Players Suspended After Strip Club Visit

I am soooo looking forward to sending my kids to a public school

By Jason Molinet
STAFF WRITER

May 8, 2003

Fifteen varsity players and two coaches were suspended yesterday from the Massapequa High School baseball team after the district learned the players made a late-night journey to a Florida strip club during a spring break trip, officials said.

Assistant coach Tom Sheedy said he and longtime head coach Bob Dell, who were suspended, said the players were taken to the strip club by a parent, and that he and Dell did not learn of it until two days later. Dell could not be reached for comment last night.

The district issued a statement saying its baseball game scheduled for yesterday 'was canceled due to an ongoing investigation regarding allegations of improper behavior by some student athletes during a school athletic trip. Massapequa High School and athletic department are carefully considering the appropriate steps to be taken.'

Massapequa is a perennial Nassau baseball powerhouse. Each spring the team goes to Florida for one week. After playing three scrimmages in Cocoa Beach on April 22, Sheedy said the team returned to its hotel, where they ate a buffet dinner and held a team meeting.

Because the Chiefs were not scheduled to play again until late the next day, Sheedy said players were given a 1 a.m. curfew. Then, he said, the parent of one player arranged taxis that ferried 15 players to a local strip club, where they spent much of the night.

'A parent escorted a group of players into the club,' Sheedy said. 'This parent was buying drinks and who knows what else. You'd never think something like this could happen at Massapequa.'

Sheedy said athletic director Igor Bishko was told of the incident when the team returned from its road trip. The suspensions were handed down yesterday after school. Massapequa (6-6 overall, 6-4 Nassau Conference AA-I) canceled its game yesterday against John F. Kennedy High School in Plainview and is considering whether to bring up junior varsity players to continue the season.

Bishko said only, 'We're in the process of sifting through all that stuff.'

Dell has coached for 43 years, the last 13 at Massapequa.

Long Island high school teams in various sports, from lacrosse to softball, have a history of going out of state to play games during spring break. East Meadow baseball coach Ken Sicoli said the experience is supposed to be fun, but constant adult supervision is needed.

'When you take 15 to 20 high school kids away for a week - even good kids - you have to be careful what they are going to do,' said Sicoli, who has traveled to Florida with Massapequa in the past.

Sheedy said the players were told the limits of what they could do. But it is tough to police, he said, when a parent is one of the culprits.

'This is extremely disappointing,' Sheedy said. 'There are good kids and respectable players on the team.'

One parent, Craig Garland, whose son Bobby, 17, was one of four players who did not go to the strip club and was not suspended, said in an interview with WB11 television that the suspensions were a 'rush to judgment.'

'You have the kids who are accused who aren't playing. And the kids who aren't accused who aren't playing,' he said. 'The punishment did not fit the alleged crime. It ripped the heart right out of them.'

Staff writers Michael Thier, Tom Demoretcky and Tom Rock contributed to this story.
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

What does it have to do with it being a public school? It was a parent that took the kids there. That could happen at a private or parochial school also.

I think public schools are just getting way toooo big to handle. There are too many kids in a class and something tells me that if a private schools reputation (aka $$$) was on the line, the coach would know where the kids are. And I have a feeling that the coach knew what was going on. I mean, the team is NOT that big and kids talk when something 'big' is going to happen.

That Chicago school thing is a whole nother story- I think the juniors started to get really scared as so many people where getting seriously injuried and one girl even took a bat to the field! They said in the past there were minor things- like shaving cream fights but never an all out gang war against the girls. I think every single girl who throw even one punch should be gone from school asap. Who is raising these kids?

I agree this could happen at any school

Yes, but it is just more likely to happen when there is not enough adult supervision around. Also, kids in private school are often more 'afraid' , for lack of a better word, to get into big trouble. My little brother went to a private high school and he was afriad of being kicked-out. Public school kids know that they will let back in, usually (unless they do soemthing really messed up).
Don't you guys ever worry that even the best school district have such problems. My littlest brother goes to Smithtown Junior High and they have GANG problems Now these middle upper-class white kids would have their a$$es kicked by a real Gang, but in their minds they are in a gang so it works much the same way. Newsday is working on a big report about the gang problems. I know because I spoke to the reporter about it. Problem is the schools don't want anyone thinking that anything is wrong so they deny there is a problem at all, even when they see it everyday.

Michele, I myself went to Catholic school from kindergarten thorugh HS...While in Catholic High School a bunch of us (including me) got thrown out! The reason? A fight!
Yes I did!
This can happen anywhere.

I live right near a Catholic HS and the stuff that goes on outside, you would not even want to know what I see!

The girls uniforms just cover their a$$es, whos smoking pot etc!

I don't think these players should be suspended, because a parent took the kids there. Just thinking like a 17 year old boy for a minute, who is going to say no to something like that, especially when you have an adult bringing you there?? THis is not to say that I think it was right of the parent -- absolutely not.

I hadn't heard about the Chicago incident but I am APPALLED!!! I hope those girls suffer the consequences to the full extent of the law! I can't imagine why anyone would want to be a part of that!

I think that argument is null and void in this day and age. No matter what money gets paid, or where the school is or who is running it, this is going to happen, and I hate to break it to everyone, but 90% of the time it's the parents fault, this is no exception. Public or private, this would have happened anyway. My mother is a dean in what is as of 2 weeks ago officially known as the cities most violent high school, and on a daily basis the responses she gets from the parents are 'he's your problem now' or 'what am I supposed to do, you're the dean'. Accountibility has gone out the window, and the kids are learning it from no one else but the parents. There are 150 security officers in her school, and 2 uniformed police officers in an office next door to her, so you can't tell me that no one is supervising. The senior trip last year had 8 teachers as guardians.

I am a product of public school, and while I'd be hard pressed to send my kids to the schools I attended now, at least I'd have the ability to teach them how to act when they get there, if I had no choice in the matter.

I totally agree that PARENTS are a huge problem! And when I was in high school the Catholic kids were no better off. But a real private school is different IMO. They offer small classes, more personalized attention, and a more controlled enviorment. Again this is JMO.

Class sizes in public schools are out of control and that is also a factor in many problems with learning and displine.

My little brother has friends that can bascially do as they want in 8th grade! When my little brother got caught holding a pocket knife for a friend the principal told him 'Tell me whose it is or I am calling the Police' so he was scared and told the kids name. Do you know that mother called my Dad and was screaming 'How dare your son name my child' Even though the kid admitted it was his and that he asked my brother to hold it during one of his classes! The mother didn't care one bit that her kid had a pocket knife in school! And the principal told my parents 'so many parents just get mad that we are bothering them and tell us to handle it ourselves'

Sorry, these kids KNEW it was wrong to go. Some of the kids stayed behind. Also, the owner of the place should be in BIG trouble for letting under age kids into his place. At what age do you start to have to do the right thing?

That's my point exactly Michele...at what age are you accountable? Because it's obvious to me that the kids aren't accountable because the parents scream abuse whenever a teacher reacts to their overtly dangerous and aggressive behavior, and when the parents come up to school, they blame the teachers for not doing enough and tell them it's their problem.

Accountibilty..it's gone. No one wants it, and that's what kids are learning today....from no one else but their parents.

A GRANDMOTHER (who appeared to be only about 20 years older than the student) came up to the school once to defend a student my mother caught with a pen knife trying to cut open a girls pocketbook in the hallway. The GRANDMOTHER told my mother that she should have been making sure the metal detectors worked better.

Girls guess what district I work in --- I am so proud (sarcastic) though there is more to the story then what the news knows.

There is a lot of blame to go around in all of this. But the motivation as to why this is coming out now and the parents that took these kids there is a concern. But believe me there is A LOT more to this story!

Hey, this has nothing to do with public school I knew of several girls in the private schools in my neighborhood that got pregnant ! yep.
and everyone who went to Catholic school was NEVER in church every Sunday, as were we, the 'regulars', the public school bunch, that DID go to church

This has nothing to do with getting pregnant or going to Church. Getting pregnant and/or not going to Church doesn't make any better or worse than anyone else.

But in all honestly my comment at the top of the tread was sarcastic. I am still a fan of smaller private schools for many, many reasons. But I think it is personal preference.

what the heck was on that parents mind???