SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD, NJ — The South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education unanimously approved the hiring of James Whalen as the new head baseball coach for Columbia High School during its Nov. 16 meeting, putting an end to months of speculation that coach Joe Fischetti would not be rehired amid allegations he and his coaching staff bullied players.
Whalen will be paid a $6,566 stipend for his contract, which runs from March 2017 through June 2017. He takes the position after previously serving as an assistant varsity and junior varsity coach for North Caldwell’s West Essex High School from 2002 to 2016, during which time he helped lead the varsity baseball team to two county championships, three state sectional championships and the Star-Ledger’s trophy for best team of 2010. He is also a physical education teacher at Valleyview Middle School in Denville.
Whalen is excited about joining the CHS baseball program, telling the News-Record he has long felt ready to take on a head coaching position and is happy finally to have the opportunity. As he waits to meet with his players for the first time — which he hopes to do in the near future — he said he is eager to get started.
“I look at it as an opportunity to take over a quality baseball program and move the program in the right direction,” Whalen said in a Nov. 28 phone interview. “I want to come in and I want to do what’s best for the kids at Columbia High School and the baseball program.”
But Whalen actually did not expect to ever be in the position. He said he had intended to continue coaching at West Essex until head coach Eric Johnson informed him he wanted an assistant who worked in the school building. Whalen then heard about the CHS position but did not pursue it, knowing that Fischetti and assistant coach Matt Becht had applied for the job. According to Whalen, he felt they deserved the position and it was not until he was told the two were out of the running that he decided to apply.
The new CHS coach is familiar with the controversy surrounding his predecessors, but he said he knows Fischetti and Becht well and has a lot of respect for them. In fact, he said he spoke with them after getting the job and was honored when they both gave him their blessing. Still, he said he has nothing to do with their situation. He just wants to focus on his players, he said.
Board of Education President Elizabeth Baker said she could not discuss the decision to hire Whalen instead of Fischetti or Becht since board members are not permitted to comment on personnel matters. But now that his hiring is official, Baker said she hopes Whalen’s transition into the new role goes smoothly.
“While there are deep feelings on many sides, I am heartened that all stakeholders are committed to welcoming Mr. Whalen to the CHS community and creating a positive climate for the team,” Baker told the News-Record in a Nov. 28 statement. “I urge all members of our community to provide strong support for our players, coach and school as the baseball team moves forward into the spring season representing CHS.”
District spokeswoman Suzanne Turner likewise declined to comment on the interview process, but did tell the News-Record that the district believes it has secured a great coach for the upcoming baseball season. Turner also pointed out that Fischetti will continue working as a physical education teacher in SOMA. And while she understands why some will be disappointed by his departure as a coach, she said, Whalen will nonetheless be a boon to the baseball program.
“We are confident that coach Whalen will be a supportive and skilled coach and look forward to seeing this year’s team in action,” Turner said in a Nov. 28 email.
CHS Athletic Director Larry Busichio, who headed up the search committee that recommended Whalen, also said the baseball team has an excellent new coach. Busichio said Whalen’s experience at West Essex made him stand out as a candidate, especially considering he spent most of his time there working with acclaimed coach Scott Illiano. Busichio said he was also impressed by Whalen’s time playing baseball for Montclair State University, where he pitched for the team that won the Division III National Championship in 2000. With that background, Busichio said he knew Whalen would be a good fit for Columbia.
Busichio declined to comment on why Fischetti was not rehired, only saying that Fischetti did a “fine job” during his years with the team and that he wishes the coach the best of luck moving forward. He also said Becht and fellow baseball coach Steve Campos will not be returning to the program next season, though he declined to say why. He said coach Sam Maietta may come back, but it will be up to Whalen to assemble his own staff.
Overall, Busichio is optimistic about the upcoming baseball season.
“It’s been a tricky past couple of years, so we’re looking forward to an uneventful spring, other than our team doing well,” Busichio said in a Nov. 28 phone interview.
CHS Baseball Boosters President Drew Dix is confident the team will thrive under Whalen, who he called the “real deal.” But Dix, who served on the search committee that also included parents and administrators, said he had a problem with the hiring process. In particular, he said the Board of Education almost hobbled the committee’s chances of finding a qualified candidate.
Dix said the board instructed Busichio to start accepting resumes for a new coach in September, but after the Boosters staged a demonstration supporting Fischetti at the Sept. 19 BOE meeting, he said he board told the athletic director to halt the job search. Yet five weeks later, Dix said, the board told Busichio to find a candidate by Nov. 7, so Busichio quickly assembled the seven-person search committee to interview six of the eight people who had applied for the position in September. After speaking with each person individually, including Fischetti and Becht, Dix said the committee decided to recommend Fischetti for the job. Dix said he felt Fischetti was the best choice due to his past success with the team, his loyalty to the school and his history of acting as a mentor to players.
Yet Superintendent of Schools John Ramos Sr. rejected both Fischetti and Becht as options on Nov. 14, Dix said, leaving less than two days to find a candidate for the board’s Nov. 16 meeting. The Boosters president said Busichio was lucky to find Whalen, who was not one of the original eight applicants. But he said the board should have never halted the hiring process for five weeks since plenty of other qualified applicants could have submitted their resumes during that period. And if Ramos and the board never wanted to rehire Fischetti or Becht, he said, they should have made that clear from the beginning.
“They disrespected the coaches, making them go through the humiliation of applying for the jobs when they had no intention of hiring them,” Dix told the News-Record in a Nov. 23 phone interview. “By doing this in a cursory, slipshod way, now they’re sending the message they don’t care about the program at all, the parents at all or the kids at all. So to me, it was consistency from beginning to end with these folks about the poor way they handled this process.”
Turner said the district cannot comment on the internal conversations related to the hiring process, and Baker said she could not comment on personnel matters.
Though he is pleased to have Whalen as a coach, Dix said not hiring Fischetti or Becht was a mistake after all their work taking the baseball program to new heights. He added that it seems the Board of Education is merely trying to appease the two families who have accused the coaches of behavior he said he personally never witnessed. He said the only issue the district’s independent investigation found them guilty of was inappropriate language from 2014, which they received training to address. Not bringing them back because of that is a punishment too harsh for the crime, he said.
The coaches themselves are very disappointed and upset by the board’s decision, according to their attorney Steve Farsiou. Farsiou said Fischetti and Becht fought to keep their jobs for two years amid allegations — which not only do they deny, but which he does not believe meet the standard for Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying as defined by the state law — strictly out of loyalty to their players and CHS. Not hiring them in reaction to a few parent complaints sets a bad precedent, he said.
“The school (district) could have really set the tone not only for this situation but for future situations,” Farsiou told the News-Record in a Nov. 23 phone interview. “What they’ve basically done is set themselves up for the same exact situation to come down the pike again. And I don’t know how they’re going to defend themselves if they want to go in a different direction next time.”
Farsiou said he is awaiting the results of his appeal to the board regarding the investigation’s finding that the inappropriate language from 2014 was HIB. If the board members uphold that ruling, he said, he will appeal to the Commissioner of Education’s Office. If they reverse it, which means the investigation cleared the coaches of all HIB accusations, he said he and his clients would look into filing a lawsuit over the decision not to rehire them. He said they would certainly have a case considering Fischetti and Becht’s reputations have been damaged, they are now losing money by not getting their jobs and the district basically took two years to look into the accusations against them when the law requires a 10-day time frame for investigations.
Randy Nathan, who has long claimed that the coaches bullied his son, Alex, also has not received the results of his appeals regarding the investigation’s findings. Nathan said two BOE members privately told him the board is upholding the investigation’s ruling that there is not enough evidence to substantiate his claims that Alex Nathan was trash-talked and cut from the team out of retaliation. That does not bother Randy Nathan though since he said Judge Bedrin Murray of the Office of Administrative Law has agreed in the spring to hear his petition against the board concerning its handling of his son’s HIB investigations. He said he looks forward to presenting his case and hopefully getting justice for his son.
Randy Nathan, who works as an anti-bullying consultant, said he is also happy the district is finally addressing the “bully culture” of the CHS baseball program by not rehiring Fischetti or Becht, something he has demanded for years. He said the district took an even more positive step by bringing in a coach from outside the program who can create an environment of his own.
“(He can) create his own program, set forth reasonable expectations and really coach these kids in a manner which is appropriate for 2016,” Nathan told the News-Record in a Nov. 22 phone interview. “It really levels the playing field for everybody.”
Meanwhile, the coaches, district and BOE are still facing the lawsuit filed against them by former player David DeFranco, who alleges that the coaches repeatedly bullied him. That litigation draws from some of the incidents the independent investigation looked into, including allegations that all four coaches allegedly locked him in a room and yelled at him for complaining to the district about them, and used “lewd, racist and vulgar” language and expletives in reference to himself and his teammates. DeFranco also alleges that the coaches did not remove an offensive sign about another player that had been posted and that, after being cut and reinstated, he was often told he would be playing in games only to be benched, with the coaches later joking about how well he had played.
Amid bullying scandal, district hires new baseball coach added by Sean Quinn on
View all posts by Sean Quinn →