Referees Under Microscope

With growing concern over the grip gambling has on college basketball fans, the NCAA continues to seek ways to ensure the integrity of its tournaments.

For the first time, the NCAA will require referees to submit to random background investigations by an outside security agency before being able to work the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments next spring.

Bill Saum, the NCAA’s director of agent and gambling activities, said officials wanting to work either tournament have until Dec. 1 to send the NCAA signed release forms agreeing to the background checks.

The release form allows the NCAA to look into employment and credit history, civil litigation and motor vehicle registration records.

For several years now, game officials have been required to send in affidavits regarding felony convictions for illegal sports wagering, sports bookmaking or sports bribery.

Saum said he could not remember exactly when the NCAA began requiring the signed affidavits.

“But it’s well over five years,” he added. “The background checks are the next step.”

New on the affidavit, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, are questions about referee ownership of 10% or more in a business, bankruptcy filings, collection accounts, liens, lawsuits or judgments against.

“The NCAA has always cared about the gambling issue, and the referee affidavits and background checks are one way to protect the integrity of the games,” Saum said.

“We are now falling in line with . . . pro sports organizations. We know there are significant dollars wagered on college basketball, and the referees ensure the integrity of the contest. I look at this as a positive step for game officials. It takes away from media and fans the idea . . . [of making] comments about their integrity.”

Representatives of major league baseball, the NBA and the NFL said background checks are routinely done on all potential employees, among them owners, players, referees, officials and umpires.

The new NCAA policy was approved by its management council in July but not announced publicly. The recommendation for background checks on referees came from the NCAA men’s basketball committee two years ago. That 10-member committee selects the 96 officials who work the men’s tournament. A women’s basketball committee assigns the officials for the women’s tournament.

Saum said the new policy, for which the NCAA has budgeted $10,000 this season, applies only to the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.

“During the regular season, the referees are regulated by the conferences,” he added. “During the tournament championships, they are under our guidance.”

Each tournament uses a pool of 96 officials, selected the same weekend the teams are picked for the tournaments, Saum said. The pools are not interchangeable. Only officials who have worked men’s games will work the men’s tournament and vice versa.

Of that total of 192, 100 randomly selected officials will undergo background checks.

Craig Thompson, Big West Conference commissioner and men’s basketball committee chairman, said he understood two-thirds of the release forms sent out had been signed and returned. NCAA officials would neither confirm nor deny that figure.

But that doesn’t mean the new policy is being universally embraced.

David Libbey, dean of students at the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts, has been a basketball referee for 30 years, 21 years in Division I. He has worked games in the Pacific 10, West Coast and Big 12 conferences, as well as Conference USA and the Western Athletic Conference. He has officiated 40 NCAA tournament games in the last 12 years, including the Final Four five times and title games in 1992 and 1996.

Libbey said he reluctantly signed the release form and affidavit two weeks ago. But he thinks the NCAA is going too far.

“If all they’re concerned about is if you’ve been convicted of illegal gambling, then why check bankruptcy and credit reports?” Libbey asked.

Mel Narol, a New Jersey attorney who specializes in sports law, business law and employment law, has officiated basketball games for 15 years. He said that it’s “a close call” on whether the forms constitute an invasion of privacy but that he didn’t think referees had enough of a case to pursue in the courts.

That doesn’t mean Narol is pleased with the NCAA’s action.

“The questions on the forms need to be reevaluated,” he said. “The magnitude and scope of the questions being asked . . . seem to go beyond what is necessary to protect the game.”

Ed T. Rush, the NBA’s director of officiating, also questioned the appropriateness of the release forms and affidavits.

“I would fight it,” Rush said. “Not the principal itself, but I’d want to know if there are other participants [under] that policy. Can we do background checks on Bobby Knight and his assistants, or just the three officials working his game?

“If we are singling out one group, the officials, then we’re not doing a complete background check.”

Referees are not the only ones concerned.

“I’m not completely comfortable with this,” Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen said. “The NCAA has been making a strenuous effort to combat gambling and Bill Saum is leading the effort. He has done a fine job. But I think this may be an overreach.

“There is no evidence of an official compromising a game in the NCAA tournament. Conferences hire officials for regular-season games and assign them to member schools’ games. We don’t do a formal background check, like the FBI. But these people are known to us in their communities. Our [referee] coordinators know them. So they don’t come out of a vacuum when they come into our programs.”

Hansen also was bothered that the NCAA had implemented the background-check program without consulting with the conference commissioners.

“They advised us at a meeting in Indianapolis in October [that the changes] were taking place, and I thought then there were a number of commissioners that were uncomfortable with the program.”

Having seen the new affidavit officials must sign, Hansen said he could understand hesitation on their part.

“I thought the questions were broad and far ranging,” he said. “And they made it clear that not signing means no working in the tournaments.”

Barry Mano, publisher of Referee magazine, a monthly publication he said has a circulation of 90,000, said the unhappiness over the release forms and affidavits runs deeper than either Thompson or Saum believes.

“It’s not revolving around the idea of ‘If you don’t have anything to hide, fill out forms,’ ” Mano said. “What this revolves around is the NCAA instituting this program and mandating it.

“Their intentions are fine. You want to ferret out any officials who have gambling convictions. But say a person was convicted for wagering at age 22, became an official at age 26 and is now at age 52. He has worked the Final Four the past six years. Now this comes out, and now he’s so unclean that he’s all done. There is no appeal. It’s a life sentence.”

Saum defended the release forms and affidavits, saying the NCAA is trying to establish “how close an official is to a detrimental gambling situation.

“Our game officials are at as much risk as anyone else [to outside influence] that is part of the game--including coaches and athletes,” he said. “Referees are in a position to affect the outcome of the game.

“We have no firsthand information that an official has affected the outcome of a game because of a gambling situation. We do have information from time to time that some referees do some sports wagering, which we believe is inappropriate. There has been an official who was not appointed to the tournament due to the manner in which he filled out the gambling affidavit form.”

Thompson said he could imagine resistance “until you give the logic behind it.

“As a group, the officials may feel singled out,” he added. “But the school administrators, coaches and athletes are under a different set of regulations through the NCAA. The only group not scrutinized had been the officials, until now.”

Both Saum and Thompson said it’s possible the NCAA will review the release forms and affidavits and eliminate some of the questions. But the background checks are to become routine requirements for referees seeking tournament assignments.

College basketball has had its share of gambling scandals, dating to 1951 when 32 players from seven schools were implicated in the fixing of 86 games. Among those arrested were three players from the City College of New York team that had won the NCAA tournament and the NIT the previous year.

There have been six gambling scandals in football and basketball in the 1990s. The most recent occurred in 1998, when several Northwestern University basketball players were indicted on charges of shaving points, conspiring to fix games and accepting bets during the 1994-95 season.

Two Arizona State basketball players were convicted in 1997 of shaving points during the 1993-94 season.

But no case has involved referees. And that, Libbey said, is why the game officials he has talked with are unhappy about the NCAA’s plan.

“We know there is a major gambling problem,” Libbey said. “And we know that people know who we [referees] are.

“We have to be careful. But why are the referees being selected any more than students, athletes or coaches? I feel anyone involved in the sport should have to sign something like this.”

Libbey said he expects several top basketball officials to refuse to sign the release forms.

“But [the NCAA] knows it can get people [to officiate],” he added. “Referees are independent contractors, working from year to year. Even if the top 10 officials now working quit, [the games would be played]. We are expendable.

“But if we’re going to do something like this, it’s got to include everyone. And I don’t see that happening.”