Marlins struggle with program's changes

Source: The News Herald, Panama City, Fla.儲存倉Sept. 05--PANAMA CITY BEACH -- The winds of change have blown through Arnold's athletic department as if the high school is a wind tunnel.The athletic department has traversed significant changes since the summer of 2012, and Arnold principal Keith Bland has made a pointed effort to usher out coaches whom he believed were not performing up to his expectations. Bland hand-picked their successors, and the results have not been what he had hoped.Bay District Schools earlier this summer began investigating serious allegations against the school's current athletic director, Karisa Wesley. Three other coaches -- Bobby Britton, Tara Lemieux and Frank Padula -- currently are part of or under investigation by the school district or at the state level."Right now we're in disarray because we're without an athletic director currently," Bland said. "Four months ago it was heading in a better direction."Bay District Schools has suspended Wesley with pay while investigating whether she had sex, smoked marijuana and drank alcohol with former student Eddie Williams. Wesley already has admitted to having a relationship with Britton, violating Bay District Schools rules prohibiting supervisor-subordinate relationships. Lemieux is under investigation as part of the district's inquiry into Wesley's alleged misconduct with Williams.Padula is under investigation by the Florida Department of Education's Office of Professional Practices for allegedly having sex with a teenager while she was a student at Mosley.Differing perspectivesJames Baxley was the boys basketball coach at Arnold for eight years. At the end of the 2011-12 school year, Baxley said he approached Bland and said he wanted to add Tyler Schwab, a former Arnold player who graduated in 2007 and played basketball at Chipola and Spring Hill College, as his assistant coach and his junior varsity coach.Baxley said Schwab has worked at camps at Florida and Florida State, respectively. Schwab conducted a week-long camp in Guatemala this summer as part of the Dribbling the Globe foundation's efforts to spread basketball to under-privileged youth in developing countries.Baxley, who is now the coordinator of media services at Gulf Coast, said he told Bland that he intended to groom Schwab for the head coaching position for one season, two at the most, and then step down. Baxley said Bland initially was on-board with the planned transition."Tyler had a graduate assistant job available in Kansas," Baxley said. "I said, 'I want to talk to you (Bland) about this and see if you want to do it or not.' If he had said, 'No, I'm thinking about something else,' I would have resigned. But he said, 'Oh no, this is great, and I would love to hire some alumni. This is a good coach.' He said, 'Tyler, I will give you the first teaching slot that comes open.'"Bland disagreed with Baxley's assertion."I never offered (Schwab) a teaching job," Bland said, adding that he was concerned Schwab didn't have enough experience as a coach because he was a recent college graduate. "I told him that if I had an opening, he was welcome to apply. Nothing was ever promised."Baxley said he and Schwab coached the Marlins to an impressive showing at a summer camp at Gulf Coast. He said his team lost to the county's top program, Rutherford, on a half-court shot at the buzzer."Tyler and I, with what we had, we figured we would have won 20 games that year," Baxley said. "Anything less than 20 would be a disappointment. The district tournament was at our place. Rutherford is always strong, but the other district teams were down a little bit. So we went to work."We played so well at Gulf Coast's camp. ... The kids realized we could play with (Rutherford). They came into the locker room at halftime and told us that they believed what we were saying and that what Tyler and I were doing was working."Baxley said the team's success, in an ironic twist, ended up hastening his removal as head coach."We played on Saturday, and on Monday (Bland)called me and said, 'I want to come by and visit with you at school,'" Baxley said. "I knew what that meant. He wanted to go in a different direction. I said, 'What about Tyler?' He told me he can stay on as an assistant coach. Tyler was there to be the head coach, not the assistant forever."Then we find out afterward that the principal had been talking to (Mosley junior varsity coach) Bobby Britton since January and was begging him to take the girls' slot. He wouldn't. Then after (Britton) saw we played so well against Rutherford and beat several other teams pretty good, he accepted the boys job after that."Baxley said Schwab would have been an ideal coach to carry the program forward."Tyler's out of here now, and a reason why I haven't said a lot is because Tyler would have been the one getting beat up in this," Baxley said. "If he gets on a black list here, he'll never be a coach anywhere. Now he's somewhere else and is protected. Now Tyler is at Florida Gulf Coast. When they saw he played at Chipola and what he'd done, they made him part of the coaching staff down there. He's an entry-level piece down there (at FGCU), but he wants to be a college coach, and one day he will be. He's that good."Bland ultimately replaced Baxley, who had compiled a 111-103 record as a coach at Arnold, with Britton, who had never been the head coach of a varsity program.Bland said he wanted a new coach, particularly for a program as prominent as boys basketball, to be on campus throughout the day, not just during practices and games. He said he was hearing complaints from parents, and while that wasn't the determining factor, it did contribute to his decision to let Baxley go.That decision did not work out well in terms of wins and losses last season. A senior-laden team Baxley believed could win 20 games won just five games with a program-record 21 losses in Britton's first season."James had a quality program," said Bryan Normand, the girls basketball coach at Arnold for four years before he was replaced by Natalie Vogler at the end of the 2012-13 school year. "He didn't always compete for district titles or always have a winning season, but he always put a quality product on the floor."It kind of opened my eyes to the fact that even though you put a quality product on the floor,and you're being competitive and doing the right things, there's a chance you'll lose your job any way."'Halien' sightingHousecleaning at Arnold continued later that summer when Julie Hale, the school's athletic director since Arnold first opened its doors 12 years earlier, was removed from her post following a school board decision. Bland replaced Hale with Wesley, who had experience as a volleyball coach but never before had been an athletic director.Football coach James Hale, Julie Hale's husband, resigned from his position in December 2012. Josh Wright, a former assistant coach at Mosley who was the head coach at Class 1A school Franklin County before getting the Marlins job, was hired as Hale's replacement.Wright was named the head coach at Arnold after winning one-third of his games at Franklin County, a program whose struggles on the football field began long before Wright arrived there. Wright finished with a record of 13-27 in his four years. Bland said that Wright's win-loss record wasn't a big factor in his decision to hire him. Bland noted that James Hale had endured a 0-10 season the year before he became Arnold's first head coach.Normand and another former coach, Jim Burant, said that Hale constantly was under seige from Bland, and that pressure eventually led to Hale's resignation. Hale now is the head coach at Mariner High School, a Class 5A school in Cape Coral. Burant followed Hale to Mariner and is serving as an assistant coach."I would talk to James on a daily basis," said Normand, who was an assistant coach under Hale on Arnold's football team. "The stress level he was going through, it really was taking a toll on him. He was having a really hard time. He kept telling me that I need to watch my back, I need to watch my back."He knew the axe was about to fall on him and probably take out other people with him like Bill Thomas and myself. There is one time someone told me that an administrator from Arnold was overheard at a Christmas party this past Christmas saying that they were in the process of getting rid of all the 'Haliens.'"Normand said the word "Haliens" was meant to be a derogatory term for any coach who was hired during Julie Hale's tenure or worked on the football team under James Hale."That is not true," Bland said, adding,"I've never heard of that term."Burant was an assistant coach under Hale at Arnold from 2000 through 2004 and again from 2009 to 2011. He said Bland was a frequent source of frustration for Hale from the moment Bland arrived at Arnold as school principal."Unnecessarily so, too," Burant said. "It was very stressful. The biggest (story) is where James is there, maybe this is 2010, 2011. We've got college recruits in there. They're in that big planning room where James' office was, and a coach from Florida and Rick Trickett from FSU are there. We're talking big-time coaches. And Bland was in there, too."Trickett was Bland's coach in college at Memphis State (from 1986 to 1988). I don't know if he felt like he had to put on a show, but he was making really unprofessional comments about Hale in front of these coaches. Things like, 'We've got to make a change if he doesn't win the district.' It's like, don't do that. No matter how well you know the other guy, you don't do that."Burant said Bland was among the applicants hoping to fill Arnold's vacancy as head football coach when the school opened in 2000, and he suspects that Bland might have been harboring negative feelings toward Hale, who got the job when Arnold opened, when Bland became Arnold's principal in 2009. Bland replaced John Haley, now Executive Director of Operational Support Services for Bay District Schools."He was a local Bay High guy, and I'm sure he thought at the time, 'I'm a local guy with local connections, and I got passed over and didn't get (the job),'" Burant said. "As fate turned out, Bland then went to Apalachicola because Bill Thomas came to Arnold (as an assistant). So he goes there and is the head coach there, and who is the first team we play at Arnold? You guessed it. Apalach. We played Apalach and beat them like 35-0 or 40-0, something like that, and Keith was the head coach on the other team. I really think that is a part of it."When Arnold High opened up everyone thought we would be a sorry team. I was from South Florida and d迷你倉價錢dn't know anything about the beach. They thought, 'They're going to be sorry because all they'll get is beach boys. They might be good in golf or swimming but not in football.' As it turned out, we were really good."Most of the kids who came over were old Bay kids," Burant continued. "We beat (Bland) with what they said wouldn't amount to anything. Arnold's won all these games, we won state championships in weightlifting, and it was because we worked hard. It was not because of recruiting people. It was because we worked hard. I think there were a lot of people -- Bland wasn't the only one -- on the other side of the bridge that couldn't accept that."Bland, who acknowledged that he did apply for Arnold's head coaching job in 2000,said he felt no resentment toward Hale after Hale was granted the job."Look, he worked here and built this school," Bland said of Hale. "He was given every opportunity to give what he could to the program. It boiled down to a performance thing. He told me last year he was going to retire, especially after the investigation (in 2012)."That investigation, which looked into allegations that included football players not receiving core classes necessary to graduate, ultimately cleared the football program and the school of any significant wrongdoing.'It's constantly been something'Bland said it has felt as if a revolving door of issues has been assailing his school."It's constantly been something at Arnold High School," he said. "It seems like every year there is some type of accusation or a cloud from a program, like recruitment (allegations) from a year before. ... Every year there's something that comes up."Asked if he is ultimately responsible for what goes on at Arnold, much like a CEO of a corporation, Bland said he was.Burant and Normand both remembered a day two years ago when then-assistant coach Tyrone Bolware relayed tothe other assistants and coach Hale something that Bolware had been told by another coach in the community. Bolware said the coach told him Josh Wright was in line to be Arnold's next head coach once the 2012 election for superintendent had concluded. That coach, Bolware said, said he would be Wright's offensive coordinator.Burant said that coach was Mark Stanton, and Stanton's words did prove prophetic. Wright eventually did replace Hale, and Stanton was named the offensive coordinator."That really happened," Burant said of Bolware relaying the story to the other coaches. "We looked at each other, but ... we didn't realize it was serious. 'Oh, they're just talking.' But the more it adds up, the more it adds up, the more it adds up, we realize there is something to this. It wasn't just idle talk or guys out for a couple beers. This was really going to happen."Of course, that's exactly what happened. No doubt. We know what happened. You'd have to be blind not to see what happened."Bland said Wright getting the job was "simple coincidence.""I did not have a plan in place," Bland continued. "It was based on their performance, as far as those coaches. There wouldn't have been any changes if they were successful and doing great in the classroom and doing the things they needed to do."Arnold defeated Holmes County 35-0 in Wright's first official game with the Marlins. Before the game, Wright made a point to say he was "really nervous" that he wouldn't get the job because he knew the pool of applicants was of high quality.Burant said Bland had offered him a full-time teaching position and then pulled the offer from under him."We hadn't done anything to deserve this, what looks like a plan to get rid of all of us," Burant said. "By 2012, I was in Chipley. The reason I left was because he wouldn't hire me full-time. I was taking place of a teacher who unfortunately had cancer and died at Christmas. It was a sad deal. Bland said I can take over for him full-time."He interviews me, and a week later to the day, literally from one Friday to the next Friday, he's standing in front of my room with a big stack of papers. I'm thinking, 'This can't be good. Why is the principal standing in front of my door with a stack of papers?' He says, 'I don't have the numbers to do this, that and the other. I know you've got five kids.' Are you kidding? What are you saying? Why did you interview me, then leave a bone in front of me and then pull it away?"Burant said he finished the year substitute teaching at Beach Elementary School.Bland said he did not recall offering Burant a full-time position at Arnold.'I'm hearing these rumors'Normand said he and his wife had been discussing him leaving Arnold prior to his removal. He said he contacted the principal at North Bay Haven, Meredith Higgins, when he began hearing rumors that his demise as head coach of the girls basketball team was inevitable. Normand now is the offensive coordinator on the football team at North Bay Haven, as well as the Buccaneers' head baseball coach."I had started hearing rumors from players that they were going to be letting me go way before I heard anything from the administration," Normand said. "That was something that really upset me. The players started saying stuff. They heard they were letting me go and mentioned that Natalie Vogler is taking over as head basketball coach. I asked them where they were getting that from, and they said, 'Coach Vogler told us.'"I've got a family to feed and that sort of thing. I went to Karisa and said, 'Hey, I'm hearing these rumors, and I need to know if my job is in jeopardy. ... She said, 'Nobody talked about anything like that. Nobody has said anything to me.' Come to find out, it was just a huge lie."Vogler has been around sports her entire life. She was a three-sport standout at Mosley and played softball collegiately at Gulf Coast and Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Ga. She wasn't the tallest, strongest or fastest athlete, but Vogler was a heady, fundamentally sound player who proved her reliability on any field or court of play.Vogler had never been the head coach of a varsity-level program before this year, however. Normand said it was Bland who placed Vogler on his coaching staff, and she was tabbed the junior varsity coach and an assistant coach on the varsity squad."I was told, 'Natalie Vogler is going to be an assistant coach,'" Normand said. "It wasn't, 'Do you want to talk to her?' I was told by Keith Bland who the assistant coaches are. That's not the way it's done at a lot of other schools."Bland denied that allegation."I never tell them what coach they have to use, not at all," Bland said. "I let each coach make the determination."Normand said the atmosphere surrounding the school's athletic department was toxic last year. He said rumors of Wesley and Britton engaging in inappropriate conduct "were widely known," and Baxley confirmed that he had heard the rumors, too, even though he no longer was a coach at the school.Normand said Britton received favorable treatment when he arrived at Arnold. Britton was given an office more spacious than that of his coaching counterparts who had been at the school a longer period of time, Normand said, and practice schedules were adjusted to benefit the boys basketball team over other programs.Local businesswoman Laura Baker, whose son, Colby, was a wrestler at Arnold, said she approached Bland outside his office last December when a boys basketball practice ran long and cut into the wrestling team's time in the gym. She said she questioned Bland about whether Wesley's rumored relationship with Britton was becoming a problem."He said I crossed the line," she said.Bland said he followed up on what Baker referenced about the relationship between Wesley and Britton. He said Wesley and Britton declined at that time that there had been any relationship.Normand said that the perceived favoritism toward Britton and his program became most evident during a pep rally held in front of the student body last year."Bobby did organize it, and he did include the girls in the pep rally," Normand said. "They introduced the girls by name. Then they introduced the boys. The lights go out, there's a fog machine and laser lights."The girls felt completely slighted. The girls were angry, and their parents were angry. My parents raised hell about this and how the girls were treated in the pep rally. I really believe that was what sealed my fate, the arguing and the parents coming down on Bobby for the way things were running."Normand said he found a letter in his mailbox at school last spring notifying him Bland was not going to renew his contract."Then I got an email (from Bland) that said, 'Come to my office and we'll talk about the letter,'" Normand said. "The conversation was really short, no more than about a minute. He said he was just trying to go in a different direction. I told him I knew why he was getting rid of me."Soft landingsThe coaches who spoke on the record for this story all saidit has turned into something of a blessing that they do not work at Arnold now while controversies are looming over the school and the athletic department.Said Normand, who now teaches science and engineering at North Bay Haven: "I'm extremely thankful to be here. North Bay Haven is a great atmosphere. One of the things is there is a lot of integrity from the teachers, the administration and the students. Everyone has a lot of integrity, and everyone looks out for each other. I couldn't have asked for a better place to end up."Baxley, who described himself as a one-time Bland supporter, said:"I think the Lord got me out at the right time. Right now, if Tyler Schwab was the coach there, I would have felt bad for him. I've had players call me and say, 'Coach, I'm ashamed to say I graduated from Arnold now.' Or, 'Coach, we need to take our banner down.' Those are the statements I have heard from kids, yes. When they tell you they are ashamed to wear Arnold basketball shirts or tell anybody they graduated from there, that's pretty tough."Added Burant: "The thing that's bad about all of this is that the kids are stuck in the middle. They don't know who to believe. Do I trust this guy? Do I trust that guy? The school's morale has gone down completely. It was an 'A' school when Bland took over. Think about how many teachers have left, people like myself and Bryan Normand who don't want to be a part of this anymore. They want to go somewhere else. They don't want to be a part of it anymore, and there's just a handful left of the original people."Copyright: ___ (c)2013 The News Herald (Panama City, Fla.) Visit The News Herald (Panama City, Fla.) at .newsherald.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉