Stop the backlash against the players

Commentary by David Nahan, editor, Ocean City Sentinel

There are a lot of opinions swirling around the Ocean City High School girls basketball team and its players’ decision to approach the Ocean City Board of Education last Wednesday evening to speak out against renewing the contracts of the coach and assistant coach.

Almost all of the opinions are nothing more — opinions. 

The people who know directly what is causing the tensions between the players and coaches are the players and coaches. 

What is terrible is the backlash against these high school girls, teenagers who felt they had no option but to make their concerns public after they felt they got nowhere after trying to speak to their coaches and the athletic director.

They are being harassed in person at school and on social media for taking a stand. 

They are being told they are too whiny, too sensitive or not tough enough, or that they do not understand good coaching.

People need to lay off them, whether it is other teachers telling them to ride it out because the end of the season is near, other students giving them grief online or administrators who haven’t done their due diligence to address this.

It is not easy for most people to get up in public to take a stand because they know they are setting themselves up for criticism. Obviously, however, it is incredibly easy to criticize them, especially on social media.

I have talked with past players who worked with the head coach and had nothing but praise for him. They have a right to speak up in his defense, as do others who admire the coach. 

As a journalist who covers head coach Michael Cappelletti’s team and has seen him on the basketball and football sidelines for years, I have never had an issue with him (or with the assistant coach). But like everyone else, me offering an opinion on this specific situation would be weighing in from a distance.

I have also talked with parents distraught over how their girls have been treated since they came forward, having them return home in tears because of the harassment and shaming they have faced.

No student or parent should have to deal with that.

Something here isn’t working correctly. That is plain to see. Otherwise, this wouldn’t have come to a public meeting with nearly the entire team asking the school board not to rehire the coaches for next season. 

At the meeting, members praised the girls for standing up. They said, “We heard you.”

Did they? Did the administration?

The school board and administration need to do two things immediately.

First, get the message out loud and clear that no student should be subjected to harassment or retaliation for speaking up.

Second, have those meetings with the players, the coaches and the parents, actually find out from the sources what led up to this and try to figure out how to fix it. The girls, their parents and the coaches all deserve to be heard by those in power who make the decisions.

Postscript: I have covered Ocean City High School athletics for nearly 25 years and have been impressed with the integrity of both the coaches and the players, so many of whom are consistently among the top academic performers as well. I’ll repeat that: coaches and players.

In the midst of this current issue, I was there Tuesday evening as the girls won their basketball game in the first round of the sectional tournament. For just over an hour, they and their coaches worked together for that victory. You wouldn’t have known by watching everything that has been percolating underneath. That takes strength.