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By Phil Ray
pray@altoonamirror.com
An attorney representing Bishop McCort Catholic High School has asked a U.S. District Judge in Johnstown to issue a preliminary injunction against an order by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Association barring the school's wrestlers from competing in post-season tournaments.
The injunction request, filed by Joshua S. Mazin of Nazareth, also requests the judge to temporarily set aside a PIAA order that prohibits William Bassett from continuing to serve as the school's wrestling coach for the school years 2021-22 and 2022-23.
The request was made Monday and accompanied a civil rights lawsuit against the PIAA that requests in excess of $50,000 in damages.
The lawsuit contends that the organization created by the Pennsylvania State Legislature to regulate interscholastic athletics violated the civil rights of the students and defamed Bassett when on Dec. 14 its Appeal Board upheld a finding by the PIAA District 6 Committee that McCort engaged in recruiting athletes for its wrestling program.
The sanctions imposed by the PIAA not only included the ban on postseason competition and the disqualification of Bassett as the coach but also placed McCort's athletic program on probation through June 2024.
"The PIAA will suffer no harm from having (the wrestlers) compete in the PIAA post-season as they are eligible to do so and have been deprived of that eligibility by the PIAA's draconian and factually-unsupported sanctions," according to the request filed by Mazin.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Stephanie L. Haines.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Bassett, not only as a coach but also as a teacher and parent of a child who attends McCort, and 10 others whose children participate in the wrestling program.
The children, who are referred to in the legal documents only by their initials, include wrestlers from the seventh through 12 grades.
Many of the students who are part of the wrestling program transferred to Bishop McCort from the Forest Hills School District.
The students are from communities in the area including Johnstown, South Fork, Armagh, St. Michael, Windber, Osceola Mills, Salix and Indiana.
Bassett, according to information in the legal papers, was hired as a teacher in February 2021.
He was named wrestling coach last May.
As the lawsuit pointed out, the students who transferred did so for various multiple reasons.
Many were having "academic issues" in their former schools while others complained of bullying, and one student came to McCort after his family moved to be near a sister attending Mt. Aloysius College.
Bassett has a background as a wrestling coach and athletic trainer, operating a training facility known as the Compound and volunteering as a coach for a club wrestling team called the Ranger Pride wrestlers.
Sixty-five percent of the wrestlers who transferred did so before Bassett was appointed as the wrestling coach, it was pointed out in the lawsuit.
All of the transfers were approved by District 6 for eligibility, but things changed last August when a sophomore transferred from Forest Hills to McCort.
Forest Hills requested a hearing to determine if the student transferred for an athletic reason, and, after a hearing, the District 6 Committee ruled that was the case.
The lawsuit explains that "inexplicably, and without notice to any and all the plaintiffs," District 6 scheduled a second hearing to determine if the school wrestling program was involved in recruiting.
The committee gave no notice of the hearing to the young people involved, did not allow them the opportunity to be represented by an attorney, and they were not given the opportunity to testify, the lawsuit charges.
The District 6 group then handed down what the lawsuit stated were among the "harshest penalties ever issued by the committee."
The ruling was appealed to the PIAA, which slightly modified the District 6 ruling, it is claimed.
The coach and other parents are asking the district court judge to declare the PIAA violated the rights of the students.
The PIAA claims Bishop McCort violated its by-laws designed "to deter recruiting, which is materially motivated in some way for athletic purposes."