Commentary
Connellsville school board goes after more coaches So the purge continues.
The Connellsville school board has done it again.
Not content with firing Dan Spanish as football coach, a man highly respected among his fellow coaches, the school board has struck again with the firing of Bob Renzi as head baseball coach, along with assistants Ray Orndorff and Bob Renzi Jr. and freshman coach Jeff McWilliams, plus two softball coaches, three cheerleader sponsors and nine conditioning assistants.
Of course, the board will say they didn’t fire the coaches. They will fall back on that old milk toast phrase “we opened the positions.” Same thing, just worded differently.
Why those positions had to be opened in the first place is a matter only the coaching critic board members can answer. It might have also been that Renzi, like Spanish, didn’t play the right kids, and in Renzi’s case, there was also a reported bit of a coaching personality snit some time back.
Also on Renzi, board member Jeff Harvey was quoted as saying, “We have received a lot of parental complaints about him. We have heard that he has a bad attitude toward his players, has a temper and situations like that.”
Bull feathers! I don’t know who Harvey was talking to, but you can bet it wasn’t to the entire Falcon team. The opinion here is that disgruntled parents, whose kids weren’t playing every inning of every game, and those same fourth- or fifth-string players were the ones making many comments.
Why didn’t the board talk to the varsity players en masse, or even individually? When a man’s coaching future is at stake, isn’t it right that every side is questioned and heard?
I have known Bob Renzi personally – almost as long as I have lived in this area – and never once, not one time, did I ever hear him use bad language or show any signs of a temper. Oh, he has been seen to paw at the coaching box grass in frustration over a broken play, or throw his hands up, but what coach has never done that, and then some?
I would suggest this to the school board – talk to the umpires that work the Connellsville games, talk to his fellow coaches and see what they think of Renzi.
Ever since baseball was inaugurated at Connellsville, first Tom Sankovich and then Renzi have built the program into one that is recognized across the WPIAL, and its coaches are respected by their peers.
Renzi said, “They (the school board) never gave me any specific instances or times when I am supposed to have done the things I was charged with. They never talked to me at all.”
Just hear one side of the story, and then make your decision, huh?
Renzi was also supposed to have “made inappropriate comments” to players during games, but again, the board never cited specific instances.
Renzi said, “They have the power to do that (firing), but I wish they would have given me specific instances, times, places and players involved. I don’t scream at the kids or the umpires or try to make the players look bad after a play or when I’m taking a pitcher out of the game.”
Which leads to another question – if Renzi is such a volatile coach, how can you account for his being a good teacher in a volatile subject – chemistry?
There was a time when coaches would holler at players no matter what sport, belittle them in front of their teammates, and they just brushed it off as part of the game, and then went out and tried harder to correct their mistakes. But today, there are some whose little egos are bruised if you correct them, whether it’s athletically or in the classroom, and they fly home to their parents, who in turn get after the school board, who in turn are so afraid of not being reelected that they make decisions to fire coaches.
However, this was one case where parents didn’t show up, Renzi said, “I had a meeting with Jim (Lembo, AD) and Karen Blocker (school board athletic chairman) and neither one had any questions to ask me in that meeting pertaining to my work as coach or any complaints they might have heard. And most of all, not one parent came to the school board meeting over baseball.”
Renzi also noted “Ray (Orndorff) deserves to coach, but I don’t think he will reapply for the position.”
There was a time when a coach at Connellsville was in that position almost as long as he wanted to be, but not any more. Since 1994, Connellsville has now gone through four boys basketball coaches, four girls coaches and four girls softball team coaches. Seems like in the last 30 years, baseball (two coaches) and football (two coaches) have been the only stable coaching positions. Then some wonder why you don’t have the 25 and 30-year coaches anymore.
Renzi coached baseball at Geibel from 1973 to 1982 (which offers another parallel) before moving to Connellsville as Tom Sankovich’s assistant in 1983. When “Sank” retired, Renzi moved up (1991) and continued the program’s success with second place, then six section titles in a row, second in 1998 and 1999 and championships every year since.
Renzi said, “We have had a good program; the kids have worked hard for me. But no matter how long you coach, somewhere along the line you are going to make five people mad at you.”
In this case, Kevin Lape was the only one defending Renzi, and for that he gets a thank you vote from this corner.
The others, who voted against Bob, can you look at yourselves in the mirror today and say you are really proud of what you did?
Now, board members, with your coaching staff purge completed, maybe you can get back to doing the job you were elected to do, that of making academics and the academic improvement of the Connellsville District your number one priority, and forget about athletics.
Jim Kriek in a Herald-Standard sports correspondent and columnist.