This pretty much sums up my entire feelings why sports officials should not have to undergo background checks, especially at their own expense.

Besides, as a colleague on the softball board wisely points out...

Background checks only identify those that have already been caught.

Actually, I think the request for background checks weeds out more people than the procuring and reading of the background check does.

You might want to check out the official we had in our association who spent a few years in jail after forming a relationship with a kid he had contact with through officiating. Those that want to have unsupervised contact will find a way. No association would want to have him join their board now and the background check would prevent it. Otherwise, he's free to try it again.

And then tried to come across the river and ref for us...heard we used background checks and declined to do the paperwork.

DING DING DING DING

This x1000.

So a placebo effect would have been sufficient

I get a little pissy when people start using news stories to enact measures that would have done nothing to prevent the event that precipitated the story. This particular story will likely lead to background checks in Colorado, and I will comply with it (not a big deal for me). I'm not comfortable with the application and logistics.

I had to submit to a background check to be registered to officiate with the MN State High School League. Didn't cost me anything that I can recall. I believe it was in response to a new law passed by the MN legislature.

Associations don't do background checks, nor should they IMHO. But they do check to make sure you're registered with the high school league (and if you fail the background check, you won't be registered).

IIRC, the background check is good for 3 or 4 years.

If a background check had been done on this guy before that incident (assuming this was his first conviction) it would have done NOTHING to prevent that from happening. Now that he has been caught, the background check should pick that up.

Actually it wouldn't, at least not yet..

But if we assume he's guilty and eventually convicted, then a BC should pick that up ... and wouldn't that be the point of the BC - to keep it from happening again?

I'm wondering ... has there been any sort of follow up information on this story? I still don't believe the whole thing - too many not believable things in it.

Background checks for officials is a solution in search of a problem.

We aren't alone with kids. They need to give the head bagger at the local supermarket a background check before they do it to officials.

Catholic schools went into panic mode when the priest sex scandal broke and adopted all sorts of rules requiring everyone from cafeteria ladies to the principal to undergo training and checks so they could claim they checked everybody who had any contact with a child. It was a product of the lack of supervision by a variety of dioceses over priests and was equal parts prevention and public relations. Officials will soon be in the same boat after nitwit school board members try to grab some ink by proposing it. and anyone who objects will branded as having "something to hide." The thing is, the pervs are going after kids who they get in private after gaining their trust; they're not getting jobs reffing a ballgame in front of the kids' parents so they can get fresh with kids.

But we're close enough to them and can be around them enough to gain their trust....and perhaps turn that into something more. It has happened here and will happen again. It would have happened near here had our neighboring organization not done such a check....that prevented the person that got caught in our our from joining a different one. When it happens to someone you know, you'll wonder why the organization didn't bother to require a simple and cheap criminal history check that likely would have shown the offender to have a history. It doesn't have to be a through and expensive check...the basc checks are enough.

Yeah we are around kids, but we do not have necessarily more access to kids than fans or other people that are at a school. Better yet if the school does the right things we are not in any actual person contact with students except on the playing surface area. All the sex offense cases that involved an official that I have heard was never surrounding the games, but some off site situation that often did not involve the sport the person was officiating. I have no problem with background checks on many levels, but think some of this is over stated how important they are to actually protecting kids. There are by far more teachers sleeping with kids than officials.

Peace

My biggest fear is that the schools, and parents, will somehow see background checks as a great and successful measure. This is the danger in doing "something." A better option, IMO, would be as Jeff suggests here and just ensuring that officials don't have unsupervised access to kids on school property.

How many times have we had kids walk into our dressing areas to get something for coach, or to pick up some homework they left in that office?

I had a young lady walk into a locker room (girl's locker room) where a bunch of men were literally about to take off their pants when she walked in on us for some Saturday morning games. There was about 6 or us in the room and this girl just walks up in the locker room like it was nothing. That was IMO the fault of the school, not us. And if the right situation took place, we would have been accused of something inappropriate that we did not do. The guy in the OP was accused of something out in the open; I can only imagine what would have been the tenor if that situation where the young lady walked into our locker room and accused someone of doing something to her. And we had no video tape to back us up. And no one noticed so much in the OP story that authorities had to review the tape.

I think we have a solution clearly looking for a problem if people feel this will prevent all interactions that would be deemed inappropriate with officials.

Peace