Leading off today: Wow. You know it's a newsy day when at least five items could have been the lead to today's New York high school sports roundup.
Here's what I mean:
Red Jacket ruckus: It's not often that a No. 8 seed beating a No. 9 in a sectional boys basketball tournament first-round game makes headlines, but that's what happened as Red Jacket downed Harley-Allendale Columbia 69-59 in Shortsville on Tuesday night.
The Indians won under interim coach George English after a firing of Rich Miles that cannot be described as anything less than stunning ... although "disgraceful" and "reprehensible" certainly deserve consideration.
Red Jacket players wore T-shirts with “Bring Em Back” in red marker on the front and “Miles” in black ink on the back as they warmed up, and they broke their pre-game huddle at midcourt with a cheer of “1,2,3, Miles!” The Daily Messenger reported.
Miles was fired over a player disciplinary dispute, the paper reported. The coach kicked a player out of practice Saturday and opted to suspend him for one game to complete the punishment.
But Miles told the paper that one of the player's parents complained to district Superintendent Robert Leiby, who then told Miles to play the student. Miles said he refused and Leiby asked the coach for his resignation. According to Miles, he refused and was fired.
Leiby did not return messages seeking comment, the paper reported. Red Jacket AD Rick Yehl said that Miles was let go for “irreconcilable differences” with the administration.
"I refused to resign, this is something the superintendent shouldn’t even be involved in,” Miles said. “Former coach Tim Munn got run out of town (in 2008, when the school board overruled Leiby on his recommended appointment) ... and unfortunately this is a similar thing.”
Miles was in his fourth season as varsity coach, long enough to know why Red Jacket has a growing reputation as the graveyard of principled coaches.
“It’s impossible to maintain any sense of order or discipline because the kids know they can go to mommy or dad and they’ll go the district,” Miles said. “Because of the things I believe in, it makes it incredibly difficult to instill any good order and prepare them for the real world. I’ve done my best for four years.”
My short take on Red Jacket: Given the latest controversy, you might have to be a complete bleeping idiot to want to coach in that district going forward.
Bellport uproar: Three South Country Central School District board members want to sack their own president and vice president after a preliminary report said Bellport officials inflated a football star's grades, Newsday reported.
Lisa DiSanto Grossman, Jeannette Mistler and Rob Powell also are seeking to suspend district employees who are found to have played a role in related misconduct. They made their stand in an open letter sent Tuesday to the rest of the nine-member board.
"In order to restore true leadership to the South Country Central School District, we call upon both the board president and vice president to resign their positions," the letter said. "Both have failed to carry out their elected duties when they failed to reveal the initial allegations about grade changes to the entire board."
Board President Victor Correa and VP Kevin Kirk could not be reached for comment, Newsday reported.
Last fall, Kevin O'Connell claimed in a lawsuit that he was fired as principal by Superintendent Joe Cipp Jr., formerly the highly successful football coach, from his position as principal because he would not change grades for Ryan Sloan to help him gain entry into Syracuse University.
Though the letter cited Correa and Kirk, no district employees were named. It said Correa admitted supplying a "confidential report to the subjects of the investigation prior to the contents being leaked to the press and disclosed to district residents."
According to Newsday, the independent investigation preliminarily found that Cipp "must have been involved or must have known what was going on," adding that he "created an atmosphere of pressure upon the administration to make sure Ryan Sloan got the NCAA scholarship."
Cipp has steadfastly maintained he did nothing improper.
Milestone alert: Aquinas senior Nicole Bini scored a career-high 42 points to pass 2,000 for her career as
