USSSA background – A youth baseball coach from Welling, Oklahoma, was banned for life after an on-field incident involving his 11-year-old son. As USSSA disciplinary action came into focus, questions are now circling around Michael Ryals’ criminal past, whether background checks
When a 11-and-under baseball tournament erupted over Memorial Day weekend in Kansas City, it looked like one violent moment on a field.
But the lifetime ban that followed for a coach from Welling, Oklahoma has now pulled a second story into the open: what Michael Ryals’ record says he should have already accounted for—and what questions remain about how he got onto a youth roster in the first place.
Ryals, 38, was banned for life by United States Specialty Sports Association (USSSA), the organization that sanctioned the tournament. USSSA also suspended his 12-year-old son for five years after an on-field incident involving Ryals allegedly telling his 11-year-old son to throw a ball into the opposing team’s dugout.
Ryals is the head coach of the travel ball team from Oklahoma. The incident happened during the Memorial Day weekend tournament. In his telling, he has denied the allegations tied to his criminal case and to the on-field conduct.
“I’m not a child molester,” Ryals said during a phone interview. “I never did that.”
He also said he never received a criminal background check before coaching in USSSA tournaments.
“I knew that I couldn’t pass,” Ryals said.
The USSSA website says the organization requires criminal background checks of all coaches. USSSA CEO John Latella said a “thorough investigation” was conducted before announcing the disciplinary action involving Ryals and his son. Latella did not answer questions about USSSA background checks and Ryals’ criminal record.
The vetting dispute sits against a longer paper trail that includes a 2011 arrest and additional court matters.
In 2011. prosecutors in Cherokee County. Oklahoma. alleged Ryals—then 24—made lewd proposals to a 14-year-old about touching her in a graphic way. A copy of an affidavit for probable cause states that the girl told a family member. a forensic interviewer. and an employee of Help-In-Crisis. a facility that supports victims of sexual assault. that Ryals pulled her hair and told her she shouldn’t tell anyone about the incident.
Ryals denied the allegations and later pled guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge of “outraging public decency.” Oklahoma statutes define “outraging public decency” as “Every person who willfully and wrongfully commits any act which grossly injures the person or property of another. or which grossly disturbs the public peace or health. or which openly outrages public decency. including but not limited to urination in a public place. and is injurious to public morals…”.
According to the record described in the affidavit, Ryals also indicated his primary concern with the criminal background check required by USSSA was a conviction for domestic assault and battery in front of a minor child in 2006.
Ryals received a one-year suspended sentence and five weekends of incarceration tied to the reduced misdemeanor, court records show.
In the years after. prosecutors and sentencing records described in court files depict a continuing history. including subjecting Ryals to six protective orders and. between 2007 and 2019. sentences for grand larceny. embezzlement. and the use of bogus checks. Records reflect that Ryals has not been arrested since 2019, and he has not had a non-traffic arrest since 2018.
USSSA’s safety language further complicates the picture. On its website, the non-profit based in Florida says it has sanctioned more than 35,000 events with 4.5 million participants in 47 states, and it suggests it has ties to SafeSport, formally the U.S. Center for SafeSport.
The USSSA website states: “USSSA is passionate about raising awareness of the SafeSport initiative and providing our athletes unparalleled development and competitive opportunity in a safe environment.”
But the U.S. Center for SafeSport said it is “neither affiliated with nor authorized to oversee USSSA, and it has no direct knowledge of USSSA’s safeguarding policies, misconduct prevention measures, or internal procedures for receiving and handling reports of misconduct.”
The U.S. Center for SafeSport also warned that confusion may arise from USSSA’s references to “SafeSport,” and it said it has requested that USSSA cease all use of that term from its website.
Even the dispute over reporting mechanisms plays into the larger question of how incidents and risk are handled. While USSSA’s website has an online form to report abuse, Latella provided no information about how such complaints are handled.
The on-field incident itself triggered more details that parents and team officials say were not clear.
Fast forward to May. Ryals found himself serving as head coach of an 11-and-under team that traveled to Kansas City on Memorial Day weekend. Ryals’ 12-year-old son qualified to play in the 11-and-under division because of a school grade exemption; he is in the fifth grade.
A person associated with the team said parents were unaware of Ryals’ criminal background. That same person said Ryals was an effective motivator as a youth baseball coach. Ryals told USSSA tournaments he has been coaching his son’s teams for several years.
“I did my best by these boys … to take them as far as I could and just be a good person and love them,” Ryals said, referring to this year’s team. “I mean, they ain’t a kid on that team that’ll tell you that Coach Michael wasn’t their best friend.”
Behind the ban, other unanswered questions have surfaced.
One involves the spelling of Ryals’ name. His legal first name is Michael, but he spells it Mychal and denied using the alternate spelling to hide his past.
“Had a Facebook (account) get hacked and I couldn’t spell it normally because (Facebook) already had it,” Ryals said. “Seen somebody’s name like that (spelled Mychal) and I just went with it because it got me a Facebook account made back.”
Another involves the team listing. On USSSA’s website, Ricky Potts is listed as the Oklahoma team’s manager, and no other coaches are listed. When reached by phone. Potts said he “managed” the team’s online profile. entered the team into tournaments. and helped as a first-base coach. Potts said he was not the head coach and did not respond to questions about Ryals’ role with the team.
Then there is the claim at the center of the ban: whether Ryals instructed his son to throw a ball into the dugout of a team from Nebraska coached by Brandon Magni. Ryals indirectly denied it in comments to USSSA.
Still, Ryals said he reached out to Magni and apologized.
Magni confirmed that in a post on his Facebook page. He wrote that he was pleased the incident came to the attention of USSSA, but “thoroughly disappointed that they have not contacted me to apologize or tell me personally they have policies and procedures in place if events like this happen again.”
The sequence of facts leaves a tight knot of questions for parents and tournament officials alike: a lifetime ban after the Memorial Day weekend incident. a claim by the coach that he never received a background check despite USSSA’s stated requirement. and a broader conversation about how SafeSport-related language and safeguarding processes are actually aligned—or not aligned—between organizations.
USSSA has imposed lifetime discipline on Ryals and a five-year suspension on his son. Beyond that decision. the record now makes the next issue unavoidable: whether USSSA’s own vetting and reporting systems were adequate before a coach with a lengthy legal history ended up leading a youth team in a USSSA-sanctioned tournament.
USSSA youth baseball Michael Ryals Oklahoma coach Kansas City tournament background checks SafeSport safeguarding policies criminal history protecting young athletes
So he just got on the team somehow…
Lifetime ban feels extreme but also like, yeah, background checks should’ve caught it. And suspending the kid too?? That part is confusing to me. Like why punish the son for what the dad did?
I’m not saying it’s fake or anything but this reads like he should’ve already been flagged. If USSSA has “vetting failures” then what were they even checking, like did they just look at his wallet or something. Also “threw a ball into the dugout” doesn’t sound like life-ban offense by itself, unless there’s more history.
Travel ball is wild. Everybody knows somebody who “knows a coach” and suddenly you’re on a roster. I bet he had some record and they swept it under the rug because it’s Oklahoma and everyone’s friends with everyone. The article says USSSA is looking into his past but like… how do you miss that with a USSSA background check? Sounds like paperwork fail, and then they act shocked after Memorial Day.