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Lou Rabito: Haverford needs to do away with online critiques

The anonymous evaluations may have caused the demise of hoops coach Terry McNichol.

Terry McNichol deserved better.

McNichol was fired last month after 15 seasons as boys' basketball coach at Haverford High, the apparent victim of anonymous evaluations filled out by players and, ostensibly, their parents.

Three evaluators voiced complaints about McNichol, he said he learned from principal Jeffrey Nesbitt. McNichol refutes all the accusations against him.

The online surveys, implemented in 2009, should never have been introduced.

District superintendent William Keilbaugh asked parents in a letter to take the surveys. Players filled them out when they turned in their uniforms.

The evaluations were designed, according to the forms, "to obtain information and comments from parents and student athletes regarding their experiences with coaches." They asked players and parents to rate coaches' performances in areas such as communicating with students and demeanor.

If that seems harmless, consider this: Because the evaluations were anonymous, people could write without accountability. Some athletes and their parents can be delightfully objective. Others can be influenced by negative factors - say, their (or their child's) lack of playing time.

Worse, the surveys weren't password-protected. So anyone, including a player who had been cut from the team, could have gone online and filled out one - or two or six.

In essence, the district gave the online universe carte blanche to criticize McNichol and any other Fords coach.

Nesbitt and athletic director Joann Patterson did not respond to an interview request. Keilbaugh said the district doesn't discuss personnel issues. Regarding the basketball team, Keilbaugh said only that the district wanted to go in a different direction and thanked McNichol for his service.

Haverford recently removed the surveys from its website. Keilbaugh said they are activated and deactivated seasonally. He added that "controls are in place to allow athletes' parents to log in to complete the survey."

The use of the anonymous surveys raises questions.

Did school administrators make sure that the critical surveys came from legitimate sources? Did they confirm the accuracy of any allegations with other people? Were coaches allowed to defend themselves against accusations before any decisions were made?

Asked these questions in an e-mail, Keilbaugh replied, "The surveys are but one piece of the total picture in evaluating our programs. . . . The survey responses provide feedback that allows the administration to receive and address concerns and questions. . . . Certainly, if we receive allegations of improper conduct from a survey or any other source, we would investigate, including interviews with involved parties."

McNichol said he was not given that opportunity.

He was told, he said, that half of the six evaluations that he believed came from parents were negative. If all 21 junior-varsity and varsity players filled out surveys, then only three of the 27 respondents would have complained.

One of the surveys alleged that McNichol had represented the school district poorly because he whined too much to officials. Another said he had cursed at a player. One accused him of not working enough on team-building.

McNichol said he told Nesbitt that the team had finished second in voting for the Central League sportsmanship award and that he was asked to speak before the Delaware County chapter of the PIAA referees. Would either have happened, McNichol asked, had he been a whiner?

(Another question: Shouldn't Haverford administrators be aware if a coach whines too much at games, without input from parents?)

As to the other accusations, McNichol said that he hollers but doesn't curse at players - seniors Conor Walsh and Eric Falasco, three-year varsity players, echoed that sentiment - and that his team participated in Operation Santa for the underprivileged and raised money for Haiti and for Coaches vs. Cancer.

McNichol is one of two Haverford coaches whose contracts have not been renewed by the district since the school year started. Boys' soccer coach Jorge Severini was let go after 22 seasons.

(Boys' ice hockey coach Brian Cleary and girls' ice hockey coach Kelly Winther also have been dismissed; hockey, though, is a club sport run by a separate board, not the school district.)

Severini, 63, went 222-115-57 in his 22 seasons with Haverford. Asked if he thought the evaluations played a role in his dismissal, he said only that "I don't think I was treated in the way that I should have after so many years in the school."

McNichol, 51, who has his own financial-planning business, concedes that he lost more games than he won as Haverford coach. But he said Patterson and Keilbaugh told him that wins and losses didn't factor in the decision.

That makes it tougher for McNichol to make sense of the decision to fire him.

"I still don't know why, and probably will never know why," he said.

McNichol learned from Patterson on March 28 that he was being let go. After discussions with her, Nesbitt, and Keilbaugh, McNichol stated his case at a school board meeting April 7. Several people spoke in support of him, including Bobbi Morgan, Haverford College women's basketball coach and mother of Haverford High basketball player Patrick Morgan.

"He's one of those guys that you want your kid to play for," Bobbi Morgan said last week.

Morgan, who graduated from Haverford High, coached girls' basketball there for 14 years and said it was awkward to get mad at the school because "I don't speak more highly of any other place," criticized the use of the anonymous evaluations.

"A blind survey is just crazy. . . . It's really a scary evaluation tool," she said.

If the school district ever learns that lesson, it will be too late for McNichol.

He deserved better.

After 15 years, Haverford owed him more than a mere thanks and goodbye.