Former AAU president received $1.5 million to leave amid scandal
— -- As a sought-after youth volleyball coach, Dana Wall has her pick of jobs. But ask about her most important work, and she'll talk about the travel team she started in Salem, North Carolina. "There are families here with five or six kids who have to make really tough choices about youth sports," she says. "There's a lot of families that are struggling to put food on the table."
Wall, a former AAU national champion, opened her club in 2012 under the auspices of the Amateur Athletic Union, one of the largest youth sports groups in the country and a tax-exempt, non-profit organization. That's why she often paid out of her own pocket for basics such as kneepads and, on the travel circuit, hotel rooms for her team. "I charged a minimal amount, just so we could make it happen," says Wall, an AAU regional volleyball director.
In the hands of volunteers like Wall, the AAU looks very much like the helping-hand non-profit touted in its mission: to provide "amateur sports through a volunteer base for all people to have the physical, mental and moral development of amateur athletes to promote good sportsmanship and good citizenship."
The AAU is also a big business. It has nearly 700,000 members and organizes hundreds of sanctioned national tournaments that generate more than $20 million a year -- a total almost evenly split between individual membership and team tournament fees.
But an Outside the Lines investigation has found that, in recent years, the AAU has operated in ways that raise questions about its adherence to its mission as a non-profit organization. Interviews with more than a dozen people with intimate knowledge of the AAU, as well as reviews of public tax documents and confidential financial records, show:
? Executive leaders quietly paid the AAU's former president, Robert "Bobby" Dodd, $1.5 million when he stepped down in late 2011 amid allegations that he had molested young basketball players as a coach.
? The AAU ran up a $500,000 deficit over several years putting on its annual gala at a private club near New York City's Central Park. To cut costs in 2013 and 2014, the gala was moved to Orlando, Florida. This past April, however, the non-profit's new leadership moved it back to New York.
? Current AAU president Roger Goudy showed a pattern of spending that raised internal concerns. In 2014, for instance, he charged nearly $17,000 on his corporate credit card over two weekends in Hermosa Beach, California, during national AAU events, twice staying at a pricey resort.
? A former AAU executive questions the AAU's 2014 federal tax filing, which states that Goudy, in his prior role in the Florida-based organization, worked 30 hours a week while at the same time holding a full-time job running an Ohio school district.
? Volleyball has become the AAU's second-largest moneymaker, growth partly attributed to the non-profit's partnership with a successful coach who had once banned by another national volleyball group over allegations he'd had sexual relationships with three minors.
? The AAU carries a nearly $12 million budget surplus, an amount that far exceeds what one expert on non-profits says is necessary or even responsible.
? And it has exhibited a culture of secrecy that, some members say, prevents them from questioning internal spending practices out of fear that money to the districts they oversee will be cut.
"The issue is not whether you spend money or not," says Ken Berger, a longtime analyst of charities and their spending practices. "The issue is how. Are you thrifty about it? Are you very careful about it? [Non-profit revenue] is precious. It's mission money. And you want to be as effective in its use as possible. You don't spend thousands and thousands of dollars on lush accommodations."
Despite repeated requests, the AAU declined to make Goudy or any other official available for an interview or comment.
Producer William Weinbaum of ESPN's Enterprise/Investigative Unit contributed to this report.
