The old "Dragnet" TV series often featured Sgt. Joe Friday saying his famous phrase: "Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts." (Actually the phrase came from Stan Freberg's "Little Red Riding Hood," a spoof of "Dragnet.")

When a crime scene comes with a dozen eyewitnesses you usually end up with 12 different versions of the same event. This generally occurs because each witness focused on a different aspect of the crime.

Somewhere in the middle of everyone's perception of what happened, lies the truth. It is for this reason one should view information from multiple sources, then come to your own conclusion.

Within the world of sports, there are multiple Internet sites where you can view the accomplishments and ranking of athletes, from youth travel teams, high schools, colleges and pros.

At the high-school level, there are popular sites like MaxPreps.com, Stack.com, ASAsoftball.com, HighSchoolSports.net and local high schoo Web sites. There are times, however, in which the individuals loading information into these sites change the information in order to make a team or athlete appear to do better than is reality.

I remember playing high school football and seeing my information in the game day program. According to the program, I was one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than the facts indicated. I guess this was done to intimidate our opponents. Problem is, they were probably doing the same thing.

So how do we get to a place where fabricating information is more important than telling the truth? Well, at the high-school level, college recruitment is the key reason, with ego a close second.

By manipulating information, college coaches may be fooled into thinking a certain team is made up of quality players based on its win-loss record and team stats.

For the individual athlete, padding stats can create a recruitment frenzy. The downfall of altering stats is the lie we all accept. I have heard it said if a person will cheat at Solitaire, they will cheat at anything.

Now is the time for school administrators to take charge of their sports information. Now is the time for athletic directors to hold their coaches accountable. Now is the time for coaches to report accurate information. Now is the time for parents who have players in the sport, to be barred from entering stats. Now is the time for truth and honesty.

What are your thoughts?