UPDATE: Public, Officials Express Dissatisfaction Over Baldwin Basketball Coaching Situation

UPDATE below.

Michael Greco, of 105 Flora Road in , used public comments time during Wednesday night's Baldwin-Whitehall School Board meeting to say that 's basketball players are being put at a competitive disadvantage by not having coaches during this preseason time.

"The timing of it (opening Baldwin High's basketball coaching positions on June 8) and the length of the process to fill the position(s), in my opinion, is doing great harm to a very hard-working group of kids.

"They play in arguably the toughest (WPIAL) AAAA section out there (Section 4), and they're losing very valuable time over the summer as we go through this process to fill the position(s)—time they can't get back."

Greco wanted to know, specifically, what the board's timeline was for hiring a new head boys varsity basketball coach at Baldwin.

B-W Superintendent Dr. Lawrence C. Korchnak told Greco that the district's Athletic Director Vince Sortino will be back from vacation on Monday and that Sortino will begin reviewing applications at that time.

"I agree with everything that Mr. Greco said up there," board member Sam DiNardo Jr. said. "Makes no sense whatsoever (to open the coaching positions on June 8)."

"In the interest of transparency," fellow board member Martin Michael Schmotzer said, "I happen to know the reason of the delay of (hiring) basketball coaches.

"It's very simple. There was a gentleman who had been offered the job (as head boys varsity coach), accepted the job, wanted the job, said this was great ... and he lied to us. He lied to me, he lied to the district, he lied to the community, and so, obviously, when someone pulls out at the last minute—because he was supposed to be on the (board's) agenda last week—it creates turmoil.

"There's part of me that wants to rip into this individual and name him, but I'm not going to. I was leery of the process to begin with. That's why I voted 'no' in June. I was leery of this particular individual despite his glowing recommendations from other people. And the bottom line is we got our hat handed to us.

"It's not the first time and it won't be the last time that people come into this district and lie to us, but I, for one, resent it. I can't tell you how mad I am when people do that to us.

"Are we a great district? We're not there yet, but we're a good district, and we are a place to go to. We're a destination place ... 

"This particular individual, in my opinion, had no ... no integrity would be a good way of putting it."

Korchnak that the school board indeed recently came close to hiring a new head boys varsity coach but that the lead candidate took himself out of consideration in order to accept an NCAA Division I head coaching job.

Korchnak had no update on Aug. 3 on the hiring of any girls basketball coaches, and the subject of girls basketball, specifically, did not come up at the Aug. 10 meeting.

UPDATE: Gavin Prosser, a former boys basketball player at Baldwin and, most recently, an assistant men's basketball coach at Point Park University, has been named as Baldwin's head girls varsity basketball coach.

"I need to disagree with my brother," board member John B. Schmotzer said, "and say, 'This is a great school district,' not a good school district. It's a great school district."

Check back with the Baldwin-Whitehall Patch later on Thursday for more odds and ends from Wednesday night's school board meeting.