PIAA appeals board upholds stern punishment for Bishop McCort wrestling program

By: Pennlive.Com
Wednesday, December 1, 2021 | 5:57 PM

The Pennsylvania Interscholastic Board of Appeals listened Wednesday to the case of Bishop McCort on penalties levied by District 6 on its athletic programs. The group decided after about a half-hour of deliberation to sustain those penalties with amendments.

The PIAA announced a postseason ban for Bishop McCort wrestlers for the 2022 and 2023 postseasons and a two-year suspension for coach Bill Bassett from coaching at any PIAA member institution. Bishop McCort’s athletics program was also placed on probation for three years.

PIAA executive director Robert Lombardi was not on the appeals board but said the committee heard testimony for two hours and had a slew of materials to review in advance of the final decision.

“I think the appeal board met over two hours and took the testimony and weighed all the information that came in,” Lombardi said. “So, I think that was the decision and we’ll go from there.”

Those penalties are viewed as perhaps the harshest in the history of Pennsylvania athletics, and the final resolution comes after Oct. 6 and Nov. 3 hearings at the District 6 level. The issues at hand were a large volume of transfers into Bishop McCort and whether those transfers were athletically motivated.

Representatives from Bishop McCort rigorously defended the academic motivations of all 88 new transfers into the school, which was estimated to include 16-18 wrestlers, and argued new students arrived because of educational opportunities and McCort’s handling of the covid-19 pandemic.

Bishop McCort counsel Gary Vitko made the school’s opening argument, which centered on academics and a “double standard” imposed by District 6 in its ruling. He called the district’s claims that Bassett and Bishop McCort recruited athletes “a fishing expedition” and reiterated the academic motivations of transfers.

“Not one of these students … has stated, ‘We’re coming here to wrestle,’” Vitko said in his opening statement. “They stated, ‘We’re coming here for educational purposes. We’re coming here because of the pandemic,’ or because they were a Christian family.”

“There is no basis of fact on the record that Bill Bassett steered or recruited anyone here.”

At question was the conduct of Bassett in the transfer process along with photo and video evidence showing one athlete training at The Compound, a facility run by Bassett in the basement of his home, prior to his transfer to Bishop McCort. The appeals process also showed that Bassett had contact with other wrestlers prior to their arrivals at the school.

Among the wrestlers to transfer most recently were two nationally ranked eighth graders in Jax Forrest from North Carolina and Sam Herring from Tennessee. Bassett’s son, Bo, is also an eighth grader widely regarded as one of the best wrestlers in the nation after winning a Cadet World title over the summer.

Last season, nationally ranked state title contender Erik Gibson was ruled ineligible after transferring from Forest Hills to Bishop McCort over claims of a racially motivated incident in the wrestling program. Today’s ruling means that Gibson is due to miss his second straight postseason.

Bishop McCort principal Tom Smith said he assessed every new transfer personally and stamped his confirmation that they were academically motivated. He credited the school’s approach to pandemic education and marketing team for the rampant interest that ultimately spread to other states.

“People loved it, and the word traveled,” Smith said. “They wanted to come here because of what we were offering. I’m not going to say it was better. It was different.”

Smith made the same case just prior to McCort’s closing statement.

“As the principal at Bishop McCort, how could I sit there and listen to those parents and say it wasn’t academic?” he said. “I’m the one who did the interview, not the panel at District 6. I just hope you guys would take a second to think about that, why it wasn’t athletically motivated.”

The five-member appeals board did think about it, and they came back not long after closing arguments were made with a unanimous decision: sweeping penalties will be enforced that will change the landscape of Pennsylvania wrestling for the next two seasons.