By Hector Flores
The two were in charge at a Pennsylvania football camp where three varsity football players allegedly sodomized three JV squad members with a broomstick, pinecones and golf balls in August.
Caramore said he simply offered advice to the two coaches. According to a published report, however, they were told that, if they didn't resign, they could lose their coaching contracts for the 2004 season. In effect, they would be fired as coaches. The two, though, would retain their teaching jobs. McElroy is a Mepham social-studies teacher, and Canestro is a phys.-ed. teacher.
Reaction to the news was mixed among local parents and students. Kristine Reichstein, a parent of JV football player who was threatened by one of the alleged attackers before the camp, declined to offer a statement about the possible resignations until more is known.
"I have no reaction until something happens," she said. "But I don't know why they [the coaches] haven't been suspended since the investigation started. The school board had enough evidence to cancel the football season, but not enough to suspend the coaches? The school board suspended the football season only to avoid adult accountability."
Terry, mother of another JV football player who attended the Pennyslvania camp but was unharmed because he hid from the attackers, said that the coaches' resignations would be an admission of negligence on their parts.
"If you feel you did nothing wrong, why would you step down?" she said. "These coaches are tenured and have the backing of the union, and if they step down without a fight, that shows me that they have a sense of guilt. I know that, if it was me, I would fight the resignation to the end, but there is little or no fight here, and there is a reason for that."
At press time, it wasn't clear whether the two coaches planned to step down.
Sean, who did not wish to be identified, is one of McElroy's social-studies students. He doesn't believe the coach should resign because he was unaware of the attacks. "I'm not into the football scene, and it doesn't affect me at all," Sean said. "But as a teacher, I like him. I don't think it's his fault because he found out about the attacks at the same time we found out."
Erica, a Mepham 10th-grader who also did not want her full name published, said, "I guess they should resign because it happened during their supervision. But I don't think it's their fault because teenagers are teenagers, and they will do what they want. They [the players] should have been supervised better, but teenagers aren't controllable. If they couldn't do it then, they would have found another way of doing it.
"Basically, the kids that did it are ultimately responsible," she said. "As uncontrollable as we are, we can still control our own actions."
Pressure from parents?
Superintendent Caramore's meeting with the coaches came a day after he sat down with elected officials, including New York State Sen. Charles Fuschillo Jr., Assemblyman David McDonough and Assemblywoman Maureen OÕConnell.
It, however, was unclear whether the meeting with elected officials influenced the district's reported decision to apply pressure to the coaches to resign.
Michael Rubin, an attorney representing one of the victims, said the coaches' resignations are long overdue, but they would not be enough. "Our position in this matter is that not only should the coaches resign from their position," he said, "but they should also be fired from their teaching jobs, because they are incapable of supervising children at any setting."
Rubin also said that Mepham Principal John Didden should resign, because he failed to act on a warning from the Reichsteins that their son was threatened prior to the football camp.
