Honesty and Resumes, Perfect Together

Being a sports fan lately has been a bit challenging for me.  First, I am not terribly excited by the events in the Summer Olympics (though I admire all the dedicated athletes)! Second, my beloved Phillies have tanked this season.  Third, it is a tough time to be a Penn State football fan.  Regardless of all that, I still peruse the various sports web sites when time permits.  A few moments ago, I came across the following link: http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-basketball/story/2012-08-11/doug-martin-villanova-assistant-resigned-investigation-resume-jay-wright and was stunned to see that Villanova University had released a recently hired assistant basketball coach for being inaccurate on his resume.

Doug Martin is not the first coach fired for this.  In fact, Notre Dame asked, George O'Leary, its head football coach to resign before his first season with them began in 2001 for similar reasons.  Misrepresentation of where an individual played sports, graduated college, or gained work experience is unacceptable.  The higher profile jobs like college coaches come under very close scrutiny so I am a bit confused how Villanova missed this when checking Mr. Martin's resume

Here is my question to you, my readers.  Is it really worth running the risk of getting caught during a reference check or background check?  Not only will you probably lose the job you were hired for, it now will become next to impossible to get a new position any time in the near future.  In this case, the coach had played college basketball at a lesser known school.  His record as a college was stellar and I do not feel where he played college basketball would have kept him from getting hired.  Please think long and hard about the contents of your resume and make sure you are able to back up and prove anything you select to include!