If Coach Joe Paterno arrived at a football game in late-October wearing a black-and-white-striped shirt and a whistle around his neck, many would guess it was Halloween. Few would let him officiate.

The men's gymnastics team encountered a situation similar to that when it traveled to Michigan last weekend. The Lions, after having defeated Michigan State and Western Michigan on Friday, were expecting a tough battle with the University of Michigan the next day. What the gymnasts didn't expect was to find the coaches of Friday night's opponents sitting in the judges' chairs for the meet against the Wolverines.

"The first thought in your mind is, 'Great, now I'm going to get screwed in scores,' " Lion gymnast Tony Pansy said.

Even though the gymnasts said they thought the scoring in the Lions' 278.85-277.05 loss to the Wolverines was fair, they also felt they should have been informed in advance of who the judges would be.

"We're supposed to get a list of who's judging a competition ahead of time," Penn State Coach Randy Jepson said. "If there's an objection, we can raise that and discuss it with them. A lot of times we don't see any information."

Wolverine Coach Bob Darden said that, as a courtesy, he did fax the list of judges to Jepson four days before the meet. However, Jepson said he never received it.

In order to avoid a conflict of interest in the future, there is a need for a guideline, Jepson added.

"I would like to see -- if you're a collegiate coach, you don't judge any collegiate meets -- period," he added.

But other coaches disagree.

"Randy thinks that there is a conflict of interest because we have a vested interest," Michigan State Coach Rick Atkinson said. "How could there be a conflict of interest? I'm not trying to pull his score down. I'm not trying to push Michigan's up."

Jepson said he agrees that the judging in this case was fair. But he added that, in his opinion, excluding college coaches from judging college meets would help prevent possible problems of bias. Atkinson said that he has witnessed instances of biased judging in the past, but they did not involve college coaches.

"There's no question about it," he added. "There's been blatant cheating. Was it by head coaches of other programs? Hell, no. It's by guys that used to be drinking buddies with the head coach."

Atkinson recalled an example of such an instance occurring at Rec Hall last season.

"I came over to Randy after the very first score and said, 'Randy, that guy just got an impossible score,' " Atkinson said. "And Randy laughed and said, 'Yeah, I know.' "

Although Jepson did not address a recollection of that conversation, he realizes that "judges make mistakes -- period, whether they're a coach or not a coach." However, permitting coaches to judge presents an opportunity for accusations of unfairness.

The argument supporting college coaches as judges comes from the fact that they are in the gym daily. They are the most knowledgable about skills and rule changes, Darden said.

"There's nobody more knowledgeable than a college coach as far as the new rules in gymnastics," Atkinson added. "You can't compare judging to refereeing, to umpiring. It's apples and oranges."

For Western Michigan Coach Fred Orlofsky, the issue becomes a question of financial necessity. He relies on local college coaches to judge his meets because of budget constraints.

"(If) I have to get (judges) from Chicago or from some other area and I have to pay for their flight and everything else, I'm not going to have a gymnastics program any more," Orlofsky said.

However, in women's gymnastics, college coaches rarely double as judges. No one has ever approached Women's Coach Steve Shephard with that possibility. Shephard said that if it were to happen, "it would have to be agreed to beforehand.

"I think it's totally a conflict of interest and unethical," he added.

Although Jepson said he has "no complaints" about the way the meets were scored last weekend, he believes that letting coaches judge leaves room for controversy.

"If a coach makes a mistake, and he's judging, you open the door for someone to say he's cheating, and you shouldn't have that opportunity," Jepson said.

The team did not concern itself with who was judging the performances in Saturday's meet, Pansy said. He added that the Lions did not hit their routines well, resulting in the loss.

"It wasn't the judges that cost us the meet -- that's for sure," he said.