Well, talk about a curveball.
OK, wrong sport for an allusion, but you get the idea.
Frank Sheptock’s decision to pull out of the Mount Carmel Area football coaching and athletic director (and let’s not forget, dean of students) jobs a month after he took it has, no matter how it tries to spin it, been a black eye for the Mount Carmel school board.
Let’s review:
• A faction of the board, upset the Red Tornadoes lost three games by big scores to very good teams, decides Carm DeFrancesco’s tenure should be over, despite a 42-20 record in five years.
• That faction reaches out to Mount Carmel alumnus and Kulpmont native Sheptock, the former longtime coach at Wilkes University and Berwick Area athletic director, to see if he would be interested in the Mount Carmel job.
• The board opens DeFran-
cesco’s job in November on a 7-2 vote.
• The board hires Sheptock, effective in January, for the head coaching spot and athletic director’s job on a 9-0 vote. To do the latter, theboard moves AD Greg Sacavage out of that post, making him director of extracurricular activities and elementary dean of students, and making Sheptock secondary dean of students. All together, it adds up to a $66,000 package for Sheptock and more money out of beleaguered taxpayers’ wallets.
• Sheptock, reportedly after taking a closer look at the Mount Carmel situation, decides things aren’t so bad in Berwick, and pulls out of the Mount Carmel job on Wednesday.
No matter how they play it, the board’s decision to oust DeFrancesco in favor of Sheptock, who was their guy right from the get-go, was poorly thought out.
It has apparently split the community into Kulpmont (pro-Sheptock) and Mount Carmel (pro-DeFrancesco) factions, the reverberations of which may be felt for years. Reportedly, there has never been such an issue among the students, but there is now in the adult community.
It will give the program its fourth head coach in less than seven years (five if you actually count Sheptock) and surely has the players asking themselves what’s going on.
It further erodes the school district’s reputation as one that cares so much about football as opposed to things that matter, like academic standing, that it’s willing to cut off its nose to spite its face.
Seriously, how many good coaching candidates would even consider Mount Carmel right now?
There may be somebecause it is Mount Carmel, but the pool shrinks with every hiring and firing. Coaches talk to each other, and the talk about Mount Carmel these days is not necessarily positive.
The candidates most often being mentioned right now are former North Schuylkill head coach Rick Geist and another Mount Carmel alum, John Darrah, presently an assistant coach at North Schuylkill under Wally Hall. On the present staff, Pete Cheddar, the junior high principal, has reportedly expressed some interest.
But Geist has had his problems with North Schuylill’s board, and he doesn’t seem the type to put up with too much guff from a board he doesn’t know as well.
DeFrancesco, for his part, has been keeping a low profile. He has applied for the vacant Williamsport Area coaching job. He probably wouldn’t reapply on his own, but if board members came to him with hats in hand and egg on faces and admitted making a mistake, he’s a soldier loyal enough to his school and community that he might take the job back.
Speaking of loyal soldiers, Sacavage has done nothing but what is best for the school district during this whole fiasco. That’s something else the board members might want to remember.
While they’re remembering things and looking in the mirror, they might want to consider this as well — this is not 1973 anymore, or even 1998. The district’s enrollment and tax base are no longer what they once were. There aren’t as many top-flight athletes as there once were and, even if there were, today’s kids aren’t necessarily the same as in the old days.
The Mount Carmel glory days, for now, are gone. They may come back some day. If they do, great. But it’s time for the board and community to quit putting so much wasted effort into making it happen.
Let the kids play and the coaches coach, and thank them for it.
(Souders is a staff writer for the Shamokin News-Item)