Sanctions against McCort upheld
Measures imposed by PIAA for alleged recruiting violations by wrestling coach
U.S. District Judge Stephanie L. Haines in an opinion issued Friday morning upheld sanctions imposed by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association against the Bishop McCort High School wrestling team.
The sanctions, imposed for alleged recruiting violations, included a two-year ban on the team’s wrestlers from participating in the PIAA post-season tournament, two years’ probation for the school’s athletic program and the implementation of remedial measures beginning this month.
In addition, the PIAA Appeal Board has barred the school’s wrestling coach, William Bassett, from coaching any PIAA athletic teams for two years.
The sanctions did not bar members of the wrestling team from participating in regular season meets and still allowed them to work out in Bassett’s private gym, The Compound. They are also allowed to participate in a wrestling club where Bassett serves as a volunteer coach.
Parents of the affected wrestlers filed a civil rights lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Johnstown, contending the PIAA unfairly “targeted” the students.
The parents argued that the PIAA violated the students’ due process and First Amendment rights and denied them equal protection under the law.
The parents, through attorney Joshua Mazin of Nazareth, filed the lawsuit, which also claimed the PIAA defamed Bassett’s reputation.
The lawsuit asked Haines to issue a temporary injunction that would remove the sanctions, thereby allowing the student wrestlers to participate in this year’s PIAA wrestling tournament, which one coach described as the “Gold Standard” for the nation’s high school wrestling programs.
The parents argued that the inability of the wrestlers to vie for a Pennsylvania state championship would lessen their chances of landing college scholarships.
Haines said for the parents to prevail they had to show the wrestlers would suffer “immediate and irreparable harm” and had to persuade the judge that their lawsuit would likely prevail in the long run.
Haines in her ruling, stated the parents failed to meet that criteria.
Investigation started
The PIAA investigation into McCort’s wrestling program began last fall after Forest Hills High School suspected that a student had transferred to Bishop McCort in Johnstown for athletic purposes.
After reviewing the evidence that the young wrestler had a close relationship with Bassett, which involved working out in Bassett’s basement, training at The Compound and participating in the Ranger Pride Wrestling Club, the PIAA District 6 Committee decided to take a closer look at other transfers to McCort.
The District 6 Committee issued sanctions after a November hearing, and the PIAA Board of Appeal essentially upheld the sanctions.
It found that prior to 2020, McCort had only five wrestlers in grades 9 through 12 and often had to forfeit matches due to the lack of participants.
Now the McCort program has 15 wrestlers in grades 7 and 8, almost all who recently transferred to McCort where Bassett had been hired as a teacher before being appointed wrestling coach.
The transfers included many youths who had been trained and coached by Bassett.
The Board of Appeal also found that the school’s administration had lacked “institutional oversight.”
Haines held two hearings and reviewed more than 900 pages of exhibits entered into the record of the case.
Melissa Mertz, assistant PIAA executive director, said her organization was “very pleased” with the judge’s decision.
She cited a paragraph in the Haines’s opinion that said, “In the court’s view, Bassett’s previous coaching and training relationships with the numerous transferring wrestlers, and his complete failure to advise the athletic director and/or Principal (Tom) Smith of these relationships, coupled with Bishop McCort’s neglectful or intentional ignorance to what was patently obvious, are all clearly indicative of athletic recruiting, as well as willful blindness by the Bishop McCort administration in their oversight responsibilities, as the PIAA reasonably determined.”
District 6 Committee chairman, William Marshall, Penn Cambria School superintendent, stated the committee looks seriously at alleged violations of the PIAA constitution and bylaws and that a lot of thought went into its decision to issue sanctions in the McCort case.
The Mirror was unable to contact Bishop McCort’s principal or athletic director, and the lawyer for the parents did not respond to messages left at his law office.
Haines in her decision addressed each of the alleged civil rights violations cited by the parents.
She pointed to the numerous hearings held by the PIAA and concluded the argument that the young wrestlers were targeted by the two-year ban placed on their participation in postseason activity “is an absolute mischaracterization of the sanctions.”
She pointed to testimony by a PIAA official during the hearings that the sanctions were placed on Bassett and the wrestling program, not the students.
“They are able to participate in regular season wrestling and have not been suspended from wrestling,” she stated.
Their First Amendment right to freely associate with others and to wrestle during the regular season, to compete in other sports and to be part of the Compound and Ranger Pride wrestling and The Compound has not been compromised, she continued.
There also was testimony that other Pennsylvania high schools have had transfers in their athletic programs, including some from out-of-state — much like the McCort situation — and that the sanctions against McCort violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, was rebutted by Haines in her opinion.
Bassett, she stated, sent out invitations to wrestlers to attend a wrestling clinic at McCort and many of those who transferred to McCort had prior contact with the coach.
“This evidence alone indicates the PIAA’s findings were neither arbitrary nor capricious,” she ruled.
Addressing the argument that the students will suffer irreparable harm, Haines explained that Pennsylvania courts and U.S. District Court in the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, “have repeatedly held that ineligibility for participation in interscholastic athletic competitions alone does not constitute harm.”
The parents cited that the sanctions violated the Pennsylvania School Code — the right to education and school choice.
Haines disagreed, stating the student wrestlers are able to participate “in every aspect of academic and extracurricular life at Bishop McCort, with the sole exception being participation in the PIAA post-season championship the next two years.
“The inability to participate for one of two years in PIAA postseason competition does not infringe on the parents’ rights to choose where their children attend school under federal or state law,” Haines stated.