We’re all Jackson Countians

The seven players, two of whom are reportedly seniors, and Caputo were not allowed to participate in the school’s final game of the season last Friday night.

That’s a good start in straightening out a situation that had gotten way out of hand with the school’s football program. It turns out that the vandalism incident was just the tip-off to many other issues.

According to various sources, Caputo had created what can only be described as an abusive and abrasive atmosphere. Coaches cursing at the boys and at each other had become loud and vicious, and we’re not talking about a few “damnits,” either. Apparently “motherf-----“ was a choice way of communication with the team. On top of that, Caputo apparently pressured boys to not discuss team “conversations” with their parents or others.

Such verbal abuse would not be tolerated with any regular schoolteacher. Being a “coach” doesn’t give anyone the right to be verbally abusive or to pressure kids to keep secrets from parents.

Caputo also apparently condoned having a trophy case of some sort in the school’s field house where purloined items from other schools were put on display. And last year, he reportedly gave a letter to his players before the Jefferson game in which he made disparaging remarks about “elitist” JHS players, etc.

This year, that mentality spun out of control, not just with the locker room incident, but also with some EJCHS players reportedly throwing food out the bus windows onto cars after the JHS game.

What a mess.

According to those I spoke with, neither parents nor school officials were fully aware of all this until after Stueck began asking questions about the Jefferson vandalism incident. Then it all came bubbling out.

Caputo’s long-term future with EJCHS is apparently still up-in-the-air. But regardless of that outcome, there are several instructive lessons to be found here for all area school systems.

First, school system leaders have to keep a tight rein on athletic programs. Because most of the practices and athletic events are somewhat removed from the regular school setting with their own buildings, etc., it’s easy for the oversight of athletic programs to become quasi-remote. In addition, coaches sometimes begin to think of athletics as “their” program and start to believe that they answer to nobody.

That’s a fallacy, of course. Perhaps more than any other single area, athletics reflects on the school as a whole. Incidents like this one don’t just reflect on the EJCHS football team, but on the entire school community. Keeping things under control is paramount for school leaders and that means not just students, but teachers and coaches as well.

Second, parents should put “radar” on the programs their children are involved in and to what adults in those programs are modeling. In this case, it appears that coaches involved in the football program intimidated players into keeping things secret from their parents. Parents should, however, ask a lot of questions of their children about their interactions with other adults, whether that is in sports or any other extracurricular school activity.

Finally — and this is the big one — local school leaders and athletic officials should work together more to make sure the natural rivalries of the four local county high schools stay in perspective and that relationships don’t turn ugly. Jackson County has a long, complex and often controversial history of its school systems. Neither coaches nor players should be allowed to exploit old stereotypes in an effort to whip up hysteria on or off the athletic field.

And when problems do come up, school leaders should be open and honest in dealing with them. Perhaps at the first of each new school year, principals and coaches from all four high schools should meet to set some standards of conduct that both they and their players agree to abide by, especially regarding the local rivalries.

Using sports to foment animosity is not just wrong, but it can become dangerous given the antics of teens and the intensity of sport rivalries. A lid has to be kept on that jar of passions.

The lead on this starts at the top with school officials and especially, coaches. No matter who wins local intra-county athletic contests, all of those participating should be held to a high standard of sportsmanship.

And that includes coaches.

This column is not to pick on EJCHS, but rather to make a point: Every local school has had these kind of problems at one time or another. Nobody is exempt and no school leader should think similar problems can’t happen to their school, too.

At the end of the day, we are all Jackson Countians no matter what school we support.

Let’s act like it.

Mike Buffington is editor of The Jackson Herald. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.