Situation raises issues of club teams, transparency and support, future for coaching
LINWOOD — Three or four families “have done irreparable harm to the sport, the families and the future of swimming at Mainland Regional High School,” Erin Schiavo told the school board Jan. 17.
The wife of former MRHS girls swim coach Mike Schiavo was just one of multiple people who expressed their dismay at the handling of an issue that resulted in the coach being replaced midseason.
Mike Schiavo submitted his resignation Jan. 6 following undisclosed complaints that first were made public last spring, when the team went 12-2, won the South Jersey sectional title and became the first MRHS girls swim team make it to the NJSIAA Group B state championship game.
This season, the team was undefeated through six meets, dropping its first contest Jan. 19 to Cherry Hill East. The girls were set to face Vineland on Jan. 24, after the Sentinel sports section went to press, and has one remaining regular-season meet set for Jan. 30 at Haddon Township before the playoffs.
A group of parents, former athletes and fellow coaches gathered April 12, 2022, during the Board of Education meeting in a show of support for Schiavo after a complaint reportedly about his treatment of some athletes.
Both then and last week, speaker after speaker noted how Schiavo, while teaching and coaching swimming at the Mainland Recreation Association in Linwood and both Holy Spirit High School and Mainland, instilled discipline, dedication and good values in thousands of youth from around the area.
“Mike is a wonderful person with great integrity and one of the key people who had a positive influence on our two children,” said Linwood resident Lori Buttress, who identified herself as a past PTO president at Mainland whose two children swam for Schiavo.
Speakers said the lack of transparency on what the complaints involved has led to rumors and speculation about the seriousness of the alleged offenses. Some questioned what the coach had done that was so egregious that his removal was necessary midseason, something they said would harm the entire team to satisfy the few detractors.
“You have jeopardized the future of our girls swim team athletes and their coaches by putting them through unbearable amounts of emotional stress, anxiety and uncertainty in the middle of another highly successful season due to the sudden, unexpected ‘resignation’ of their main coach, Mr. Michael Schiavo,” Linwood resident Aixell Mercedes-Perez said. “In the meanwhile, you leave all of us in the dark assuming that Coach Mike Schiavo has done something so wrong, so terrible that warrants immediate resignation.”
The entire issue appears to be a conflict between club swimmers and scholastic swimmers, with the former potentially having divided loyalties and commitments.
According to parents, Coach Schiavo was reportedly displeased with some swimmers’ attendance at practice over the winter break and expressed that displeasure in a way that made some athletes uncomfortable.
Members of the girls swim team received an email Jan. 6 notifying them there would be no practice the following two days and that a meeting had been scheduled for Jan. 9 to discuss the matter.
The email, signed by Athletic Director Mike Gatley, canceled a midday meeting and scheduled another for 5 p.m. that day.
During the meeting, which was closed to the public, the team was informed that Brian Booth, coach of the boys team, would take over coaching the girls.
Erin Schiavo called the treatment of her husband “an insult … to the entire Schiavo family,” which she pointed out includes Carole Schiavo, “a long-time and beloved Northfield teacher,” Ralph Schiavo, who served as a teacher and administrator in Linwood, and Frank Schiavo, a longtime gym teacher at the high school.
She also questioned the process of investigating the complaints.
“Have any board members challenged this or asked for further details … or did you only want one side of the story?”
Schiavo also lashed out at the detractors, citing their “clear instability” and questioning the “legitimacy of their allegations.”
Change to handbook
The same night, the school board voted to approved changes to the attendance section of its athletic handbook.
Under section B. Attendance, subsection a. U.S.S. Club Swimmers, it states: “Swimmers must attend high school practices in order to participate as a member of their high school team. They must attend all high school scheduled meets.”
The approved change states: “Additionally, club swimmers are expected to attend practice on the day before a swim meet unless prior communication with the coach has taken place. It is understood that this may be difficult as the season progresses when multiple swim meets are scheduled closely together (within the same week), which may impact a club swimmer’s availability, but communication between the coach and the club swimmer is necessary to address these situations and to plan appropriately.”
The school board also accepted the resignation of assistant coach Heather Sickler effective Jan. 9.
Linwood resident Robert Lowry, who identified himself as a 1993 graduate, said the situation was handled poorly.
“My intent is to bring to light the level of mismanagement, ignorance and disrespect that has caused all of the turmoil that we are experiencing tonight,” Lowry said.
Schiavo has been held accountable for his actions, Lowry said, but “all parties sitting here tonight have responsibility in creating this matter.”
“I believe the athletic department must bear the weight of not only putting this coach in a position to fail but the negligence and mismanagement of the moments after the termination,” Lowry said. “The coach was terminated, but where was the plan to move forward? I suspect there was no plan, just a means to get rid of the distraction as quickly as possible and deal with the fallout at a later date.”
Lowry said the athletic department completely ignored Sickler in the process.
“If the basketball coach was terminated tomorrow, would practice be canceled for days while they find a new coach or would the athletic department work with the assistant coach to hope for a smooth, temporary transition?” he said, noting Sickler had been with the team for a decade. “Not once was she informed of the athletic department’s intentions, nor was she asked to conduct practices in the absence of the head coach. Isn’t that what an assistant coach is for?”
Lowry also noted the change to the athletic handbook, saying it that had been done before the season started it may have prevented the situation.
“Even the newest revision shows the least possible effort to move on from the situation,” he said.
Who will coach?
Brian Smith, a history teacher and coach for nearly a quarter-century at Mainland, said situations like this may ultimately lead to no one willing to coach.
“My concern as a teacher and a coach is what this leads to,” Smith said. “We are not supporting our teachers and coaches.”
The head softball and girls cross country coach noted he was party to a similar situation last season in which he was threatened with an internal investigation “because I was holding a player accountable.”
He said last year was the worst in his 25 years of coaching and that he vacillated all summer about returning.
“I didn’t want to but I didn’t want to get driven out by a parent or a group of parents. This is the road we are heading down,” Smith said. “What’s in place to ensure that we have coaches in the future, because who is going to want to do this with the lack of support? If I can’t discipline, if I can’t coach an athlete, what power do I have as a coach? I have none. And we can’t have that because no one is going to want to do it.”
Smith said he believes that athletes should have to pick a club team or a school team, not both.
“I don’t know why we don’t have that policy, quite honestly. If you want to play Mainland sports, play Mainland sports. Do it proudly,” Smith said. “To have this situation that brought this on is no fault of Coach Schavio’s. Who are you going to have fill those voids? No one is going to want to do it.”
Shaune Slattery, a 2002 graduate and mother of a current swimmer, said the team was set up to fail because of the improper handling of the situation.
“Any good department has a strategic plan to ensure the safety, success, functionality and productivity of their entity. That was nonexistent here. If it was, then the execution was terrible,” she said. “A good action plan involves the communication and dissemination of information across everyone involved. … It appears the voices that were heard were only those that were concerned.”
Calling herself a former Division I swimmer, she said high school athletics should be about not just championships and college scholarships but about building relationships, learning to be a better person and better leader.
She said there now is a lot of distrust among the athletes and parents.
“Going forward, how are you going to build that trust back up?” she asked. “How are they going to know their voices are heard?”
Board of Education President Jill Ojserkis addressed the situation.
“It is important for us to hear from you, so we do appreciate it whether you think so or not,” she said. “We represent the public, but as board members we know things that you don’t and I’m sure that all of you understand that.”
She said the board holds the administration accountable and the administration does the same for the staff.
“We spend a lot of time doing what we can in the best interests of all of our students, and sometimes when we make decisions some people are unhappy,” she said. “It would be wonderful if we could explain everything but we can’t.”
Ojserkis said nothing is done without forethought.
“Please don’t think that what you have to say to us is not heard. We may not follow what you want, but it doesn’t mean that we are not interested,” she said.
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff