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the PIAA recently released a 5 page statement regarding this article. Here is an excerpt that directly responded to the article:
NOTE REGARDING RECENT PUBLICATIONS ON THIS ISSUE:
In a recent article published by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, it was reported that a few
PIAA-registered officials had been convicted of criminal offenses but had been allowed
to officiate PIAA Contests. The reporter did a thorough job and, while concerned that
any persons convicted of serious crimes have officiated Contests, PIAA was not
disappointed to see that fewer than 1% of the PIAA-registered officials in the District VII
and District VIII areas had prior criminal convictions of any kind, and most of those were
for misdemeanors and offenses that occurred 15 to 20 years ago. PIAA was even more
pleased to note that, after the thorough and yearlong investigation was completed, there
was no finding that any official, at any time, committed an offense relating to, or arising
out of, his or her officiating duties. In any event, PIAA was grateful that the reporter
brought to the attention of PIAA incidents that raise question about whether certain
officials should remain registered with PIAA.
PIAA promptly responded to the information provided to it by investigating the persons
identified by the reporter. Almost all had been convicted of offenses prior to when PIAA
began to require newly registering officials to disclose prior criminal convictions. Most
of the convictions were over ten years ago, with the official maintaining a clean record
since the earlier conviction. Only one of the convictions was for a felony that would
have automatically barred the official from registration (that official, who had already
been suspended by PIAA, will soon have a hearing to determine whether to remove him
from the list of registered officials). PIAA has contacted each of the identified officials
and obtained information permitting PIAA to make a reasoned assessment as to
whether any of them should be disqualified from further officiating. What was learned
about some of the officials identified in the article are set forth below:
● David Coligan: The article reports on various charges brought against Mr.
Coligan, apparently taking as fact the allegations made against him. It then notes in
passing that Mr. Coligan was actually guilty only of a summary offense and paid a $249
fine. A criminal background check of Mr. Coligan would not have disclosed any
offenses that would have barred him from any employment with a school or otherwise.
● William Miller: The article reports that Mr. Miller pled guilty to "interference
with the custody of children." He was placed on probation and received no prison time.
PIAA determined the Mr. Miller was involved with a public outreach ministry in a drug
infested area. The child in question was discovered at the outdoor outreach ministry,
accompanied by sixty other children and four counselors. There was no allegation of
abuse, threats or intimidation of the child.
A couple of additional observations and corrections to the Post-Gazette article are
probably also appropriate for those who may have read it:
● The article incorrectly asserts that "though partially funded by tax dollars, the
PIAA also maintains it is not bound by state laws requiring checks on anyone in contact
with children." This statement is incorrect in both of its premises. First, PIAA is a nonprofit
corporation that is not funded by any governmental entity and receives no tax
dollars. The second error is the incorrect assumption that "state laws require checks on
anyone in contact with children." No such law exists. Rather, Acts 34 and 151 do
require schools to conduct such background checks for certain persons. PIAA,
however, is not a school and, so far as we are aware, no person with knowledge of the
laws has ever implied that the laws would apply to PIAA.
● The article also incorrectly states that Acts 34 and 151 "bar anyone convicted of
most misdemeanors from working in schools near children." The crimes identified
under the Acts are specifically limited to a fairly narrow range of offenses, most of which
are felonies.
● While the article states, without support, that there are dozens of PIAA-registered
officials with criminal records, it fails to note that almost all of these are for summary
offenses or misdemeanors and that most occurred more than ten years ago, with the
officials maintaining a "clean" record since then. None of the offenses relate to
interscholastic athletics.
● The article implied that PIAA, which reported $567,982 in membership dues from
athletic officials, should not have much difficulty in implementing mandatory criminal
background checks. However, those dues total an average of only $41.45 per each of
the 13,700 registered officials and those registration fees are used to cover a wide
range of services provided in training and organization. The anticipated cost of
background
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