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Moundsville to Begin Background Checks for Coaches

New plan put in place to give city, parents peace of mind

MOUNDSVILLE — Parents of the youth sports teams in Moundsville can look forward to knowing that the coaches their kids are learning under have been properly vetted.

The city’s Parks and Recreation Director John White told council this week of numerous projects the department was working on. Topping the list was that the department planned to soon begin carrying out background checks on coaches, ensuring that the young athletes are in good hands.

White said the checks would be carried out for peace of mind for both the city and the parents, in the face of more people coming in from out-of-town for industrial work.

“I don’t expect we’ll find anything, but … we have a lot of people who come into the area, especially with construction coming across the river, we’ve got new people moving into the area,” he said in an interview Thursday. “In all parents’ minds, when they send their kids out (to practice) — because a lot of them don’t have time to be at practice, they’ve got other kids in other places — and I just want to be sure that we all feel comfortable with having someone send their kid to practice, to games, to make sure everyone is safe and has a good time.”

Between baseball, softball, flag football, tackle football, White estimated that Moundsville works with around 150 coaches. Some, he said, coach multiple sports.

“We just needed to start somewhere, and I know a lot of other communities have already implemented this. We may be one of the first ones in our area, but we know it’s the right thing to do, and we have a lot of good volunteers who coach right now.

“I really don’t expect to find anything to come out on the negative side, but we just want to make sure that we’re covering all our bases. … The cracker plant might bring in thousands of people just in workers alone, and their kids and families — we want to welcome them, obviously, but it only takes one incident for something to go south. We really are trying to get ahead of it and make sure that we don’t have to go through it.

Councilman Gene Saunders, who also serves as a coach for the Moundsville Panthers, said he supports the measure, and that he, as a coach, already conducts background checks on his own team.

“We want to make sure the kids are safe, make sure that we have people who want to coach who don’t have some sort of record,” Saunders said Friday.

“I think it’s great.”

White said that while it wasn’t finalized yet, he was anticipating that the background checks would be offered by JD Palatine, of Pittsburgh, which specializes in youth sports. As of Thursday, he was unsure of the actual cost, but anticipated that whatever the cost ended up being, it could be absorbed by a slight increase in the playing fees.

“We’ve had a lease agreement fee of $75 per team. We’re thinking of raising that to $80, we’re thinking that would cover our costs over a period of time,” White said. “Over a couple years, we’re hoping to recoup that and spread that cost out over time.”

White also said the department had several other projects in the works. Among them are a sidewalk connecting Fourth Street to East End Playground, a “challenge course” near the soccer fields on 12th Street, and a sports and crafts camp to come to Moundsville in the summer.

“There’s a lot of little things going on,” White said. “We’re excited, and we’re hoping to get a lot of interest.”

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