THE OFFICE POOL: INTO THE DEEP END

“Composite Cathy” is a 40-something downtown office manager who, frankly, doesn’t know Pitt from Iona when it comes to college hoops.

She pays her rent on time, won’t make a right turn on a red light and hasn’t bounced a check since the Carter Administration.

Yet, Cathy annually ponies up $5 for her company’s NCAA basketball tournament office pool.

She likes the silly-sounding schools--Austin Peay, Coppin State, Valparaiso--and last year won the $500 jackpot by using a Ouija board to fill out her brackets.

Cathy is outgoing, church-going, easygoing.

And, technically, a criminal.

The same goes for every other Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice who buys into an office pool this week.

Office pools?

That’s right, pal.

Sgt. Joe Friday of “Dragnet” would have set you straight:

“Sure, it starts with office pools, but then one day they’re dragging the community pool because Daddy took the meal money and made book in every tenement, tent, booth, building, float, vessel and off-shore barge till the debt piled up so high the bookies came to collect with a .38.”

Office pools are as much a part of March Madness as Dick Vitale, with far more upside. Millions of dollars will change hands on the road to this year’s Final Four in San Antonio.

Pools are fun and inexpensive. They make the NCAA tournament far more interesting and can do wonders for office morale.

But Doug Monteith, a detective in the Los Angeles Police Department’s Organized Crime and Vice Division, also reminds that office pools are another thing.

“Technically, they are absolutely, 100% illegal,” Monteith said.

Not only illegal, but felonies, under California Penal Code 337a, which defines an offender as “Every person who engages in pool selling or bookmaking, with or without writing, at any time or place.”

That gulp you heard was our pool man’s Adam’s apple dropping into his esophagus. Bob--positively not his real name--has operated the L.A. Times’ NCAA bracket racket for years, although he might be two days deep into Mexico by the time you read this.

“I didn’t actually know it’s a felony,” ashen-faced Bob said under interrogation last week by a turncoat, in-house reporter.

“Yes, it is,” the reported countered. “Now, when will next week’s brackets be ready and when do you need my five dollars?”

Bob wondered if it was worth the risk.

“In most cases, I don’t even get tipped,” he said.

Actually, Bob has little to fear. While office pools are technically illegal, the law all but looks the other way.

“Keep in mind these laws are designed for commercial enterprises,” Monteith said. “For instance, if I run a bar and I offer to sell spots in a pool, and I drag some money off the contributions and I’m making a profit, we would look at that much more seriously than we would a pool in your office. . . . We try to temper good judgment with what the penal code instructs us to do.”

That said, the LAPD is obligated to respond to any complaint, but you may rest easy, knowing that Monteith has never investigated an office pool. Nor does he know anyone who has.

The police are more interested in scams conducted at public establishments, such as bars, bowling alleys or golf courses where, Monteith explained, “we’re talking big dollars being gambled.”

In truth, any crusade to stamp out office pools--anyone have the guts to start such a crusade?--would be as futile as trying to empty the ocean with a spoon.

Besides, prosecuting office-pool offenders probably would shut down operation of the state.

Who participates in pools?

People of all races, creeds, colors and professions--whether they admit to it or not.

“They’re against the rules here because they’re illegal!” one Orange County attorney bellowed over the phone in mock outrage.

What about police department pools?

“God, I hope not,” Monteith said. “But believe me, we get these questions, not only from members of this department but from other agencies, all the time. A lot of people are not familiar with the laws or ramifications of being involved in this.”

Rick Delgado, a domestic film booker for Universal Pictures, runs an NCAA pool out of his Universal City office. He says there is a larger, state-wide operation involving “everyone in the film business that gets into thousands of dollars.”

When told pools were a crime, Delgado sounded surprised.

“When you say felony, it actually sounds kind of scary,” he said.

A former major league baseball player said NCAA pools are as common in spring training locker rooms as towels and tape.

Baseball, of course, is probably the most gambling-sensitive of all the major sports, dating back to the 1919 “Black Sox” scandal.

“We probably knew it was illegal,” the former player said of pools. “But there’s an old adage: ‘What you see here, what you say here, let it stay here when you leave here.’ ”

He said FBI agents made annual spring-training treks to lecture on the evils of gambling.

“And then they’d say, ‘Oh, there’s no NCAA pools’ and then start laughing, knowing exactly what’s going on.”

But isn’t Pete Rose, the all-time hits leader, being denied a place in the Hall of Fame because of gambling?

“Yeah,” the player said, “but ol’ Pete bet on his own team.”

Vernon, a 32-year-old aerospace worker from Santa Monica, laughed out loud when told the office pool is a crime.

“If that’s illegal, then so is betting a guy a Coke that I can sink a piece of paper in a garbage can,” said Vernon, who still was concerned enough to ask that his last name not be used. “Come on. We bet all time. It’s harmless fun. I don’t see it as a problem.”

Vernon has participated in pools since he was 15.

“Everywhere I’ve worked, there was some sort of pool going on,” he said. “I remember being at only one company that said, ‘It’s against company policy.’ ”

Did he run an NCAA pool anyway?

“Of course.”

Still, the pool question makes some people uneasy.

Bill Dwyre, The Times’ sports editor, has long fought to keep gambling advertisements and information out of the paper.

Yet, he grudgingly allows his staff to participate in NCAA office pools.

“I pretended the first time I was taking names and they were all going to be fired,” Dwyre said. “But I have never taken action, and I expect I never will.”

Why not?

“It’s not worth it for me for the sake of the guys’ morale,” he said.

For years, Dwyre had extra incentive to do nothing, given that his former managing editor was a regular office-pool player.

Pools are also a sensitive subject at the NCAA, which runs the tournament.

The NCAA considers itself a crusader when it comes to gambling. Yet, in the last two years, there have been image-tainting scandals at Boston College in football and Arizona State in basketball.

So where does the NCAA stand on office pools?

“I hate this question,” said Wally Renfro, NCAA public relations director. “Because of our position regarding gambling, we understand that it goes on that, technically, if money is involved, it’s gambling and that’s illegal sports wagering. But we don’t view ourselves as the office-pool police.”

Renfro acknowledges that pools probably are common in NCAA institutions--”I would guess that”--but says that doesn’t make it right.

He added that he believes office pools are illegal in every state except Nevada.

That would include Kansas, where the NCAA offices are.

“We don’t have [a pool],” Renfro said flatly. “Ah, I’m pretty sure we don’t have one.”

Renfro also recognizes that NCAA pools enhance interest in the tournament, which leads to larger television audiences and increased revenue.

“We’re glad basketball is popular,” he said. “But I think it’s unfortunate that it happens as a result of wagering because that’s not really what the sport is about.”

Renfro says office pools promote a tolerance of gambling that is not positive.

“There is a cumulative effect,” he said.

Is it a stretch to think the guy who ultimately tries to bribe a college player cut his gambling teeth by running the tournament pool at his fraternity?

Renfro is also concerned about the Internet’s involvement.

A quick click of a browser revealed several on-line companies that provided, for a price, NCAA tournament bracket software.

Last year, the pool at The Times was formatted with a program called “Turbo Tourney.” Last week, the FBI arrested 14 owners and managers of offshore companies for conducting sports betting on the Internet.

Yet, although the NCAA once threatened to withhold tournament credentials from newspapers that published betting lines, Renfro says the organization has not pursued the Internet for soliciting office pool information.

“We haven’t to date,” Renfro said. “If you ask me if we’re open to it, yes. But have we done anything to address that? No. We have limited resources.”

For now, nothing short of J. Edgar Hoover’s return would probably stir a movement to curb NCAA office pools.

Most people, flatly, do not think they are wrong.

When asked if he had regularly committed other felonies, Vernon, the Santa Monica aerospace worker, responded, “I don’t know. What other ridiculous laws are there?”

Others, however, were more haunted by the office pool-as-crime news.

Our man Bob at The Times hasn’t slept through a night during the reporting of this story. Half of us expect him to come to work this week wearing a fake beard and mustache.

Unfortunately for us, because of this inquiry, Bob may even be getting out of the office-pool racket.

“Maybe it’s time to pass the buck and let someone else do it,” Bob said.