Lucca van der Woude, the former U.S. national youth water polo team standout and Olympic prospect, has been banned by the U.S. Center for SafeSport for sexual misconduct, a ruling that prohibits him from participating in events sanctioned by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the national governing bodies under its umbrella for three years, the Southern California News Group (SCNG) has learned.
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An arbitrator this month upheld the U.S. Center for SafeSport’s previously unreported March 2025 three-year suspension of van der Woude for “sexual misconduct, emotional and physical misconduct; criminal disposition,” according to U.S. Center for SafeSport documents reviewed by SCNG and confirmed by an attorney involved in the case.
New U.S. Center for SafeSport CEO Benita Fitzgerald-Brown has pledged a renewed commitment to transparency. But the van der Woude case has raised questions about whether SafeSport is doing enough to protect young athletes from abusive athletes and coaches. Van der Woude, because his violations occurred when he was a minor, does not appear in the U.S. Center for SafeSport’s centralized disciplinary database listing other banned or suspended individuals and the reasons for their sanctions.
The database was created by the U.S. Center for SafeSport to alert athletes and their families to predatory and abusive coaches and athletes who might still be participating in USOPC-sanctioned sports despite their bans.
But potential teammates of van der Woude, or athletes who might be coached by him, and their families, can’t determine that he is suspended by searching the U.S. Center for SafeSport database.
“If you talk to attorneys who handle these (U.S. Center for SafeSport) cases, there are a ton of sexual misconduct cases by minors,” said John Manly, an Orange County attorney who represented hundreds of survivors of former U.S. Olympic gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, referring to the U.S. Center for SafeSport policy and not a specific case.
“And while you want to be sensitive to mistakes made by kids, there are some individuals who present a clear and present danger.”
SafeSport said in a statement to SCNG that it “does not comment on cases to protect the integrity of its investigative process.”
The van der Woude case also exposed the failure of the 3C2A, the governing body for California junior college sports, to enact measures to prevent athletes or coaches banned by SafeSport from participating in junior college athletics.
The ruling upholding the SafeSport suspension comes more than two years after complaints were filed with the U.S. Center for SafeSport alleging that van der Woude had sexually assaulted two Harvard-Westlake School and LA Premier club teammates on multiple occasions, according to SafeSport documents, USA Water Polo records and Los Angeles County Superior Court records reviewed by SCNG. SafeSport was also provided with the names of school employees and coaches with alleged knowledge of the incidents, according to SafeSport documents, USA Water Polo records and Los Angeles County Superior Court records.
Van der Woude admitted in Los Angeles County Juvenile Division Court on Nov. 7, 2024, to sexual penetration with a foreign object (digital penetration) against a minor, according to Los Angeles County Juvenile Court, Los Angeles County Probation Department, Los Angeles County Superior Court filings and U.S. Center for SafeSport documents reviewed by SCNG.
Van der Woude, over a 16-month period, allegedly sexually battered Aidan Romain, a Harvard-Westlake and U.S. national team teammate in and out of the pool, according to U.S. Center for SafeSport documents reviewed by SCNG as well as court filings, interviews and two sworn affidavits. He also routinely directed the N-word and other racist comments at Harvard-Westlake and Los Angeles Premier Water Polo Club teammates, according to allegations in a victim impact statement and U.S. Center for SafeSport complaints, emails, sworn affidavits, court filings and interviews.
“An individual — like Lucca van der Woude — who has sexually battered multiple teammates multiple times, and over the course of years; lied and misled authorities about his criminal conduct, until he admitted them in court; defamed his victims in an attempt to protect his own reputation; and violated no-contact orders almost two dozen times while playing in USA Water Polo-sanctioned events (without informing USA Water Polo), should not be allowed to participate in USA Water Polo,” the parent of one of his Harvard-Westlake victims alleged in a complaint to the U.S. Center for SafeSport.
Van der Woude did not respond to requests for comment.
Attorneys for Romain allege in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in March against van der Woude, Harvard-Westlake, Harvard-Westlake water polo coach Jack Grover and the school’s president Richard B. Commons, that despite being informed by Romain and another Harvard-Westlake student that van der Woude had digitally penetrated them, school officials did not contact law enforcement or child protective services as required by law.
The court filing portrays a pattern of “repeated and sustained sexual assault at Harvard-Westlake School — and the school’s deliberate failure to act when confronted with repeated reports that a minor student was being sexually assaulted on its campus.”
The suit also alleges that van der Woude also directed racial slurs at Romain.
“I am deeply grateful to SafeSport’s investigators, Deputy General Counsel Kyle MacTaggart, and the entire SafeSport team,” Daniel Watkins, an attorney for Romain, said in a statement to SCNG. “They did something that should not be unusual, but has been far too rare in Aidan’s experience: they listened. They took him seriously. They followed the evidence. And they believed him.
“First, the LAPD believed Aidan. Then Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Brian Hettinger. Then a judge. Now SafeSport, after its own independent process, has found Lucca van der Woude responsible for sexually assaulting a minor and banned him for three years.
“Aidan told the truth when it was hard. He told it when powerful people wanted him quiet. And he kept telling it.
“The police listened. The prosecutor listened. The court listened. SafeSport listened.
“Harvard-Westlake should listen now.”
Harvard-Westlake said it “unequivocally disputes many of these allegations that mischaracterize facts and the school’s actions” in the Romain suit.
Van der Woude was banned from the Harvard-Westlake campus by school officials following his February 2024 arrest at the school. He transferred to Newport Harbor High School in Orange County prior to the 2024-25 academic year, leading the Sailors to the California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section title.
The van der Woude case, Manly said, “shows you again, what do you really have to do to be pulled out of the pool or off the field? Shoot someone in the head?
“I’ve been reading the Harvard-Westlake testimony and if what’s been published is true and he’s been terrorizing kids because they’re Black and then (the) Newport Mesa (Unified School District) lets him in? I’d like to say I’m surprised, but it doesn’t surprise me at all.”
Van der Woude recently admitted under oath that he transferred to Newport Harbor from Harvard-Westlake only after the nationally renowned private school banned him from its campus after his arrest following allegations that he had sexually assaulted teammates, according to a transcript of a deposition of van der Woude reviewed by SCNG.
“At some point, denial is not skepticism,” Watkins said. “It is a choice.
“Harvard-Westlake knew enough after Lucca’s arrest to ban him from campus and from its water polo program. Yet years later, the school still denies what happened to Aidan—and somehow denies what its own actions already made plain.
“That is not how the truth works. It does not become less true because an institution does not like it. And an institution does not avoid responsibility by waiting for people to get tired.”
Van der Woude’s admission in his deposition has renewed pressure on the CIF to investigate the circumstances surrounding his transfer to Newport Harbor, whether Newport Harbor coach Ross Sinclair, a friend and coaching colleague of Harvard-Westlake coach Jack Grover, was aware of van der Woude’s arrest and banishment from the private school, and whether Newport Harbor should be stripped of the CIF title.
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CIF Southern Section commissioner Mike West confirmed to SCNG that the organization is reviewing the case.
“The CIF Southern Section is aware of the civil lawsuit filed against Harvard-Westlake School by one of its former students,” West said in an email. “As new information has come to light, we are continuing our own review. Given that some of the allegations made in the litigation may implicate CIF bylaw violations related to student eligibility and school compliance, the CIF Southern Section will not be providing further comment.”
Sinclair did not respond to a request for comment. The Newport Mesa Unified School District has repeatedly maintained that Newport Harbor officials followed “CIF protocols and processes for transfers, and the student was deemed eligible to compete.”
Under 3C2A rules, van der Woude can compete for Golden West College this upcoming season. Van der Woude led Golden West to a ninth consecutive 32CA State championship last fall after UCLA rescinded his provisional admission following a March 2025 Orange County Register report detailing his arrest and the allegations against him. Van der Woude posted team highs for Golden West in goals (65), steals (48) and blocks (20).
“At this time, the 3C2A does not have a policy that bans athletes from competing if they have been banned by the U.S. Center for SafeSport,” Melody Mallette, a spokesperson for the 3C2A, said in an email.
Golden West president Meridith Randall, Golden West athletics director Danny Johnson, and Orange Empire Conference commissioner Albert Gasparian did not respond to requests for comment. Golden West has not posted its 2026-27 men’s water polo roster on the school’s athletic website.
“That fact that Golden West let him play,” Manly said, “just shows that it’s still all about wins, money and medals and it doesn’t seem that these (schools) have learned anything from the Larry Nassar case.”
The U.S. Center for SafeSport, established in 2017 under the authorization of Congress, has the scope and authority to resolve abuse and misconduct reports for more than 11 million athletes participating in the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic movement. The center is also charged with developing and enforcing policies, procedures and training to prevent abuse and misconduct. The Center’s SafeSport Code governs all participants in the American Olympic movement.
The SafeSport code prohibits “sexual harassment, nonconsensual sexual contact (or attempts to commit the same), nonconsensual sexual intercourse (or attempts to commit the same), sexual exploitation, exposing a minor to sexual content/imagery and sexual bullying behavior and sexual hazing.”
The code also prohibits “Engaging in Bullying Behaviors targeted at a Minor based on their real or perceived age, race, ethnicity, culture, religion” and “harassment … or severe conduct directed at or about another person that is intended or likely to … reflect a discriminatory bias in an attempt to establish dominance, superiority, or power over an individual or group based on age, race, ethnicity, culture, religion, national origin, or mental or physical disability; or national origin, or mental or physical disability.”
The SafeSport code also states that “Criminal Conduct is relevant to an individual’s fitness to participate in sport. The age of a Criminal Charge or Disposition is not relevant to whether a violation of the Code occurred but may be considered for Sanctioning purposes.”
Van der Woude was temporarily suspended by SafeSport on January 14, 2025, pending the completion of the center’s investigation. He was initially permanently suspended by SafeSport on March 27, 2025. He appealed the suspension. An arbitrator heard his appeal during an August 18 hearing in which Grover, the Harvard-Westlake and LA Premier head coach, testified on van der Woude’s behalf.
The arbitrator upheld the suspension on August 26. In addition to the three-year suspension, SafeSport also placed van der Woude on probation for three years and issued a no-contact directive. The arbitrator credited van der Woude for time served, meaning his suspension was considered to have started on March 27, 2025. He will be eligible to participate in events sanctioned by the USOPC and its NGBS in March 2028.
SafeSport has repeatedly come under intense criticism from Olympians, athletes rights advocates, survivors and their families and members of Congress on a number of topics including the length of investigations, a failure of center employees to respond to survivors and their families in a timely manner, if they reply at all, and a lack of transparency that has made it difficult if not impossible for parents to fully know the backgrounds of who is coaching or competing with their children.
SafeSport, in a statement to SCNG, said, “Our confidentiality policies around minor respondents largely mirror those of the juvenile justice system and other youth-serving systems.”
But the SafeSport database not only does not name individuals who committed SafeSport code violations as minors. It also doesn’t include individuals who have previously been disciplined by the center but are no longer suspended.
“Current law explicitly allows SafeSport to post the names of individuals who are currently barred from sport,” SafeSport said in the statement. “Any change would require consideration of procedural due process obligations under the law.
“Each (national governing body) has full access to all current SafeSport disciplinary actions across all sports. Additionally, each NGB has access to all disciplinary actions, current and historic, respective to their individual sport, and may use that information to make membership decisions and safely plan accordingly. NGBs may share current and historic disciplinary actions with their local affiliated organizations. The USOPC has access to all SafeSport disciplinary actions since its inception.”
SafeSport added that “as a part of recent internal technology improvements, the Center is in the process of giving NGBs access to historic disciplinary actions across all sports.”
But SafeSport was created in large part because NGBs repeatedly failed to be transparent when it came to abusive coaches and athletes, placing Olympic and international success and marketing and sponsorship concerns over athlete safety. Previous reporting by SCNG has revealed that NGBs, in particular USA Swimming and USA Gymnastics, for decades routinely covered up or did not pursue abuse cases involving high-profile or well-connected coaches and athletes.
Under the current SafeSport format, parents remain at the mercy of those same NGBs when seeking to determine if the individual coaching their child or playing next to them has a history of abuse.
“SafeSport should take one more step,” Watkins said. “Its decision should be public. In situations like these, parents, coaches, schools, teams, and young athletes deserve to know who was found responsible and who they are dealing with.”
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