The Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League board has asked its parent Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association to do criminal background checks on the PIAA's 13,700 athletic officials beginning in January.

The league had previously proposed doing background checks only for new officials.

The WPIAL board's unanimous vote on Tuesday was taken in response to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette investigation published Sunday that showed dozens of present and past PIAA-registered officials had maintained their licenses despite criminal convictions for child molestation, distribution of child pornography, bookmaking, gun crimes, drug offenses and other offenses.

Despite the WPIAL action and recent statements from other school officials, the PIAA, in a five-page Web posting responding to the Post-Gazette report, has remained largely opposed to such checks.

But yesterday, Bradley R. Cashman, PIAA executive director, hedged for the first time.

"While criminal background checks may be a 'feel good' means of taking some action to protect student-athletes, it is not the only, and is certainly not even the best, means available to provide protection. PIAA has taken a different approach, but with (so far) very good results.

"Perhaps, though, after further assessment of benefits and costs of doing so, we will also require criminal background checks," Mr. Cashman said at www.piaa.org.

In July, when the newspaper explained what it had found to WPIAL school officials and directors , the league quickly proposed a statewide rule requiring background checks on new officials. It gained approval by a slim margin on the first of three readings at the PIAA.

On Tuesday, two days after the stories appeared, the WPIAL board unanimously went further.

"The current proposal on the table [at the PIAA] is not satisfactory to our board so we have recommended effective of January 2009, all officials be required to submit to background checks in a phased-in situation," said Timothy O'Malley, executive director of the WPIAL. It will be considered by the PIAA board Oct. 2.

Mr. Cashman said yesterday he has not received the latest proposal.

He has long opposed background checks, saying it would cost more than $750,000 a year based on a $50 per person annual fee and that less than 1 percent of the 2,272 WPIAL officials were identified by the reports as having criminal records. Officials pay a total of almost $600,000 a year in dues.

Mr. Cashman's calculations did not include more than a hundred others whose names matched athletic officials but could not be confirmed because of PIAA privacy rules.

The PIAA executive said most of the officials with criminal records identified by the newspaper have been cleared to continue working because their crimes occurred as long as 15 years ago and many of them have lived lawful lives since. Statewide, 16 officials have been removed in the past three years.

Mr. Cashman said in the Web posting that he would not revoke the license of David Coligan, a wrestling, baseball and volleyball official from Canonsburg, whose record shows misdemeanor convictions for bookmaking from the 1980s and summary offense convictions for disorderly conduct in 1993 after accosting young children over a dispute with his daughter.

After Mr. Coligan explained his convictions, Mr. Cashman said sufficient time has passed since without further incidents, therefore disciplinary action was not merited.

Mr. Cashman also said he had discussed an "interference with the custody of children" conviction with William K. Miller, a Pittsburgh basketball official, and had decided not to remove him either.

Mr. Miller, according to the Web posting, told PIAA officials the child was found with him at "an outreach ministry in a drug-infested area ... accompanied by sixty other children and four counselors," but police reports examined by the Post-Gazette said Mr. Miller removed the child from a day care center without permission. The child was found at Mr. Miller's apartment after a four-hour search.