Pasco coach Dale Caparaso has a heated discussion with a Wesley Chapel parent taping the team's scrimmage.
By GREG AUMAN
Published May 30, 2003
DADE CITY - When he was hired this spring, Dale Caparaso came to Pasco with a reputation as a fiery, in-your-face kind of coach.
He went out of his way to prove that Wednesday night.
Minutes after Pasco's spring scrimmage ended, Caparaso got into a heated face-to-face argument with the parent of a Wesley Chapel player, and the two had to be separated by Pasco principal Pat Reedy while a crowd watched from the parking lot.
Pasco assistants noticed Chip Bethel, whose son Ryan is a star lineman at Wesley Chapel, taping the Red and Black game with a handheld camera from the stands. Within minutes of being spotted, Bethel stopped taping and briefly left the stadium. Reedy went into the stands, asked Bethel for the tape and received it.
After the game, Bethel said he was unaware of any rule prohibiting taping, calling himself "an ignorant parent." Reedy introduced him to Caparaso, giving him a chance to apologize outside the team's locker room. Caparaso, tape in hand, said he thought Bethel was representing Wesley Chapel, and the argument later escalated, with voices raised and Caparaso getting face-to-face with Bethel before they had to be separated.
Reedy said Thursday he had been contacted by another parent about the incident but that he had heard conflicting reports about what happened. He declined to comment, citing the incomplete information he had, but called the incident "pretty insignificant."
Before he learned it was a parent and not a coach recording the scrimmage, Caparaso had threatened to take the matter to the Florida High School Activities Association, saying the practice was "unethical."
"Wesley Chapel filmed our scrimmage, and we got the tape from them," Caparaso said shortly before the argument with Bethel. "Come on. You want me to get into controversy? I don't even know what the name of the next street is."
Neither Caparaso nor Bethel could be reached for comment Thursday.
The FHSAA addresses the issue in its football manual: "No representative of a school that is not participating in a contest may film or videotape all or any part of the contest unless permission to do so is granted by the principal of each school that is participating."
Wildcats coach John Castelamare said Thursday he was unaware Bethel was taping the game, and said he would have told him not to do so if he had known.
"If he had asked me, I would have told him it's against the rules," Castelamare said. "You can be there - (Caparaso) was at our game last week. But the rule is, you have to ask the coach before you tape anything. We wouldn't do that with spring games anyway."
The FHSAA manual adds that "any school violating these guidelines is guilty of unsportsmanlike conduct and shall be subject to reprimand and the assessment of a financial penalty by the FHSAA."
Gary Pigott, the FHSAA administrator in charge of football matters, said the taping would only be an issue if Pasco reported it to the FHSAA, and even then, parents of players generally are not considered representatives of a school unless they are taping the game at the instruction of the coaching staff.
This season's Oct. 16 showdown between the district rivals should continue a heated rivalry, even though the scores have been far from close. Pasco handed Wesley Chapel a 59-8 loss in the school's first season in 1999, but the Wildcats returned the favor, winning the last two games by scores of 71-6 and 64-29.
