By Vince Burgos & Colin Strang
The Squall
Dexter HS
1st Place Division 3, News Writing
Sports News Story
JUDGING CRITERIA
- Lead features interesting, important angle
- Uses colorful, lively style
- Avoids cliches, editorializing
- Displays knowledge of sports; uses understandable terms
- Shows research/interviewing skills; emphasizes how & why
- Effective use of facts/quotes
- Proper diction/grammar; use of the third person
- Unity/coherence
Following a Tweet storm referencing the grounds that the Dexter high school men’s varsity basketball coach Tim Cain was asked to resign, an odd situation arose that drew in many Dexter families. The drama online fed the fi re and press releases left and right encapsulated even more people into the scene. The view of many was that a coach who had three winning seasons in four years was asked to resign by Superintendent Chris Timmis. This lead to the question: why was the superintendent involved in a sports decisions instead of the Athletic Director? It also begged the question: after winning putting together a winning season in thre eout of the past four years, why was Cain asked to resign in the fi rst place? The next piece came out that the athletic director hadn’t been the deliverer of the news due to having a son in the program. Arguably the most controversial news was that the Athletic director, Mike Bavineau, who is also the head coach of the women’s varsity basketball team, was interested in the men’s head coach position. Bavineau declined to comment on the speculation that Cain was fi red so he could slide into the men’s coaching job. Principal Kit Moran was aware that Superintendent Chris Timmis was going to be having conversations with Cain following the 2018-2019 season, but was unaware of the decision asking Cain to resign. Moran learned of it the following day. “Oh boy,” Moran said when asked about his reaction to the news. “I didn’t know that was going to happen.” Bavineau called it a “group decision” based on the group that consisted of “myself, Principal Moran, and Dr. Timmis,” in regards to Cain’s forced resignation. “I generally do not get involved in athletic programs in the level of detail that I became involved in with boys basketball unless the program is being poorly run and there are serious issues/concerns,” Timmis said in an April 10 statement. Freshman coach and varsity assistant Koji Vroom didn’t feel Timmis was as involved as he stated. “That hasn’t been a thing since I’ve been here,” said Vroom, who has been on staff for two years. “I know there was a meeting between Timmis and Cain, and a couple parents had a meeting in Cain’s fi rst year, but basically everything was cleaned up after that and there was no issue between parents.” A few basketball players interviewed opted to remain anonymous due to their continued athletic career as DHS basketball players. “I didn’t really like how it was handled because they didn’t really tell us about our coach being fi red,” a varsity basketball player said, adding that he felt the players were kept too much in the dark during the process. “They didn’t even tell us. They didn’t email our parents. They didn’t do anything about that and that just seems kinda screwed up.” Timmis regrets how the players feel, but he downplays the coaching change being atypical. “It was just a standard change in direction,” he said. “The whole situation was blown out of the water and way out of proportion.” People, including coach Cain, took to Twitter and began bombarding the school district, Bavineau, and Timmis after Cain was forced to step down. The situation seemed anything but typical. Timmis took full responsibility for bypassing the Athletic Director and fi ring Cain himself. The culmination of reasons was more than what was initially released, and Timmis said he couldn’t be more specifi c. He did state, however, that it wasn’t because of wins and losses or the team’s record (6-15) this past season. The district expects varsity coaches of any sports to show an interest and to help out with younger programs, including middle school and even community education teams. This “trickle down” effect of sports programs, Timmis said, was not being followed. From this point, due to the nature of men’s basketball being a “high profi le sport,” Moran knew he needed to be involved in the process, especially considering he “assumed Bav would be interested in the boys’ job.” Moran was appointed to lead the managing of the interview committee and the application process. After interviewing at least four candidates, Bavineau and Jason Ruston, an varsity assistant coach at Saline, were the two fi nalists. Shortly after the search was narrowed down to two, a Twitter account (@AntWright) released the results of a parent-conducted survey by parents of women’s basketball players that were harsh in the evaluation of Bavineau as the women’s coach. It didn’t affect the interview process as both fi nalists held monitored practices with members of the team as part of the interview process. On May 8, following a tense week of emotions, Moran sent an email to team parents that Rushton was named the new varsity coach. In the email, Rushton opened up his coaching career as a Dreadnaught with the following statement:“I believe that having a championship mindset and work ethic is the key to success.” Players have voiced their thoughts and are just ready to focus on basketball again. “ I’m excited,” junior Bobby Pnacek said. “I think we will be good next season.”