The Park, Beach and Recreation Commission in the city of Milford, CT is planning to require background checks for all coaches in the city’s recreation programs. The Commission is drafting a revised processing procedure for new coaches.
“‘We hope whatever we give to City Attorney Marilyn Lipton is airtight,’ commission Chairman Daniel Worroll said.”
If by “airtight” they mean “no evil doer will ever get through,” then our friends in Milford are doomed to failure. There is no airtight.
People fail to do what they’re supposed to. They make mistakes. Some of them lie and get away with it. The best you can hope for is a system that works most of the time and is easy enough to use that people will follow it.
Mr. Worroll also said something else that actually made me chuckle.
“We’re also thinking of asking umpires to go through background checks, as well as volunteers in concession stands since they come in contact with kids.”
Here’s the background. A summer league basketball coach was convicted in September of sexually assaulting a teenaged player. Now the Commission, which has been dithering over new standards for coaches for two years, has been spurred into action. Evidently they think that if they write enough rules and check enough people everything will be OK.
Doing background checks on coaches makes sense. I’m not sure about umpires. But concession stand volunteers? Why not just check all the people in the stands? Heck, don’t stop there, station city workers with laptops at the entrances to the park and use SentryLink to check everyone who walks in.
Doing background checks on people in sensitive positions is smart. Do it. But use a little common sense about who’s a threat. Otherwise you’ll be checking everyone in the world.