By Scott Brinton
Two distinct, well-entrenched sides have emerged in a behind-the-scenes battle over the fate of the five coaches who ran a Pennsylvania football camp at which three Mepham High School junior-varsity football players were sexually abused and tortured by three older teammates last August.
On one side is a new ad hoc group calling itself Concerned Citizens for Excellence in Education, led by North Merrick neighbors John Van Name and Ken Kornobis. The two would like to see the five coaches reinstated. At its November meeting, the Bellmore-Merrick Central Board of Education voted unanimously to relieve the coaches of their duties.
Van Name and Kornobis, who contend that the coaches were removed without due process, said they hoped to rally support for the five during the Jan. 7 school board meeting, which was to take place after press time.
As the Herald went to press on Tuesday, it was unclear how large a showing the two might assemble for the board meeting. The pair said they hoped to gather college students on winter break who are recent graduates of Mepham and who believe in the coaches.
Van Name said, "We're hoping we'll get many people to come to the next school board meeting. There are a lot of people that want an answer. You've got to be fair."
He added, "Everything has to be justified, in my opinion. Reinstating the coaches is fair. Punishment has to come through the judicial system. We're a country of laws."
There is another side -- Bellmore-Merrick Parents for Change, a roughly 90-member group that is seeking to hold school district officials, including the coaches, accountable for the football camp attacks.
According to sources close to the story, members of the group plan to press a case against the two coaches who now retain their teaching positions at Mepham High, head coach Kevin McElroy and JV coach Art Canestro. The other three coaches -- Erwin Wolosky, Steve Vernet and Brian Scott -- did not teach at Mepham and were hired only for the football season.
Sources say that members of Bellmore-Merrick Parents for Change plan to lobby the Central District Board of Education to bring 3020-A proceedings against McElroy and Canestro. These are the state-required hearings that a district must undertake to strip teachers of their tenure. If a district succeeds in making its case against a teacher during a 3020-A proceeding, he or she may then be fired. Until then, the teacher's job is generally safe.
Already, there have been vehement calls to have 3020-A proceedings brought against McElroy and Canestro. Martin Blum, of North Bellmore, a retired New York City principal and Bellmore-Merrick Parents member, has twice attended school board meetings in recent months, calling for the hearings to be held.
So far, the Board of Education has said nothing about any possible 3020-A proceeding. During the December board meeting, Trustee Ted Tanenbaum said that district officials could not comment on personnel matters.
A Bellmore-Merrick Parents for Change spokesman, who declined to be identified, said the group's mission remains the same as it has been since the fall -- to lobby for a state investigation into Central District officials' handling of the case.
Members of Bellmore-Merrick Parents met with members of the Board of Education just before the holidays. Charles Reinhardt, the school board president, said he couldn't comment about the meeting because he did not attend. Reinhardt, an attorney, said he was called away to court. He referred the Herald to Janet Goller, the board vice president, who he said was at the meeting. At press time, Goller could not be reached for comment.
According to the Bellmore-Merrick Parents spokesman, seven Central District trustees and six members of his group attended the Dec. 22 meeting. "It was very productive," the spokesman said.
He added that Goller called the three-hour session, but the spokesman declined to offer details about what was discussed there. "It was really an exploratory meeting," he said.
During the holidays, Bellmore-Merrick Parents also canvassed their neighborhoods, collecting signatures on a petition calling for state Education Commissioner Richard Mills to conduct a probe into the case. The spokesman said group members will be at local train stations in the coming weeks, seeking additional signatures. The goal, he said, is to collect 1,200 names.
In the fall, Mills agreed to "review" the Central District's reporting of student violence and threats, but stopped short of looking into the football camp attacks. He did not, however, rule out the possibility of such a probe.
Since then, the parents group spokesman said he has not heard from Mills, despite numerous phone calls and letters to his office.
During the December board meeting, school Trustee Andrea Messinger said the coaches weren't relieved of their duties in order to assign blame to them for what happened in Pennsylvania. Rather, she said, their coaching contracts were not renewed so that the football program may continue in the fall of 2004 without potential disruption.
Kornobis, a father of three, believes that the five coaches could and should continue to lead the football program. His oldest son, who graduated from Mepham in 2000, played football under them. His youngest child, now a Mepham junior, also played football under the coaches and was at the camp in August. Kornobis said his son knew nothing about the attacks while in Pennsylvania, and he is convinced that the coaches didn't, either.
Speaking of McElroy, Kornobis said, "He's of the old mold. As far as looking out for the kids, he was the first one to tell them to look out for each other."
Kornobis said his older son "loved the whole football experience." He has fond memories of Sunday afternoons spent watching game films with the coaches. Team members would often have breakfast together at a local restaurant.
Kornobis said, "The question becomes, did [the coaches] act prudently on this sleep-away camp?"
At the camp, the coaches performed bed checks until around 11:30 p.m. They assigned two team leaders per cabin to look after teammates in the bunkhouses. After lights-out, players were on their own, while the coaches slept in a separate cabin, roughly 150 feet from the two bunkhouses where the attacks were carried out. According to school district officials, including Superintendent Dr. Thomas Caramore, they learned about the attacks only when they returned from the camp.
In August, the Central High School District had no guidelines as to how coaches should run sleep-away camps. There was only one requirement -- the coaches could not sleep in the same cabin with players.
"Specifically, what did [the Board of Education] want these coaches to do?" said Kornobis. "Did [it] want them to get up every 15 minutes" to check on players?
"In the absence of any guidelines," he said, "I was confused as to why the board would say they don't want any of these coaches. Why did they think [relieving them of their duties] would ultimately help the football program?"
