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