Pac-10 reacts to NBA scandal

LOS ANGELES – The Pacific-10 Conference has no plans to increase its scrutiny of game officials in reaction to the ongoing NBA scandal, even as coaches and league administrators acknowledged that something similar could happen in college sports.
“A couple of other coaches from other leagues have talked to me and said they truly believe that it’s going on in their leagues,” Oregon’s Mike Bellotti, dean of Pac-10 coaches, said Thursday at the conference’s media day. “I don’t think that stuff’s going on in the Pac-10. I think that there’s enough scrutiny and replay and understanding that it’s hard to think it could occur. Now, are we nave enough to say that there’s nothing at all, and it’s never ever happened? Probably not.”
The Big Ten and Atlantic Coast conferences do background checks on the people who officiate their games.
The Pac-10 and most other conferences rely on NCAA checks of those who officiate bowl games and NCAA tournament games.
About half of the Pac-10’s football officials are estimated to have been checked in this way.
“(The NBA incident) hasn’t changed anything, but it just brings home again the critical role the officials play in every game in all sports and the vulnerability we have with people,” Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen said. “No matter how hard you work to observe, to check, to do everything you can with people … you can never be certain. That’s why we’re very diligent.”
NCAA rules prohibit coaches and players from even friendly wagering and office pools, and the same rules apply to the people who officiate games. The Pac-10 stresses these prohibitions regularly. And instant replay brings officials under a closer microscope.
But for all that, the coaches of Washington’s two state Pac-10 schools acknowledged that humans make rules and humans break rules.
“These problems exist because human nature exists,” Washington coach Tyrone Willingham said. “My quick belief is when Eve gave Adam the apple, everything after that was gone. Those things are going to happen, it doesn’t matter what safeguards are put in.”
Washington State coach Bill Doba framed it similarly.
“Not to say that they’re doing it and not to accuse them of it, but we’re human,” Doba said. “Sometimes we get in a hole and do things that are out of character.”
In the NBA case, referee Tim Donaghy resigned while under federal investigation for allegedly betting on games he officiated, perhaps affecting the point spread of games on which he and/or associates had wagered.
It also alleged Donaghy might have provided inside information to bettors, something else the Pac-10 warns against, even among its sports-information personnel.
Unlike NBA referees, college officials usually work other jobs. Because of that, Bellotti speculated, they might be less susceptible to temptation because they often get into officiating because of their love of the game.
Hansen added that the Pac-10’s relationships are more personal and might foster the kind of knowledge that could quickly trigger suspicions than those officials have in the NBA.
“We know these people,” Hansen said. “If all of a sudden (an official who makes his living as) a school teacher starts buying summer property or boats or fancy cars, most people know him well (enough to wonder). I think that might be our single best way of knowing.”
The Pac-10 will play this season under a new coordinator of football officiating.
Dave Cutaia was hired in April after almost three decades in officiating and 34 years in law enforcement.