Padecky: Anonymous complaints about Sonoma County private school sports accomplish nothing

Why not, I thought? It’ll be harmless, a joke. No one would take the bait. So the little devil inside me did it.

It was a few years ago when our readers could respond to articles or columns which appeared in The Press Democrat. The blogs would immediately give a reader a voice.

I was fresh to the world of high school sports in Sonoma County. One name kept popping up — Cardinal Newman. The antipathy was ever-present. The sun comes up and so does the moaning and griping. Newman did this and Newman did that.

Wanted to see how deep it went.

So that day, in my blog, I just wrote two words: “Cardinal Newman.” That was the title of the blog. That was the whole blog. Nothing else. Not one word. Newman’s great? Newman’s kitty litter? Nope, just “Cardinal Newman.”

Oh my.

One would have thought I wrote that I found out Newman just sold America’s nuclear launch codes to the Russians. Or that Newman just purchased all of the Sonoma Coast State Beach. Or Newman got permission from the county to charge a toll every time a car passed the school on Highway 101.

“I knew it! You’re a Newman lover. Bet you went to school there, too.”

I grew up in South Florida.

“You have no integrity. You shouldn’t have accepted the money they paid you to write that.”

Yes, journalists aren’t millionaires and sometimes it does feel like we do get paid by the word, but not this time.

“Have you no shame?”

I do, but usually it’s when I eat too much.

On and on it went, with comments referring to Catholicism, that I should return to my place of origin and words that should not be said unless thrown out of a moving car going 70 miles an hour.

That said, I was convinced. Cardinal Newman is everything wrong with high school sports and The Press Democrat should never cover their games. Least that’s what the whispers said, along with anonymous phone calls, texts and emails.

Problem is, I don’t write about anonymous anything unless it involves a free lunch. But Sonoma County, I have learned when it comes to high school sports, is a county of whispers, of a knowing a wink and a nod, of “Boy, someone recruited well.” Wink, wink, wink.

Sonoma County may have half a million people in it, but when it comes to prep sports it’s a big small town that hangs out on porches and floats the latest conjecture.

In that Sonoma County is no different than any other small place where everyone seems to know or boasts that they do know everyone else. Someone sneezes in Healdsburg and someone in Petaluma reaches for a Kleenex. That’s probably an exaggeration.

And the fire that fuels the whispers of prep impropriety, the fire that never goes out, the perpetual flame as it were, are the high schools that have one very distinct disadvantage over all others.

“Private schools have no (geographical) boundaries,” said Jan Billing, the commissioner of the North Bay League. A kid in Ukiah can play for Newman or a kid in Gualala can play for St. Vincent. Bingo. Ready-made finger pointing.

Last week Monica Mertle, Newman’s girls basketball coach, drew a lot of groans and moans when she announced her team would not be playing in the virus-impacted NBL season. Adding spice to this hot chili, Mertle would be coaching a club program, its roster full of Newman girls. A league schedule already had been drawn. Open dates suddenly appeared. Schools scrambled to fill.

People griped. As they should have. It was terrible, awful, not-good optics. No matter what the reason, abandoning league for club? Hard to find any other word to describe than this one: Selfish.

The same reaction resulted when Newman and St. Vincent organized club football teams while the rest of Sonoma County high schools couldn’t play. Reasons were given. Money was spent. Only two club games were played. Did those football players get their money’s worth?

I was told rumors about private schools inflating grades, improper recruiting, special financial incentives offered to enroll. We don’t cover rumors.

With 22 years of experience in administering the care and feeding of high school sports, Billing said most of the above complaints are directed toward private not public schools. She passes along the complaints to the principals of the private schools and then leaves it.

“I receive a lot of anonymous phone calls, text messages or emails,” Billing said. “I don’t respond to anonymous allegations.”

For years a solution has been discussed and never advanced beyond that: Private schools need to form their own league. Cost prohibitive is the reason given. Newman’s football team takes a bus to play St. Bernard’s in Eureka. Might even have to stay the night.

Of course, the tuition at Newman is around $18,000 a year, and parents of Newman’s club footballers had to pay thousands of dollars to play — as it turned out — just two club games. So is traveling 217 miles in a bus too costly?

There’s always the stay-local option, go 9-1 and get a high seed in the playoffs. Or stay home and stay undefeated for seven years, as the girls basketball team has. Nothing succeeds like success. Or is as attractive.

There are many options — some people might call them interpretations — if a teenager is in private school. Rumors are not facts. As Billing will say, rumors have thrived forever when a private school sits among public schools.

But the Newman Blowback, as I like to call it, isn’t this hot everywhere. I grew up in South Florida and I never heard such vitriol about St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale. That high school has produced more NFL players (11) than any high school in the country. Yet such success there was not so universally reviled and condemned there. South Florida produces pro talent as easily as it produces sunshine.

That a high school in Florida has produced more NFL players than Sonoma County should not be an embarrassment but rather a reflection on population density. As of July 1, 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates 6,166,488 people live in Miami-Dade County. In that county alone there are 538 private schools, 40 percent of them Christian or Catholic.

In Dade County, complaining about a private school would stir the same reaction as complaining about rush-hour traffic on Interstate 95. Yeah, so what? What’s your point?

Here, in Sonoma County, Newman and St. Vincent are easy targets because they are the only targets. However, there is a complication. It is notoriety, which is what one would receive if someone was a whistle blower.

“The fear of retaliation,” Billing said.

Go on the record in Miami-Dade and that voice would get lost among 6,166,488 people stuck in traffic and rising ocean water. Go on the record in small-town Sonoma County, this would be the profile: Grabbing a megaphone and standing on a street corner.

“Don’t stand behind a curtain,” said Billing, who is not taking sides on the issue. Rather, anonymity produces no results, just a lot of air.

“I can’t pursue anything given to me by someone who prefers to be anonymous,” Billing said.

If someone is truly upset at the actions of a private school and seeks change, the first step is name and phone number. Then information. On-the-record. What was seen. What was heard. And when was it.

Billing is not asking for a witch hunt. Neither am I. It’s just that with such high winds buffeting Sonoma County on Monday we’re looking for less hot air.

I just don’t think Newman bought the quarterback’s parents a Ferrari with 10 speakers. Not to start any rumors, you know.

To comment write to bobpadecky@gmail.com.