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Choice in text proves costly to Mooney's girls lacrosse coach
Mooney girls leader resigned
By BRIAN DZENIS
A high school coach’s off-color word choice in a text message may have cost her a job.
Cardinal Mooney girls lacrosse coach Hilary Barrett used a profane word — it rhymes with “witch” — in a single text message to two players while intervening in a conflict.
Barrett admitted to sending the text and said she was forced to resign as a result. She had been involved with the program for six years.
“I think my wording could have been better, but if I had to do it again, I would have handled it the same way,” Barrett said.
Cardinal Mooney and Youngstown Diocese officials declined to be interviewed for this story, though officials acknowledged that Barrett is no longer coaching for the district and that her exit had nothing to do with a Ohio Department of Education inquiry into the matter.
REPLACEMENT PLAYER
Barrett said the episode began following an April 13 contest against Boardman.
Barrett was down a player because one of her seniors left the team and she selected a freshman to take her spot. The team won, 16-6, and the freshman performed well, Barrett said.
That player was one of three freshmen who came out for the team.
“They were like best friends,” Barrett said.
When one of the three got varsity playing time and the other two did not, their relationship appeared to sour. Barrett noticed in a subsequent practice that the two girls were making a point to avoid the one who played against the Spartans.
An upperclassman on the team informed Barrett that the two girls were upset at the third for receiving varsity playing time.
Barrett decided to get involved, texting both players who were ignoring their friend to tell them she was aware of what they were doing. She told them she found the cold-shoulder treatment unacceptable and threatened to cut their playing time further — varsity or junior varsity — if they continued to foster any drama.
For emphasis, she added a final line that said something to the effect of, “Don’t test me, I can be the biggest [expletive].”
While The Vindicator did not get a copy of the actual text, when asked about that line, Barrett said that was an accurate depiction.
The responses from the two players and their families differed.
One player was immediately apologetic and both of her parents spoke to Barrett. Barrett said the parents wanted to know what prompted the tough talk. Once they spoke, they came to an understanding of what happened and Barrett said the conversation went well and didn’t expect further concerns from them.
The other player extended her silent treatment to include the coach.
“I heard no word [from the other girl’s parents],” Barrett said. “She also stopped showing up.”
Barrett’s two assistant coaches, Toni Chahine and Lauren Lottier, said that they didn’t attend the practice where the alleged misbehavior occurred.
And they did not know about the text initially.
“I saw that one of the girls never came back,” Chahine said. “Other than that, everything was normal.”
Within days, however, Barrett apologized to both students via text and in person for the language.
THE IMPACT
In a meeting with Cardinal Mooney Principal Mark Vollmer the week after the Boardman game on a separate matter, Barrett said she volunteered the episode involving the three girls.
She also showed him her original text and her subsequent apologies for the tough language.
“He asked me if I was aware of the texting policy and I said no,” Barrett said. “We talked about it and he told me ‘Don’t let it happen again.’”
Randy Rair, assistant superintendent to the diocese, explained the diocese’s text messaging policy via email.
According to the policy, employees cannot text students unless it is their own child. A coach or other extracurricular directors may send out a mass text to the whole team, but the principal has to be copied on it. If a player texts a coach individually, the coach must include the child’s parent or the principal in the response.
Barrett said as far as she was concerned, the episode was over following her conversation with Vollmer.
A couple of weeks later she learned differently.
At the end of the last week of April, Barrett was called into a meeting with Vollmer and athletic director Don Bucci. They informed her that they received a letter from the Ohio Department of Education, the state entity that issues coaching permits to people wishing to work in scholastic athletics.
The letter said that the DOE had received a complaint about Barrett and it was making an inquiry into the complaint. Barrett claimed school officials told her that in order to prevent an investigation and possible damage or loss of Barrett’s coaching license, she should resign.
When the meeting was over, so was her time with Mooney.
“I think I cried for two days,” Barrett said. “It was rough, I taught those kids from day one.”
THE FALLOUT
Rair said the DOE had nothing to do with Barrett’s resignation.
“I can tell you however that the personnel decision made regarding Hilary Barrett was independent of the correspondence regarding the Ohio Department of Education,” Rair wrote in an email.
Brittany Halpin, a spokeswoman for the DOE, said she could neither confirm nor deny any information regarding Barrett. According to Ohio Revised Code Section 3319.311 A, information obtained during an investigation is confidential. The DOE’s website has an educator conduct search that keeps records of assessed disciplinary actions. There is no record of disciplinary action against Barrett.
Chahine said the rest of the team found out about the coaching change via email from Barrett. She and Lottier learned the game from Barrett when they were students at Cardinal Mooney.
“I loved her. I thought she was great,” Lottier said. “I never played lacrosse before and I learned so much in that first week.
Mooney boys lacrosse coach Chris Joss said his daughter played for Barrett and thought she was an excellent coach. He wouldn’t be surprised to see her coaching again somewhere else.
“Whoever gets her will be in great hands,” Joss said. “She’d get a recommendation from me in a minute’s notice.”
Joss said he doesn’t think about school’s texting protocol as he goes about his job. He keeps to updating his team collectively, if he texts at all. He has one rule: anything he says to a player has to be something he’s OK with saying to the whole team.
“I use my best judgment. Anything I send to a player has to go to the whole team,” Joss said. “If I have to address someone individually, it’s face-to-face at practice.”
Chahine and Lottier were both considered too young to be head coaches — both are college freshmen — so Joss and assistant football coach Chris Amill were brought in as the interim coaches.
Amill and Joss coached the team’s final games, which included the playoffs.
The team ended the season at 9-8-1 with a 17-5 loss to Avon Lake in the second round of the playoffs on May 19. Barrett’s former assistants kept her updated with each game for the rest of the season.
Barrett said she doesn’t want her job back, even if Mooney offered.
Lottier said it’s hard to believe a single text can cost a coach her job if that was truly the case.
“It’s hard to think one specific incident could wreck the whole thing,” Lottier said.