The rubric

How we check a trainer

Every trainer on this site carries one of three tiers. The tier tells you how much work we have done, not how good the coach is — and on most entries the honest answer is "not much yet."

Updated 11 September 2026

The three tiers

Tier	What we have done	What it does not mean
Listed	We found the business and recorded what it publishes about itself — name, city, specialty, format, and a rate where one is published. The entry names its source and the date we last looked.	We have not spoken to them, and we have not confirmed that the contact route still works.
Contact confirmed	Everything above, plus a phone number or email address that we found published by the trainer or their program and that looked live when we checked.	Still no conversation and no review. A working phone number says a business exists, not that it is right for your child.
PPA Verified	Everything above, plus a complete public record: an active handle, a site of their own, a phone number, an email address, and a rate they publish. Nothing about a trainer at this tier is guesswork on our part — every field came from something they published themselves.	It is not a personal review. A complete record means we could check everything; it does not mean we have met them, watched a session, or called a reference. It is not a background check or a safeguarding certification, and it is not a promise about anybody's conduct.

Where the directory stands today

Published counts, so you can see the shape of it rather than take our word for it:

Tier	Trainers	Share
PPA Verified	48	5%
Contact confirmed	512	48%
Listed	506	47%

1,066 trainers in five sports, and just over half of them reachable. By sport, contact confirmed: softball 268 of 332, basketball 127 of 225, football 67 of 212, baseball 57 of 166, soccer 41 of 131. Softball is the most complete table on the site. Soccer is the thinnest, and the reason is on the next line.

What we held back

121 entries came out of the source list and are not published, because publishing them would have been worse than leaving a gap:

• 75 entries with no credible primary source. Mostly soccer. Some were leads generated by a tool rather than found; some turned out to be products, apps, or event businesses rather than a person who coaches.
• 46 elite and professional-level basketball trainers. Real people with real reputations, but the references are articles and podcasts rather than a booking page, and they are not realistically available to a family looking for a first paid coach. Listing them would pad the basketball table without helping anyone.

A further 62 soccer entries carried phone numbers in the fictional 555 range — placeholders from the tool that produced the source list. 50 of those entries had nothing else credible behind them and are among the 75 dropped above. The remaining 12 are published at Listed with their phone numbers removed, and with their email addresses removed too, since those came from the same source.

What the badge is deliberately not

No badge on this site is a safety credential. We are one person reading public records and making calls, and there are checks a parent must do that we cannot do for you:

• Ask what background check the trainer has had, and when.
• Ask what safeguarding or abuse-prevention training they hold — for youth sport in the United States, ask specifically about SafeSport.
• Ask for two references from families who have finished a block of sessions, and call them.
• Ask to watch a session before you book one, and say no if you are told you cannot.
• Ask whether sessions are ever one-to-one out of public view, and decide what you are comfortable with.

A trainer who answers those five questions easily is telling you something. So is one who does not.

When an entry carries a caution

Some entries show Verify this contact yourself next to the tier. It means we could not establish a current, bookable person behind the listing, and the source line says which way it fell short:

• Social profile only — a live public profile, but no phone or email we could confirm. Use the profile, and confirm who you are talking to before you pay anyone.
• Organization confirmed, coach not — the business is real and current; whether this particular person still coaches there is not established.
• Placeholder contact removed — the source gave us a fake phone number, so we removed it and the email beside it.
• Secondary source only — found in an article or a roster rather than anything the trainer publishes themselves.
• Location unconfirmed — the program is real but the address we have may be a former one.
• Not a public listing — the role is confirmed, but the person does not advertise private sessions. Treat an approach as a cold one.

96 entries carry the caution. We publish them because a lead a parent can check is worth more than a gap, and we mark them because an unmarked lead is worse than nothing.

Why an entry loses its tier

A tier is a statement about a date. Entries drop back when a number stops working, a site goes dark, a rate disappears, or a correction we cannot confirm arrives. Nothing here is permanent, and the date on each entry is the one to read.

The tier we have not awarded yet

There is a step beyond a complete record: a call with the trainer, two references from families who finished a block of sessions, and watching how they run one. No entry on this site has been through it. When one has, it will say so on the entry in those words, and this page will say how many.

If you are a trainer

You can move up a tier without paying us anything. Publish a phone number or email on your own site and tell us where to find it, and the entry becomes contact confirmed on the next pass. For the top tier we need a call, two references, and a way to see how you run a session — and we will tell you plainly if we come away unconvinced rather than quietly leaving you at a lower tier.

You can also ask to be removed, for any reason or none. Email us and it is done.

Email us