Big Ten Background Checks Leave a Little to be Desired

A co-worker of mine (the favor-accepting, ex Ohio State fencer whom you may recall) sent me this link first thing this morning about last season’s Ohio State/Illinois game.

I read the headline and immediately responded with something like “big deal…all that means is that they might have been undefeated when LSU kicked their asses.” He insisted that I actually read the entire article, so I ignored the “Days since Michigan last beat OSU” counter and went on. In case you threw up and didn’t make it to the end, here is the major highlight:

(the play in question)

“The crew working the game, headed by referee Steve Pamon, had come under criticism for its work the previous week when Purdue played Penn State. After the season, a Yahoo Sports investigation revealed Pamon had a history of bankruptcy, casino gambling, child abuse and allegations of sexual harassment.”

Makes you do a double-take right? Now consider this: The same crew that worked the OSU/UI game was suspended the following week for their performance in the Penn State/Purdue game a week prior. Per a Sportingnews.com blog post from the week after the incident, the Big Ten admitted to Joe Tiller that the officials had “missed several calls during the game.”

Here’s a link to an ESPN.com story with more details about this from December 2007. Apparently Pamon was $400K in debt from gambling losses, which caused him to file for bankruptcy.

So let me get this straight…a crew of officials, one of whom had once amassed almost half a million dollars in gambling debts and had to declare bankruptcy because of it, makes calls that are reviewed and determined to be 100% wrong in multiple instances, and this story has no legs?

As far as I see it this is a COLOSSAL issue in the wake of the Tim Donaghy situation in the NBA. I’m not sure who is in bed with whom on this one, but this hasn’t been in the news much at all, and ESPN even tries to sugarcoat their coverage of it, which as far as I’m concerned exposes them for the knob-slobbering morons that they are. This quote from the article says it all: “But while Pamon filed for bankruptcy in 2002, the Big Ten didn’t conduct its background check on Pamon until 2005.”

Now correct me if I’m wrong here, but isn’t the purpose of a background check to uncover things that happened in the past that have the potential to compromise a person’s ability to do a job in the present and future? If my math is right, 2002 came before 2005, which means that some red flags should have shown up on the background check. Apparently the NCAA and the Big Ten didn’t ask enough questions…probably because they were too busy getting a detail together to put a wire on Ron Zook’s text messages.

Oh, and Pamon was cleared to officiate bowl games, including the BCS.

I understand why the NCAA and Big Ten want this story to go away, but it’s time for everyone else to call them out for their stupidity and arrogance. It’s not like other sports haven’t had gambling issues before. This seems like it should be a top concern for everyone.

We’re getting closer to the day when nothing that happens in any sport will ever be believable. In the meantime, I can’t wait to find out what Class D high school games these guys will be refereeing this year so I can throw my paychecks on the underdog and the points.

Tenacious E

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