Medals were what mattered to the U.S. Olympic Committee.

For years, the USOC said its priority was collecting as much gold, silver and bronze as possible at the Olympics. What athletes did in the years between Summer and Winter Games was not its concern, the responsibility for their health and well-being shunted off to the governing bodies of each individual sport.

But there’s a price to pay for putting medals ahead of morals. The USOC’s detached approach left young athletes vulnerable to predators like Larry Nassar. More than 350 girls and young women, including several Olympic champions, have said the longtime USA Gymnastics physician sexually abused them, often under the guise of medical treatment.

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“Preventing abuse, preventing assault and abuse of athletes, is hardly incompatible with winning athletic contests,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the ranking member of the Senate subcommittee that is investigating sexual abuse in the Olympic movement, told USA TODAY Sports.

“In fact, the idea that somehow strong and effective enforcement to stop abuse will discourage winning medals or breaking records is absurd,” Blumenthal said. “Stopping abuse should lead to better performance. The two are hardly in contradiction.”

The Nassar scandal is, by far, the worst the USOC has encountered. But it is hardly the only one. It was hauled before Congress to address ethics lapses. And again for doping scandals. Chicago’s humiliating loss in the bid for the 2016 Olympics brought about changes in governance and priorities.

Now here it is again, seemingly incapable – or unwilling – to achieve a simple yet obvious mission: protecting athletes.

“The foot-dragging, the prevarication, and the lies are beyond unconscionable,” said Jules Boykoff, a professor at Pacific University who has written extensively on the Olympics.

“The USOC board of directors should resign immediately. If the USOC is not going to completely dismantle its board now, then when would it?” he asked. “Once the slate has been cleaned, then (new CEO) Sarah Hirshland should be allowed to reconstruct the board from scratch, with a main criteria for inclusion being a proactive stance on stamping out abuse and demonstrated expertise in understanding the problem and aggressively addressing it.”

Many share Boykoff’s frustration and would support his idea. But those familiar with the history of amateur sports in the United States say that wouldn’t address the underlying problem.

A problem born 40 years ago

For too long – since the passage of the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act in 1978, really – the USOC has been allowed to define its priorities. And it has done so narrowly.

Ted Stevens was the legislation that grew out of the President’s Commission on Olympic Sports, created in 1975 to unite the oft-warring factions running amateur and Olympic sports at the time and protect athletes who, too often, were casualties in the power struggles.

The commission recommended a national entity – ultimately assumed by the USOC – that would oversee all aspects of amateur sports, from the grassroots up to the Olympic level. It would operate much like other nations’ sports ministries, only it would be private, run like a corporation rather than an arm of the government.

Congress would have oversight, and the national body’s charter would have to be renewed every six years to ensure it was doing what commissioners and legislators envisioned.

But, as is the case with any legislation, not everything the commission wanted made it into law. An athlete’s bill of rights didn’t come to fruition. The Congressional reviews never occurred.

“The initial Amateur Sports Act provided everything that needed to be done,” said Donna de Varona, an Olympic gold medalist in swimming who served on the President’s Commission and helped draft the Ted Stevens Act.

“But we didn’t have the leadership to do it.”

Tasked with a laundry list of wishes and no direct federal funding, the USOC made choices. It would prioritize the elite athletes, who are the most appealing to sponsors and broadcasters. Grassroots efforts, day-to-day responsibilities – the national governing bodies would have to handle those.

But that strategy left significant gaps in the system, as evidenced by the repeated scandals over the years.

“It’s the cost of how we’ve set up amateur sports in the United States,” said Dionne Koller, director of the Center for Sport and Law at the University of Baltimore and an expert in Olympic and amateur sport law.

“The whole reason we have this privatized system is because it’s considered the American way. We don’t do government sports," Koller continued. "But on the other hand, I don’t think there’s ever been an accounting of, 'What are the costs of doing it this way?’

“And I think we’re seeing the costs.”

Congressional oversight needed

In a report earlier this month, law firm Ropes & Gray said both the USOC and USA Gymnastics had governance structures and policies in place that “had the effect of allowing abuse to occur and continue without effective intervention.” The USOC hired Ropes & Gray to do an independent investigation into who at the USOC and USA Gymnastics knew what about Nassar's abuse and when.

Former USOC CEO Scott Blackmun received harsh criticism for not taking any action, or alerting anyone at the USOC, after being told in July 2015 that several gymnasts had accused Nassar of sexually abusing them.

But Nassar's abuse was only part of the failings. The USOC didn't make background checks by the NGBs mandatory until 2014. A USA TODAY Sports investigation published this month found coaches who have been banned for sexual misconduct still working without repercussions, largely because the lists of banned coaches are not widely publicized or easily accessed.

If you find someone you think is still coaching, please email us banned@usatoday.

And the U.S. Center for SafeSport, which was the USOC’s grand solution to addressing sexual abuse complaints, opened late and without enough funding to adequately do its job.

“I do understand the focus on medals,” de Varona said. “The pressure comes from the press, NBC, the IOC. You can see where the pressure causes certain priorities. But we have to re-address that. And it’s written in the Amateur Sports Act, it’s grassroots up.”

Congress could have demanded that the USOC shift its focus, prioritize athletes ahead of medals. Or at least required the USOC to take an active role in seeing that structures were in place to protect athletes from all forms of abuse.

But any time there was a crisis, the focus was on the issue at hand rather than a deeper examination of the root causes. Once the crisis was over, the USOC returned to its usual way of operating.

“Congress leans on them to put out the immediate fire. But there’s no real follow-through with Congress to see to it that the USOC is fully living up to the promise of the Amateur Sports Act,” Koller said.

The USOC has begun to exert more authority over the governing bodies. It established minimum standards for athlete protection that, as of 2014, all NGBs are required to follow. It is now conducting yearly audits to “verify (an NGB) is in compliance with key elements of the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, the USOC Bylaws and certain USOC policies, in order to demonstrate ongoing commitment to the values and requirements of membership in the USOC.”

Yet the checklist, which assesses governance, finances, athlete representation, safe sport and anti-doping, does not ask about banned lists, their publication or what an NGB does to keep someone banned for sexual misconduct away from the sport.

“We have to create the policies and then … ensure that NGBs are mandating that, and that the flow of information is happening from the NGB down to their base of membership,” said Hirshland, who became the USOC’s CEO in August. “There’s a real challenge to ensure that the mandates and the processes and policies for using that (banned) list in hiring decisions and in employment decisions is trickling all the way down into the grassroots.”

But there is a growing chorus that that is not good enough. Not after watching the USOC lurch from crisis to crisis.

De Varona and Koller said regular reviews by Congress, whether it’s in the form of hearings or through an oversight committee, are essential to ensuring that the USOC, and its NGBs, have the right priorities and are following through on them.

“The follow-through needs to be with Congress,” Koller said. “Congress needs to hold the USOC to account, not just in an immediate crisis. But to really reach and see what the USOC is and what they’re really supposed to be doing, and then hold them accountable for it.”

Blumenthal sounded amenable to that.

Nassar’s abuse, and the revelations of the systemic failures that led to it, has been a reckoning moment for everyone in the Olympic movement. There’s a price to pay for making medals the ultimate priority, and it’s been shown to be much too high.

“I think they all bear a responsibility,” Blumenthal said. “They all need to recognize that they’ve been failing in that responsibility, and some of the minor changes are just rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

“If the ship is sinking, there’s a lot going down with it.”