conflict of interest?
 

An article in today's paper:

Pac-10 must address officiating conflict of interest

Comments?

I'd like to think that 99% of officials that officiate a game involving their alma matter would do so impartially but it is hard to ignore perception, especially when ignorant fans and media looking for a story are involved.

Quite frankly, I'm surprised that there are any Collegiate conferences that allow this.

I presume there once was a time when a "journalist" about to publish slanderous accusations against someone, would bother to have some semblance of fact, or proof that an incident actually happened, before trashing an individual, and beyond that an entire group of extremely hard working professionals. I thought remembering and supporting the University you attended, so that it may continue it's job of educating people, was a proper thing, perhaps even somewhat noble? When did it become a form of kick-back or indication of dishonesty.

Makes you wonder what kind of character Paolo Boivin actually has that he immediately conjurs up the worst possible conclusions without any evidence, or even rational suggestion, of the existence of the "problem" he has chosen to pontificate about.

Apparently in Mr. Boivin's circle of influence, attending a certain college obiliviates a lifetime of hard work, dedication to an avocation, a lifetime of adherence and dedication to understanding and interpretation of a set of rules. Are Judges allowed to rule on cases that involve individuals who may have attended the same college as the Judge. What about people who may have attended the same High School?

Should a Judge be allowed to preside over an issue where one of the principals lives in the same town? After all they very likely pay the same school and community taxes.

Just because "journalists" apparently have such a low level of ethics, sportsmanship and honesty doesn't mean officials share their tendencies. Makes you wonder how many, if any, journalists actually are officials. Apparently "journalists" lack the ability to be able to separate "A" from "B", perhaps that might be a cause of today's journalism being unable to separate their personal and political biases from their work.

It takes skill, dedication, a strong sense of knowing the difference between right and not right and perhaps most of all some measure of honesty and, above all, class to achieve one of the highest levels of officiating. I guess with "journalists" all you need is a big mouth, a suspicious mind and a willingness to engage your fantasies without filtering them through your mind.

Alf, sometimes I think you just write crap to get a reaction. You can't be serious. Have you ever heard the term, "appearance of impropriety."

I agree Walt. I don't have a problem with an official working a game at his alma mater. If he's made it to the level of a D1 official, he's already proven several times his ability to apply good judgment. If he gets too many calls wrong, regardless of school involved, he will no longer be working at that level, let alone that school.

However, the burdon of proof for conflict of interest only has to contain an appearance of impropriety. My company has several policies based on this. If my wife owned a business that could provide a service to my department, there might be nothing illegal or unethical happening but even the appearance of impropriety prevents me from doing it. The same could definitely apply to a conference of officials.

While I don't agree with the comments in the article, I have no issue with what he wrote.

The donor booster club thing should be enough to negate him from working their games.

I've seen it several times around here. The official in question may be eminently qualified to work a given game and those that know him would all agree that he can remain objective. Unfortunately, that's not the point. The point is that if any controversy arises and anyone on the outside can point to a potential bias it becomes a controversy. It's just not worth the headaches. There are plenty of games to work. Don't put yourself or your colleagues in the position to have to defend your objectivity.

Once again, Walt, you and the usual chorus of echos filter everything through your own prisms and wind up with your own foggy picture. My above comment has nothing to do with the "appearance of impropriety" as beheld by someone who has absolutely no credibility whatsoever in making such a judgment.

This bozo pontificates his opinions and denegrates the intentions and conduct of a fellow official, based entirely on his personal standards, which don't seem anywahere near the standards of the profession he has chosen to denigrate. If you are going to question someone's integrity, you should have absolute, conclusive proof of what you are suggesting, of shut your face until you do.

Your usual mastery of the obvious adds nothing. The "appearance of impropriety" is sadly an occupational reality. It has been developed, ingrained and populated by people who lack any credibility to do so, and in my humble opinion should be criticized whenever it rears it's ugly head.

We all respond to it in different ways, but none of US should ever defend it's relevance. Sure we have to deal with it, most accept it begrudgingly but only the truly weak minded among us are stupid enough to agree with it.

You shouldn't worry all that much about people who don't matter concluding things that don't count. It goes with the territory.

Kind of like the same thing you did when you didn't read enough of the link to discover that author is a woman.

wow
 

I think the author goes out of her way to say that she doesn't believe that officials at this level would cheat....but that it isn't fair to them or the universities involved to have that point brought up when mistakes are made...I whole heartedly agree that perception is reality, and in the case of potential conflicts of interest, why even put yourself in that situation....

or even got to this part of the article, about half way down.


"Frankly, I believe most Pac-10 officials are making on-field calls based on fact, not emotions. They are trained, hard-working and have the game's best interests at heart.
However . . .
The conference can't ignore perception, and putting an official at a game involving a school he attended is setting everyone up for failure.
Look at Fogltance. He might have done nothing wrong but his allegiances have caused this firestorm.
The truth is, officials make errors. Everybody makes errors. Don't put them in a position to have those mistakes blamed on bias."

Slander? Really?

I've done this twice. One time while refereeing Soccer, I officiated a game for my now-defunct alma mater. I had to call a penalty shot with time expired in a tie ball game. I hold that it was clearly the correct call, but I was totally shreded the next day in the local newspaper. I vowed that I would never do it again.

My first varsity football game was hosted by the school that my son was a freshman. I was the umpire and didn't do anything to impact the 51-7 outcome but afterwards realized that I probably should not have allowed myself in that position.

I have been officiating sports since I was 12 (now 41) and believe that I can be completely objective without regard to who the opponents are, however, as one D1 official said in our summer conference said, "do not put yourself in a position where there can be even an appearance of a conflict of interest."

I recited my vow again to never allow it to happen again. It's not whether we can do the job correctly, it's completely how the team will perceive a close call. The same reason that we do not treat one coach like an old friend and the opposing coach stoaiclly.

By this you, of course, mean everyone but you.

If you expect to only have officials that have never attended any schools in a major conference, then you will not get many qualified people to work. People attend schools in their region of the country. So unless someone lived in a completely different area, they likely had the possibility to attend one of the schools. And people that officiate are often are close to sports and either played or knew someone they are working with like the coaches. These conflict issues are mostly fan boy based and not based on reality. Heck, why not worry about if someone lives in a state and eliminate them too?

Peace

Seems to me that this is that officials fault for making a donation to his school and being on the donor list. I don't even use the awesome liscense plate frame my wife bought me because the last thing I want is for someone to know where I went to school. I tell the NCAA and the conferences because they ask, but I don't need to put my self out there for someone to find.

What possible difference does the writer's gender have to do with anything? If there was no intent to raise a question about the the integrity of the officials, why write this piece? Regarding the BYU incident mentioned, was there a mistake made, or was there an effort to cheat. Leaving the reader to ponder that choice without further clarification is a cheap, back-door attempt to side step criticism for taking a veiled cheap shot.

I wouldn't question any official for avoiding being involved in the spectacle of a perceived conflict of interest, that doesn't mean I have to accept some "journalist" raising the question that an official should not be placed in a position of absolute trust, because of what some fan or gambler assumes, based on their own character weakness.

My apologies to male sportswriters for assuming Paola was a male name. For the record Jim Sterk, San Diego State AD should be ashamed of himself for making such a flagrant public comment related to officiating. If he had a problem, and even a modicom of class, he would have taken the issue up with his League.

and yet you have no problem questioning the integrity of the SDSU AD without bothering to find out the sequence of events that led up to the resolution of the entire replay booth for the SDSU-BYU game getting suspended and where in that sequence of event said quote was made.

None whatsoever, there's no excuse for throwing someone under the bus publicly, so flagrantly. Classless. "I was shocked that they were connected that closely to the university in the replay booth," San Diego State Athletic Director Jim Sterk told reporters.", that's almost as shocking as Inspector Reneau's reaction to the fact there was gambling at Rick's.

What's funny to me is the difference between two countries.

A friend works college ball with me in Canada's largest conference. He has 3 alma matters: undergrad, grad, and an MBA.

We don't give a rat's *** where you graduated from. We're evaluated on every play of every game. 'Nuff said.

I don't think that it matters, depending on how long ago they graduated.

If the journalist did any fact checking they would have found:

In most cases the visiting teams bring thier own for inter-conference games (i.e. Big East vs. Big 10). Isn't that a conflict of interest?

NFL guys eventually work their home teams. Isn't that a conflict of interest?

To me, the guy being a booster is the bigger issue.

I think a lot of you are very much missing the point.

I went to XXX High School. I will not work games for that high school. Why???

For some, working their high school game, an official won't be able to get rid of that little bitty hope in the back of their head that they are rooting for their school. They may not think it alters their call, but it might.

For others, an official will be aware of that possibility - and might tend to make just that one close call the other way, to assure himself that he's not biased.

For still others, an official will not have an issue, but might tend to make just that on close call the other way, to assure any potential witnesses to the game that he's not biased.

All of those are bad.

For MOST of us, we likely would be able to officiate the game without any bias in either direction whatsoever.

HOWEVER - in any non-blowout, there are a few close calls where whichever way you rule, 50% hate you, 50% love you. It comes with the territory. Half of the time, that close call (however rightly) goes in favor of "your" school. ANY person with a rooting interest on the other side will immediately come to the conclusion that you made the call (however rightly) in that direction because of your bias. Even if that is 100% wrong, the perception is there.

THAT is why I will not do games for my high school.

I dunno, call me professional then, because I don't care who wins: including any of my alma matters.

This happen because I don't have some hope that my alma matter secretly wins. Instead, I prefer to know that the game was called according to the rules and most current interpretations (ARs, IRs, etc...). It's called being professional.

That may all be true, but it doesn't alter what others are thinking of you.

I'm good...the high school I graduated from 39 years ago doesn't exist anymore.

I don't work the varsity games at my alma mater because too many people know where I live and I don't want the windows busted out of my house.

I do however work the sub-varsity games and get accused of homering the home team.

i'm good too if I stay out of the school my kids attend. My College, High School, Middle School, and Elementary schools are all closed. The only one that is left is that elementary school where I spent my first 3 months of kindergarten. I think they were going to call me once but I would have turned them down for that 5 yr old flag football contest during PE.

I don't answer to others. I answer to my conference. And they have no problem with it.

Like I said, don't tell them where you went to school and it will be a non issue.

When I worked college baseball, I was assigned to a school where I was a CURRENT (MBA) student. I told the assignor and he told me to go work the games anyway, that nobody would know or care. I thought (and still do) that moving 2 officials would've been a better choice.

I do not advertise where I live. I don't cheer at local sports events (I don't have time to attend them since I'm already working elsewhere). I did work 2 GV basketball games at the local school cause I was contracted before I moved and, quite frankly, I know *nobody* in town. Now that my daughter's in the district, I'm doing nothing more than working a paid scrimmage and maybe a subvarsity game from time to time.

I see officials wear their alma maters on their sleeves and go to local games and cheer as if they were still in high school. I guess that works for them, but I'm paranoid enough to recognize that the conference where I live has 11 other teams and that being seen as a homer for one conference team (and I know at least one guy with that reputation locally) taints the perception of the official when he works any games in the conference. And I'm not willing to throw away 11 teams to root for one -- and it doesn't matter to me because I didn't grow up here.

Maybe I'll feel different when my daughter is playing basketball (if she does).

How far do we take this. How about we move the Stanford replay guy from the booth at Stanford over to the Oregon game. Now, Stanford is 2nd in the PAC 10. The replay official makes a call against Oregon who loses. Now Stanford shares the PAC 10 title. Where does it end. The point is that there is no way to get away from ties to the schools we officiate.

I have officiated my high school 3 times (all losses by them). Who cares. If you have a crew of five guys from your area good luck finding games that don't involve one of your schools.

I have stopped singing the alma mater before the games though.

Lastly, I bet this all came about because the PAC 10 is too cheap to pay for mileage and hotels for its replay officials.