San Diego School District: Con Man Swim Coach James Pantera ‘Will Not Be Hired’
Better Late Than Never: Swimming World Magazine Acknowledges Story of Con Man Coach in San Diego
February 26, 2013Further On the Con Man Swim Coach in San Diego — From a Parent on the Ground There
February 27, 2013San Diego Unified School District spokesman Jack Brandais just provided this new statement:
“Mr. Pantera has not met the requirements under the Education Code for employment by our district. He will not be hired, nor will he be allowed to volunteer his time.”
That comes as a relief to anyone who feared that this gazebo was so delusional that he would continue to try to worm his way into the San Diego swimming community, despite having a criminal and multiple-identity history that was thoroughly exposed by Mike Saltzstein.
I would think a postmortem is in order, whereby the school board or the superintendent reverse-engineers what happened to cause such a catastrophic breakdown of the background check system, and determines what needs to be done to prevent a recurrence.
As someone with an eye on the national problem of the “kids last” values of our Olympic swimming program, I now return to the bankruptcy of oversight at USA Swimming — as exhibited first in the Charles Baechler case and now in the Pantera case. The scalpel for that postmortem belongs in the hands of members of Congress, who need to understand that the Amateur Sports Act of 1978 is in desperate need of an overhaul. Fundamental safety, including protection from coach sexual abuse, simply is not on the to-do list of the money-hungry apparatchiks in Colorado Springs.
P.S. to the San Diego school district: How about scrubbing Pantera’s name and email at http://serra.sandi.net/athletics/springtryout.html?
Irv Muchnick
[email protected]