Armchair Quarterback: Background checks are a good idea
It is better safe than sorry when it comes to our kids and the influences coaches, leaders and teachers have on them.
Hey, Warren County is notorious for producing more than its share of perverts when it comes to persons of trust messing around with kids. All you have to do is mention Warren County outside this area in relation to coaches, teachers and leaders messing with kids and folks all around the midstate are very aware of our unpopular claim the fame, to which Pam Turner is only one of the latest.
It is for this reason I support the background checks now being ordered for any person who wants to coach baseball in the Warren County Youth League. Sure, we basically know most folks who are volunteer coaches around here, but there is the occasional person who could be among us who has a seedy past. Conducting background checks, along with identifying such people, will also discourage them from even applying for participation in the league as a coach.
And something else which I like about background checks, besides catching potential perverts, is catching hot heads who have no business on the diamond. We?ve all seen these blowhards who go berserk on the field when a call doesn?t go their way. Fortunately the league has been able to squelch a lot of these problem coaches before they really go off. However, the background check will tell us about people prone to violence and folks who cannot control their temper.
Should a person who opened up a can on someone in a parking lot one time be banned? Well, I wouldn?t go that far since everyone should be allowed one slobber-knocker in their life (just not in front of the kids). However, if a person is identified as a wife beater, a child abuser or a person who has had numerous arrests for assault and crimes of aggression, I don?t think they should be allowed to coach our kids. Frankly, I don?t want some guy, no matter how good a teacher he may be, who has a hair-trigger temper coaching my kid.
I personally plan to help coach this year so I?ll be putting my name in for a background check. Frankly, I don?t see why anyone would have a problem with allowing a criminal history check, even if there are some minor violations in there. Nobody?s perfect, after all, and in fact some of the best people I know are folks who have had run-ins with the law in their pasts before they straightened things out. I don?t have a problem with folks like that, my problem is with perverts and physical abusers.
With that said, let me go into the future a bit and say I hope these checks continue to be done by the sheriff?s department here. While the TBI checks may be more sweeping, there then becomes a cost that volunteers will be forced to pay at $29 a shot, the fee charged for each check performed by the agency. It may not stop me from coaching, but it just wouldn?t seem right for a person to pay to prove their innocence at that point.
Besides, I think merely requiring background checks will stop persons with serious criminal histories from even offering their services as volunteers on the diamond. It?s weeding them out, which is one of the main goals of the program. And I?m sure it?s also a lessening of liability, since the league is doing something to discourage undesirables in the coaching ranks.