Background investigation release form

[greymule]

A HS basketball official in a neighboring county was just arrested for following a player around the school before the game asking to see her feet!

Weird behavior, no doubt some sort of sexual disorientation. The girl may very well have been lucky to escape danger. Who knows? But what did they charge this official with?

Between games last year, a girl about 10 years old tried to retrieve some softballs that had been caught in tangled netting in the backstop. As I stood near the plate, I watched her climb about 12 feet up, when she realized she wouldn't be able to reach the balls, and tried to descend. However, partly because she was wearing "heelys," she found going down harder than going up and became a little anxious. So I got under her, directed her down, and sort of caught her as she let go and fell a little ways. Amazingly, I was not arrested (but the thought definitely crossed my mind).

I wish I had an answer to background checks. Here in NJ, Megan Kanka was raped and murdered by a convicted child molester whom the state had housed in a suburban neighborhood full of kids—without informing anybody. So New Jersey passed laws to make people feel good and make politicians look tough on perverts. The result has been that a few guys are on a list, the vast majority of dangerous pedophiles are not on it, and a college student who "streaked" past the homecoming bonfire technically violated the new law (there were children under 10 present or something) and has been branded a "sex offender" for life. So when he graduates and applies for that nice job, he comes up on the list.

Princeton University used to have its co-ed "nude olympics" every year at the first snowfall. Maybe what stopped it was fear of being labeled a sex offender.

In the early 1950s, we discovered that Communist spies working on the atom bomb had supplied the Soviet Union with key information. Nobody had done a background check. What happened as a result is well known.

If ASA or NCAA told me I had to submit to a background check before I could umpire another youth game, I'd resist and try to get other officials to do the same, but in the end, neither I nor I suspect many other officials can afford to walk away.