited were coaches initiating hugs and shouting at or belittling athletes. Although less common, more than one in 10 respondents said that they had also observed, at least once in the past five years, coaches having sexual relationships with adult athletes and making inappropriate comments about sex or the athlete’s body.

More than half of female respondents said they had experienced more emotional abuse as athletes. They were also more likely to be burned out.

Nearly 60% of female respondents said that they faced discrimination in their roles as coach, as compared to only a quarter of the men. More than one in 10 of the female respondents also experienced sexual harassment, per the survey’s findings.

Coaches with disabilities cited experiences of discrimination at higher rates than those without disabilities, according to the survey.

The 94-page report also had an analysis of open-ended responses from the coaches. It highlighted the need for increased educational and training resources and requested more support in handling family members of athletes, a consistent theme throughout the report.