Fight to Retain East Hampton Coach Continues
The fight to retain Lou Reale as East Hampton High School’s girls softball coach continues.
On Tuesday, John McGeehan, the former girls swimming coach, who also is a lawyer, tried for the second time to pry from the district any “memoranda, emails, letters, phone texts, phone records, and any communication between anyone and East Hampton schools or any of its employees” that may have led to Superintendent Rich Burns’s decision last summer not to reinstate Mr. Reale as the softball coach.
Mr. Reale, who coached at Bayport before coming here two decades ago, is one of New York State’s winningest coaches. In the past year he was named as one of the top eight high school coaches in the country, and over the homecoming weekend last month he and his 2001 championship softball team were inducted into East Hampton’s Hall of Fame.
He did submit a retirement letter last summer, he has said, but only under duress following what he said he saw as largely a one-person campaign by a former player’s father to oust him.
“The exact same thing’s happening to other coaches,” the veteran coach said during a telephone conversation yesterday morning. “It’s gotten to the point where they’re trying to get state legislation passed to protect coaches who are being fired because, say, a parent doesn’t like them.”
To this date — and it’s been going on four months now — Mr. Reale still had “no idea what the accusations were that led Burns to make the decision he did. There’s been no hearing, no nothing.”
For his part, the superintendent has been tight-lipped as to what informed his stance. During a tumultuous school board meeting in July, during which Mr. Reale was ardently defended by other coaches, former players, and parents, Mr. Burns asked that when it came to the whys and wherefores, they trust him.
Mr. McGeehan said, in announcing his action Tuesday night, that if the district continued to stonewall his Freedom of Information Law request, he would bring an Article 78 proceeding in New York State Supreme Court to show cause why it should not release the documentation he’s been seeking.
“It’s too soon to talk about a lawsuit,” Mr. Reale said during yesterday’s conversation. “We’re just trying to get the information for now.”
The district, which refused Mr. McGeehan’s Sept. 28 FOIL request other than sending him three of Mr. Reale’s emails, one of which tendered his resignation, has 10 business days to respond to Mr. McGeehan’s appeal.
“What did Lou do that was so bad that the district can’t tell us?” Mr. McGeehan asked, adding that he was not acting as Mr. Reale’s attorney in the matter.