Pensacola High’s head baseball coach, the PNJ’s baseball coach of the year 2016, announced he is resigning at the end of the season, and he says that district administration is the cause.
Coach Jamie Rigdon told the PNJ that the school district has blocked players from his transferring to his program, while allowing his players move to other schools.
“I think the guy who oversees the county has purposely sought us out,” said Rigdon. “We were open for new players, we had guys that wanted to come here (PHS) but they were all denied (by Escambia County School District).” Read more.
Sound familiar?
Three years ago, Superintendent Thomas targeted the Escambia High School football program, which led to eventual firing of head coach Willie Spears. Read more.
Let’s say hypothetically this were the case (ignoring other important points about school being about academics), if the students wanted to leave his program for that one reason, then shouldn’t that be the primary litmus for whether he is going to have a successful program? Why would good athletes want to leave one school from one district and vice-versa? If good players are wanting to leave the school and deal with the issues with having to go to a school outside that districting, that should say something. Primarily, it’s highly unlikely good players outside that school’s district are wanting to come to you. It doesn’t make sense.
Now, can we talk about how this is indicative of the real issues with our school system?