Bishop Fenwick president 'baffled, surprised, stunned' by MIAA's all-sport postseason ban
PEABODY – The president of Bishop Fenwick said he is "baffled, surprised, stunned, disappointed" by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) banning all of the high school's teams from the postseason in the upcoming year.
The MIAA said in its decision that Bishop Fenwick was in violation Rule 87.6, which "requires accountability on the part of its members."
School president Tom Nunan said the issue centers around a fifth-year waiver application for one baseball player.
The MIAA called the school's behavior "sufficiently serious, egregious and repeated." Nunan disputes the claim.
"The MIAA believes that Bishop Fenwick willfully and intentionally was deceptive and dishonest. That's not true," Nunan said.
The president said the waiver application had three concerns – the number of games the student-athlete played as a ninth grader, the schools he previously attended, and perceived athletic ability.
Nunan said the school believed it had addressed issues with the waiver application.
"We apologized for our inaccuracies, the waiver was denied. We abided by that ruling so the student never set foot on the field and I thought the matter was closed," he said.
According to Nunan, 80% of students at Bishop Fenwick play sports. He said countless students are now being punished for something they had nothing to do with.
"This decision is effecting our entire student body regarding a situation over which they had no control and for which they bear no responsibility," Nunan said. "Kids love sports, and families love kids who love sports. So it's very emotional. I think also very unsettling. They're not sure why. How could this happen? Whatever the designated crime is, the punishment doesn't seem commensurate with it."
In an interview with WBZ-TV on Monday, MIAA Executive Director Bob Baldwin would not go into specific details regarding the situation, but he was able to elaborate on the decision to impact the entire school.
"I would tend to say it's not our place to put out that information," Baldwin said. "We delivered a notice of decision to the school on June 8th, so they are well aware of why that was made."
"I can tell you the board of directors made a pretty unprecedented decision unanimously, and I would tend to think it was more than one issue that they were dealing with," Baldwin continued. "I would say there has been a pattern of the same sort of behavior for well over a year."
Nunan said the school has hired counsel in hopes of resolving the situation with the MIAA.
"No one has seen this kind of penalty. So we're kind of in uncharted territory," Nunan said. "There is no stated appeals process in the MIAA handbook for this. That's why we retained legal counsel and said how can we go at this, but go at this positively and professionally without putting kids at the center of really difficult conversations?"
Nunan said representatives for the school and MIAA have been in contact over recent days and he expects to have an update this week, though he doesn't know what the update will be.
"We just want to have an opportunity to play. We just want to let the kids play. Whatever we can do to make that happen, we're more than willing to do," Nunan said.
