Safe Sport, MAAPP, and 10DLC in plain English: the actual rules for texting minors, what carriers expect from a coach's phone, and a five-step checklist you can hand to every volunteer.
Coaches text athletes because it works. Practice moved, bring your spikes, we are in Lot B. Texting is not the problem. A private, one-to-one message between an adult and a minor that nobody else can see is the problem. The rules below exist to fix that one thing.
This guide covers three topics coaches tend to mix together: the U.S. Center for SafeSport's rules for electronic communication with minors (MAAPP), what carriers expect when one number sends lots of group texts (A2P 10DLC), and the consent and STOP basics for any text program. Then a checklist, and how RallyText handles each item.
Never text a minor athlete one-on-one. Copy a parent, guardian, or another adult on every message, including team-wide ones. Keep it professional and keep it to daytime hours. Send from a number people agreed to hear from, and honor STOP the moment someone sends it. Keep a record of what went out and who was copied.
The Minor Athlete Abuse Prevention Policies (MAAPP) come from the U.S. Center for SafeSport. They are required across the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Movement, so every national governing body (USA Swimming, USA Cycling, U.S. Soccer, and the rest) and its member clubs adopt a version. NICA, school teams, and scout councils follow similar two-adult rules under their own policies.
The electronic communication section is short. Here is what it requires:
"Electronic communication" covers email, calls, video, texting, social media, and any other electronic medium. Only platforms that allow open and transparent communication may be used with minor athletes, which rules out most private chat apps as a coach-to-athlete channel.
Sources: U.S. Center for SafeSport, How to Safely Communicate with Minor Athletes; 2025 MAAPP (Model Policy: Electronic Communications); MAAPP for Coaches. Your governing body publishes its own version; read that one for the exact wording that applies to your program.
A2P 10DLC is the carrier system for application-to-person texting from regular 10-digit U.S. numbers. A business (or a team) registers who it is and what it sends. In return its messages get higher throughput, better deliverability, and less carrier filtering. The flip side: an unregistered number sending the same text to 40 families looks like spam to a carrier's filters, and messages that do not match a registered use case can be dropped without telling you. That is why a personal cell blasting a roster sometimes reaches 32 of 40 phones and nobody knows which 8 missed it. A registered team number is how the cancellation actually arrives.
Source: Telnyx, Getting Started with 10DLC.
U.S. law on automated and bulk texting (the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA) comes down to two habits. First, get permission before you add a number. A registration form checkbox or a text-to-join keyword both work, as long as the person knows what they are signing up for and from whom. Second, make leaving easy. Anyone who replies STOP (or CANCEL, END, QUIT, UNSUBSCRIBE) must stop getting messages, and the first text a new number receives should say that is an option.
Keep the sign-up record. If a parent later asks why they are getting these, you want to say when and how they joined, not guess.
RallyText is a team texting service built by a youth sports coach. It is built to support MAAPP's electronic-communication requirement rather than leave it to memory. RallyText is not certified or endorsed by the U.S. Center for SafeSport. Here is what the system does, so you can judge the fit against your own policy.
ATHLETE Firstname keyword), the athlete's linked guardians and a second coach are copied automatically. No setting turns this off for a youth team. The one exception is a team marked adults-only with no minors on the roster, and that setting is logged.The Safe Sport texting page walks through each of these in more detail. If your program has no written electronic-communication policy yet, the checklist above is a fair place to start one.
Can a coach text a youth athlete directly?
Under the U.S. Center for SafeSport's MAAPP, a one-on-one electronic message from an adult participant to a minor athlete must be open and transparent: the adult copies or includes the athlete's parent or guardian, another adult family member, or another adult participant on every message. If the athlete texts first, the adult must still follow the rule when replying. Check your own governing body's version of the policy for exact wording and exceptions.
Does the copy-a-parent rule apply to team-wide texts too?
Yes. The 2025 MAAPP model policy says that when an adult participant communicates electronically to the entire team or any number of minor athletes, the adult must copy or include the minors' parents or guardians, another adult family member, or another adult participant.
What hours are OK for texting athletes?
The 2025 MAAPP lists hours as a recommended component: electronic communications should generally be sent only between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. local time for the minor athlete's location. Many programs adopt this as a firm rule.