Leading off today: If the
news over the weekend that Newburgh Free Academy would not be bringing back football coach Bill Bianco next season was surprising, then what transpired at a multi-time state champion school in Section 5 on Monday was stunning.
Second-year Aquinas football coach Maurice "Moe" Jackson, coming off a trip to the NYSPHSAA Class AA semifinals, was fired during a meeting with David Eustis, the school's president. In a Facebook video, Jackson said he was given the choice of resigning, agreeing to a mutual parting or termination.
"While the details of this decision remain confidential, please know that this was made with great consideration and in alignment with the best interests of our student-athletes and football program," the school said in an initial statement.
Jackson said he opted to be fired to avoid a perception that he chose to leave after the program's first Section 5 championship since 2018 and a 15-7 mark in his first job as a head coach.
"I gave it my all," Jackson told the Democrat and Chronicle. "For them to come to a position of wanting to fire me, it had to be something personal because nobody can question my football knowledge, nobody can question what I did for the program and nobody can question that the players there absolutely had my back. So what's the reason?"
Jackson, the first Black head football coach in the school's storied history, posted a Facebook video during which he referenced "racial issues that weren't resolved" without offering specifics. The former state track and field champion and Syracuse University receiver also said a coach accused him and a player of spreading lies among the team.
That elicited a second statement from the Aquinas administration, saying in part:
"Out of respect for all involved, and in accordance with our institute policies, we are unable to discuss specific details. However, any suggestion that this decision was influenced by race is entirely false and does not reflect the facts.
Where did things go off the tracks?
Moe Jackson said in his Facebook video that he will perhaps elaborate at a later date regarding what led up to his departure from Aquinas.
In the course of poking around, I learned nothing transpired that would have raised issues in the Section 5 or NYSPHSAA offices.
The farthest that anyone I spoke to would venture was that whatever started the ball rolling on the firing snowballed during last fall's postseason run to the state semifinals, and that the relationship between school and coach was likely unrecoverable. What remains unclear is what the proverbial last straw turned out to be.
An unexpected change at Cooperstown
Longtime Cooperstown baseball coach Frank Miosek had hoped to shift to the role of varsity assistant this spring, but district administrators have gone in a different direction.
Miosek said he turned in his letter of resignation in hopes that assistant Matt Hazzard would be promoted. Instead, JV coach Matt Hulbert was recommended to the school board just ahead of the school year as the new varsity head coach.
In addition to rejecting Miosek's recommendation, Miosek said the district did not include him in the interview or selection process for his successor.
"That was not my plan in this whole process with baseball to retire," Miosek, who ran the program for 34 years and won a state title in 1999, told Syracuse.com. "It was to, you might say, downsize and stay with the program."
Meanwhile, Miosek will continue to coach the boys soccer team, with which he has chalked up more than 500 victories.
Districts map out Section 2 program's future
Following the sudden shutdown of its undefeated football season in the wake of an incident in which two team members were charged in connection to allegedly committing a lewd act against a child, the Warren County schools that make up a merged program mapped out the
future of the program.
The superintendents of the Lake George, Warrensburg and Bolton school districts announced on Friday that the three districts "have undertaken a restructuring of the football program's coaching structure."
All coaching positions -- a head coach, three varsity/JV assistant coaches, and two modified coaches -- have been posted, and interviews for the head coaching position will begin March 24. The selected head coach will play a role in interviews for the assistant positions.
