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Ravaged, reprimanded

That's the pervading feeling at Nature Coast in the aftermath of the FHSAA's investigation into recruiting allegations and subsequent sanctions.

By VINCENT THOMAS
Published August 13, 2006

Jason Montgomery had a lump in his throat, and his eyes started watering. He was in Nature Coast Tech's meeting room, seated next to his two superiors, defending his character.

It was the day after the Florida High School Athletic Association sanctioned the school with three years of administrative probation and a $1,250 fine, $500 of which was to be paid out of funds culled from Montgomery's girls basketball program.

Five months earlier, the district, then the FHSAA began investigating Nature Coast's athletic department based on recruiting allegations. All the while, Montgomery's name kept coming up.

"Gut-wrenching" is how he described it, with his voice subtly cracking, swallowing that lump.

"I got my next-door neighbor coming up to me asking things like, 'Hey what's this I hear about you cheating?' People were coming up to my wife.

"I'm getting called into meetings and shown sworn statements from girls that said I recruited them and I'm like, 'I never met this girl.' "

Among more than 100 pages of documents associated with the FHSAA investigation received by the Times were signed statements from students - all names of minors were redacted, concealing the name of the author - such as one dated Feb. 23 from one claiming Montgomery called her before he arrived from Kentucky to begin coaching. He said he had been hired to coach the girls basketball team and "spoke about the 'great facilities' at Nature Coast and the fact that team gear would be 'top of the line' because they would be sponsored by Adidas."

Another wrote, "Football coach (Jamie) Joyner called my house on Aug. 9, 2005, in the evening after I got home from football practice at Springstead. He told me if I wanted to come to Nature Coast I would be able to play and start on the football team."

There were others - many others, interviewed by FHSAA investigators Bill Grey and Wayne Williamson. But, in the end, much of the allegations could not be proven.

In the end, the school's probation and fine was for four violations: a pizza party organized by Montgomery for middle school girls basketball players who were offered free admission to a Nature Coast game; a conversation between Eric Riggins, an assistant football coach, and a parent of a prospective student-athlete on the sideline of a middle school football game; Riggins taking a Nature Coast application to a neighbor; and soccer coach Phil Bennett's contact with potential student-athletes at a club soccer practice.

The allegations and accusations, threats by fellow Hernando County schools about pulling out of the Hernando County Athletic Conference and no longer scheduling games against them, state investigators questioning Nature Coast students, principal Tizzy Schoelles needing to interrogate her coaches - it all seemed to take its toil. Montgomery, Schoelles and assistant principal Joy Greene, who was the school's athletic director during the process, seemed tired of it all that day.

Schoelles said she wouldn't wish what she and her staff went through on her worst enemy.

* * *

Almost as soon as the four-year-old magnet school began participating in varsity athletics, it has been dogged by accusations. Not just recruiting accusations, but roster cheating, bad practices, general incompetence.

Greene was new in her role as athletic director and has since admitted certain operations may have crossed FHSAA policy lines because of ignorance, a claim Sonny Hester, FHSAA associate commissioner, did not discredit. And many on the staff admitted growing pains and being Hernando's first high school magnet program made navigation difficult. These weren't excuses for the policy violations, but explanations.

Still, many Nature Coast staff members felt the investigation was a witch hunt, spiked with a bit of jealousy. Schoelles once remarked the other schools wouldn't stop the accusations "until they have a chunk of flesh."

The school is unique. As a magnet school, Nature Coast is not restricted to the confines of district zoning. Students, and therefore student-athletes, can come from anywhere in the county, unlike the three other public high schools.

Nature Coast also opened with sparkling new facilities. And the school seemed to conduct its athletic program like a college. Coaches came from all over the country (Kentucky, West Virginia). A few were pulled from out of the country (England, Puerto Rico). It was a pro-athletics school in a county where athletics can sometimes be an afterthought.

Asserting that the other public schools, older and zone-restricted, felt threatened would not be a leap. But fellow administrators and coaches used common refrains, like, "We just want them to play by the same rules that we do."

* * *

In May, Hester said recruiting allegations are the hardest to prove. The end result of this investigation reinforced that. Much of it can come down to "he said, she said" back-and-forth. If a coach denies having a conversation with a student and the student or parent can't prove it, where does that leave the district or FHSAA?

Nature Coast made the point that though there were recruiting policy violations, the FHSAA investigations did not find any instances where Nature Coast's dealings resulted in students enrolling at the school or transferring from another school.

For their part, Springstead athletic director Bob Levija, Hernando athletic director Brent Gaustad and former Hernando girls basketball coach Pete Lahey, who alleged one of his players was recruited, all seem willing to move on.

"Our governing body, FHSAA, looked into these matters and they came down with the discipline they felt was necessary," Gaustad said. "Now we have to move on."

Vincent Thomas can be reached at (352) 848-1430 or vthomas@sptimes.com.

[Last modified August 13, 2006, 12:07:40]