ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 29, 1996 TAG: 9611290026
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
THE SUSPENSION this week of Lord Botetourt High School's football coach - pending the outcome of an investigation by school officials and, perhaps, a decision by the School Board - makes sense.
But because it comes after the completion of a winning football season, it also raises questions. For example: about the rights and responsibilities of employers and employees in public schools.
Andy Ward's trial Monday, in which he pleaded guilty to charges of reckless driving and driving on a suspended license, had been delayed twice, until just after the season ended. Why?
"I felt like he wanted to continue it until the end of football season," says Botetourt County commonwealth's attorney Joel Branscom. "I didn't want to do that and have [Ward] still on the road." Good.
Branscom agreed to a second continuance only after Ward agreed to surrender his restricted license and give up all driving privileges. The public was protected.
Still, it is striking that school officials, including the interim superintendent and some School Board members, report that until this week they were unaware of Ward's legal problems - including two convictions in the past year for driving under the influence.
School districts require criminal-record checks when they hire employees. They presumably have an interest in knowing when a current employee - in this case a teacher and high-profile head coach - is getting into trouble with the law not just once, but repeatedly. In an educator, a reckless disposition can't be ignored.
So, should a warning have been passed? State law requires authorities to inform school boards about arrests of school employees for crimes of "moral turpitude" - sex crimes in particular. But Branscom says he was under no obligation to inform the board about the coach's driving offenses.
As Superintendent Robert Reece notes of Ward, "This man's got rights, too." Indeed, police have better things to do than to call employers of everyone they arrest. In this case, the coach was on his own time, not the school district's, when he broke the law.
No law, though, would have prevented Ward himself from going to his superiors in August - after he was arrested a third time in a year - to explain his behavior and to ask for help. (His guilt wasn't at issue: He ended up pleading guilty.) Ward, of course, may have done just this; we don't know. School officials are keeping quiet, reasonably so, about a personnel matter.
But if he failed to inform his bosses, that should count against him. Ward is paid, after all, to be a role model. As a coach, he should be held to higher, not lower, standards. Had a player been arrested during the season, surely Ward would have suspended him.
And if Ward did inform his superiors - or especially if they found out on their own, as they perhaps should have - no law would have prevented them from, at the very least, giving him a break from coaching duties while he got help and they considered options.
Either way, because Ward coached the entire season, School Board scrutiny should be heightened.
It should be, as well, because, while Ward was driving illegally on his own time last August, he wasn't driving in his own car. No matter the reason for swapping vehicles with the team's running back, it is Ward, not his player, who bears responsibility. The coach bears it not just for his careless actions, but also for mixing up a student in the controversy.
All of which leaves school officials responsible not only for deciding Ward's fate, but also for asking why his problems went unattended while the team was racking up victories.
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