Parents criticize process, district for not supporting their daughters; others support coach, his methods, defend investigation
OCEAN CITY — The Ocean City Board of Education held a special meeting Thursday afternoon as more people weighed in about the head girls basketball coach’s alleged mistreatment of his players, but after hearing a half-hour of public comments went into executive session without taking any public action.
This followed the school board meeting Feb. 23 at which nearly the entire team stood up to ask that Michael Cappelletti and assistant coach Tim Kelley not be reappointed for next season.
Parents passionately defended their children for speaking up against what they assert was months of denigrating treatment by their coaches, while criticizing administrators for not properly handling the situation earlier and allowing the girls to be harassed since making their feelings public.
Other members of the audience were equally passionate in defending Cappelletti, his methods and his character. The president of the Ocean City Education Association defended both the coach as an OCEA member and the administration for how it handled its investigation.
Should have handled it better from the start
Catherine Panico, whose daughter is on the team, said if everything had been handled properly at the outset, the issue would not have reached this point. What was most disturbing to her, she said, was the aftermath of the girls going public with their criticism.
“I saw a lot of fallout and very little support for these courageous young girls. I found that to be astonishing and really very shameful for people to have jumped to whatever conclusions they wanted to despite not being there and seeing what was going on firsthand,” Panico said.
She said the players followed protocols and procedures and “if everybody had just done their part right out of the gate” things might not have escalated.
“Everybody seemed to turn a blind eye. That was kind of shameful from everybody involved. All the administrators involved who were privy to what was going on just discounted everything. Frankly, the girls were discredited,” Panico said.
She added it was inappropriate for a teacher — Kevin Smith, the football coach who worked with Cappelletti — to write a letter to the editor publicly defending him and his coaching methods.
Added to that, when the letter was posted to social media, she saw a lot of commentary from other teachers, not any of it supportive of the girls.
“That, to me, was shameful,” she said.
Two of Cappelletti’s former teachers from the Lower Cape May Regional School District spoke up to support the coach.
James Ridgway, who coached multiple sports during his 34 years as a teacher, said he was upset when he learned about the situation. As someone who also coached his own children — one of Cappelletti’s daughters is on the varsity basketball team — he had gone through a similar scenario.
“It’s a very tough situation to go through,” he said about how a coach can be criticized about his child’s role on a team.
Ridgway called the allegations against Cappelletti “fraudulent.” He said he coached Cappelletti when he was a student and as a young man was instrumental in helping both of his own sons. He pointed out that he knew a lot of Ocean City coaches, whom he considered some of the finest coaches around, and that said something for Cappelletti to be among them for 14 years.
Ridgway also said coaches have to be hard on players if they want to get them to the next level, as his son did, and coaches also are hardest on their own children. (The other basketball players contended the coach didn’t make his daughter follow the same rules.)
“I’m just here supporting Michael,” Ridgway said. “I know what kind of man he is.”
Nancy Ridgway told the school board members they should think about the precedent it would be setting with its actions on a coach.
Another retired teacher from Lower Township, Ridgway said she taught Cappelletti as a student and when she was president of the LCMR Teachers Association had to represent several teachers in similar situations.
She called Cappelletti a “wonderful young man, a great teacher … and a great coach from what we’ve seen.” She said having coached for 14 years as an assistant under Paul Baruffi, “he must have done some wonderful things” and it is hard to believe in his first year as head coach he suddenly changed.
When representing other coaches, she said it is difficult where “there’s a difference of opinion on some of the philosophies of the parents and some of the coaches. It’s been difficult then for the board of education or administration wanting to replace some of those coaches. You’re in a difficult position. But I also think you need to look long and hard what type of precedent that you want to set if you’re thinking about replacing Mike,” she said.
“They will never forget how you made them feel”
Parent Joe Monteleone, a former Red Raider and retired school counselor with 33 years in education, including seven as a varsity coach, said what has happened to his daughter “has been by far the worst experience any of my children or my wife and I have ever had involving sports.”
He offered a quote in education: “People will forget what you said, they may forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”
Monteleone said he did not dispute the experiences of former players who have spoken up in support of coach Cappelletti, “but this is not the experience my daughter and her teammates had this season.” He said there is “a big difference” between girls who played for an assistant coach and those playing for a head coach with a daughter in the program.
“How dare you judge my child and her teammates’ efforts, their toughness, their dedication to winning, their representing Ocean City girls basketball? That, my friends, is so unfair. How dare you?” he said.
Monteleone criticized coach Smith, “who feels he needs to support his buddy. You have no right to tell myself or other parents how to parent our children. To imply we coddle our kids and do not want them to become better at whatever they’re doing is your sad attempt to justify unacceptable behaviors.”
He said he had no problem with tough coaching of his child, “but I draw the line at personal insults and double standards. That, coach, is not coaching. I thought you knew better. How dare you?”
Monteleone said the players made multiple attempts to advocate for themselves but no one is choosing to help them.
He criticized Interim Superintendent of Schools Thomas Baruffi, saying he had no credibility because he didn’t acknowledge his conflict of interest. Baruffi is the brother of Paul Baruffi, who coached with Cappelletti for so many years.
“When you don’t excuse yourself and you communicate with involved adults condescendingly, you have lost your credibility with me,” Monteleone said.
He also laid into Athletic Director Geoff Haines, who was not at the meeting.
“This person (Haines) was approached by troubled players months ago. If he does his job, we might not even be here today. Even more troubling is that this man is the coordinator of HIB – Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying for the school district. How is this even possible?”
“In my 22 years as a guidance counselor, I cannot imagine an adult in the school building anywhere ignoring a report of a HIB situation by a student, especially with the emphasis of HIB protocols in New Jersey public schools today,” Monteleone said. “This casual or calculated neglect of duty cannot be tolerated.”
He blamed Cappelletti for creating “a toxic environment.”
“The incessant yelling, the name-calling, the negativity, the double standards and embarrassing antics, dragging his own daughter through this mess — and it is a mess — and still not doing what is right, in my opinion, and stepping down,” Monteleone said. “It is clear to me this individual does not get it.”
He said the girls just wanted to play basketball.
“No drama, no insults, no daddy ball. This is high school varsity sports, just basketball. To be encouraged and nurtured, pushed and prepared to feel good about playing a game they love. This is not asking too much. These girls deserve better,” he said.
“Remember the quote, ‘they will never forget how you made them feel.’ I’m certain of one thing,” Monteleone said. “They do not feel good and, sadly, I don’t think they’ll ever forget.”
Cappelletti helped former players succeed
Mary Ellen Duggan talked about how her two daughters went through the basketball program and how Cappelletti and coach Baruffi “helped make them the people they are today.”
Duggan said the coaches were not easy but the players would not have gotten better had they not been tough on them.
She pointed out the last time she was in the Community Room at the high school where the meeting was held was when the board honored the girls basketball team for winning its first and only state championship. Her younger daughter was a leader on that team. Her older daughter graduated a year before.
“You don’t get to the state championship by being told you are doing a great job. It just doesn’t happen. These girls worked their butts off … I had one go through a D1 program and one go to a D3 program. The level of intensity is nothing compared to playing at the next level, but it helped shape them.
“They learned the good, they learned the bad, they learned the ugly,” Duggan said. “They worked through it and became better people. I’m proud of them.”
She said when they were told they were doing something wrong, they didn’t blame the coach but put it on themselves “to make themselves better and stronger.”
“I couldn’t be more proud of coach Cappelletti. I do call him a friend,” she said, adding she never advocated for her daughters with the coaches. She said players don’t get better by being told how good they are.
Coach Baruffi, she said, screamed multiple times during a game, “You’re setting back basketball 50 years.” No players wanted to hear that so they knew they had to change and they did, she said.
“It’s an impressive program and Mike Cappelletti helped that program grow and was part of it. He did things that were so important to these girls,” Duggan said.
Cappelletti’s father, Dan, said he wasn’t at the board meeting to speak for his son or Kelley, or against the girls. He said he agreed the girls were courageous for speaking out.
Cappelletti said he was speaking up for his granddaughter, who sat through the Feb. 23 meeting and walked out in tears. He told the board they know her because they gave her an award as a student athlete a few months before.
He said she asked to be a starter on the field hockey team in the fall but that coach told her she wasn’t ready. What she did was to go back and work even harder.
“I don’t know the process these parents are talking about. I didn’t see any of this and I’ve been watching Ocean City basketball for 15 years,” he said. “And I’ll tell you what, it’s never been better as far as the coaching. He’s a good coach and a good man. If you want to trash him, you’re going to have to go through a lot of people who love that man.”
OCEA defends coach and administration
Paul Matusz, president of the OCEA, said he didn’t know Michael Cappelletti personally but said through representing him, “I can tell you the process has been very thorough. When I hear that nothing is being done, or these girls are being ignored, I can tell you from my perspective that’s not the case.”
Matusz said he has been part of multiple meetings “because every effort is being done to find out the truth, to get to what’s right. I’ve had numerous meetings with Dr. Baruffi and he shared that sentiment that all they want to do is come out with what’s right. There is a process in place and I think it’s been followed.”
He said the allegations against the character of the coach and his actions toward the players have “all been investigated. I can tell you the district has been looking at it from all those angles, and from what I can tell it’s been very thorough,” Matusz said.
He asked the board to look at all the information that has been gathered, not just from the students but from other staff members, other coaches, assistant coaches, athletic trainer and more.
“I thank the district for doing their due diligence on this,” he said.
Parent: We know what tough coaching is, but this isn’t it
Kristie Brown Chisholm said her daughter is probably the least affected on the team because her primary sport is soccer, in which she is an accomplished athlete. She plays basketball to be with her friends.
“Body shaming and the use of profanity in front of our children is unacceptable. That’s what it comes down to,” she said. “It’s the extended mental health issues of our girls they may or may not experience as a result of some of the things they’ve encountered.
“My daughter is 5’11” and 144 pounds soaking wet. To be told she isn’t strong enough, is not big enough, she doesn’t need to hear that. The way it’s given to her and presented needs to be addressed,” Brown Chisholm said.
“Teach her how to be stronger, teach her how to gain a little mass, don’t tell her she’s not. She comes from a family of Division I and Division II college athletes. Her parents know what it takes. We’ve been there, we’ve done that,” she said.
She noted a form her daughter had to sign off on at the beginning of the season included that she “will not use profanity” but then the coach dropped “F-bombs.”
“My kid’s a happy kid generally, not so much (now) …. It comes down to, as Mr. Monteleone put it, their perception. None of us walked a day in their shoes. Not one of us. And until we do, we can’t discredit what they have said and we can’t discredit what they have felt.”
Before going into executive session, school board President Patrick Kane explained the board could not respond publicly to their comments.
“I would like to acknowledge all the passionate feelings we all have when we’re talking about our kids so I fully recognize that right as a parent. And I’d like to thank everyone here, even though there’s an obvious difference of opinion, for being respectful of everyone today,” Kane said. “So everyone understands, pursuant to the open public meetings act, personnel issues cannot be discussed. They typically go to executive session. If you have emailed or called or reached out. We are not ignoring them. We take them all seriously.”
He said that was obvious because the board called a special meeting.
By DAVID NAHAN/SENTINEL STAFF