OCEAN CITY — Some parents and athletes appeared before the Ocean City Board of Education on Wednesday night to practically beg them to hire Stephanie (Vanderslice) Gaitley, an Ocean City native who spent 36 years coaching in college, as the new head coach for the Red Raiders girls basketball program.
There were concerns in the audience because the board went into executive session twice at the start of the 7 p.m. meeting, delaying it until almost 9:15 p.m., leading some to wonder if there were a problem with the hiring. However, when the vote on the agenda came well past 10 p.m., it was anticlimactic. Gaitley was approved with no comment. Board member Disston Vanderslice, her nephew, abstained from the vote.
Gaitley was a former standout player at OCHS under then-coach Pat Dougherty, went on to play at Villanova and then began a women’s basketball coaching career that took her to multiple locations, including long stints at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and more recently Fordham University in the Bronx, N.Y.
“We are here to let you know how extremely thankful and excited we are for this and for a fantastic start to the upcoming season,” said Jill Mullen Adamson, whose daughter is on the basketball team and who has two more daughters coming up.
“Despite a tumultuous span of many months, these incredible, resilient and strong girls are grateful for the opportunity to finally move forward in a positive direction, to know the adults in charge are doing everything in their power to champion them,” she said. “We thank Superintendent Dr. (Matthew) Friedman for his outstanding recommendation of coach Gaitley, for keeping the children’s best interest in the forefront and for ensuring the rich legacy of the basketball program will continue.”
Adamson said at the heart of the issue is doing what’s best for the children.
“We look forward to the future of the girls basketball program with great optimism, anticipation, encouragement and positivity with coach Gaitley at the helm,” she said.
Danielle Monteleone of Upper Township, who has a daughter on the team, said being a parent is challenging but she tries to instill life lessons: “Be kind, work hard, have a strong faith, be a leader, surround yourself with good, positive people.”
She said the past season was not so simple and said the girls weren’t surrounded by positivity.
The school board declined to reappoint Michael Cappelletti in June. Cappelletti was the longtime assistant basketball coach under Paul Baruffi and took over as head coach of the program last season when Baruffi retired. Nearly the entire team appeared before the board last winter to ask that Cappelletti not be reappointed, citing his coaching style and treatment of players.
For the following few months, parents of players who supported the girls and others who supported the coach spoke out at school board meetings both against and in favor of his reappointment until the June meeting when a narrowly split board decided against renewing him as coach. That did not affect Cappelletti’s status as a teacher in the district and a coach of the boys tennis team.
Monteleone said the board had the opportunity to hire a “positive role model and hall of fame coach Stephanie Gaitley. Please show the girls you care enough to do what is right and support the best candidate for the job.”
“Throughout my 10 years of playing this sport, that I love more than anything in this world, I have had had every type of coach you could possibly imagine,” said Avery Jackson, who approached the podium with three other players — Tori Vliet, McKenna Chisholm and Madelyn Adamson. She is a rising senior who has been on varsity since she was a freshman.
“Never in my wildest dreams could I have ever dreamed a coach like Stephanie Gaitley would become my high school coach,” Jackson said.
She added a quote from an article published a few years ago explaining why Gaitley should be the next coach: “People often say why do your teams win? How do you go and turn around a program? The number one thing is how you treat people. You come in, you make everybody feel good about themselves.”
Jackson said that is the mindset the Red Raider girls team needs and deserves.
“Board members, please hire coach Gaitley,” she said.
Dennis Mullen, the former school board president, said Gaitley is needed to rebuild the girls basketball program that was not able to field a freshman team last year.
“These are young girls who are about to become young women. This is the coach they need,” he said. “You have to hire this coach to resurrect this program.”
Gaitley, he said, will show the girls “how to live a life of basketball that is good for them and move them onto their next stop.”
Harry Vanderslice got emotional when he spoke on his sister’s behalf.
“I hope everyone is going to support her,” he told the board. He noted it was happenstance that someone asked him whether his sister could help out with the girls practice. After spending a few hours with them, she told him, “I love those girls. It was awesome.” Then, he said, some of the parents called him to say Gaitley was awesome.
“She is awesome,” Vanderslice said, “not just because she’s a good basketball coach, that’s the smallest part of it.” (He choked up at that point.) “If you knew Stephanie’s heart, there would be no discussion. Really, there would be none. I know her heart and I’m just telling you she has a great heart and the kids and the school and everyone would benefit from that.”
Upper Township resident Michael Carlin, who formerly lived in Ocean City, said hiring Gaitley “is a no-brainer.”
He noted how busy Division I college coaches are throughout the year and get only a little downtime in August.
“You know what she does in her time off? She spends three weeks down here running a basketball camp,” Carlin said. “Not spending three weeks sitting on the beach relaxing. … If that doesn’t give you an idea (about her), then something is wrong.”
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff