Dear Principal Panagiotis Tsigaridas:

The undersigned parents within this letter wish to address various unacceptable situations and major concerns applicable to the actions of the BMS head coach Mr. Mullins and the BMS Athletic Director Mr. Sexton. This year’s BMS football pre-season, and overall season has been extremely stressful for many of the parents and children given the lack of effective communication, structure, rules, fairness and overall discipline. Strategic and operational planning to ensure all children without football experience learned fundamental and basic requirements failed to be implemented. Rules such as sitting out from games when absent from practice the day prior to a game were not followed for all of the team players showing favoritism and unfairness to others. The lack of overall structure and preparedness from children not having the proper uniforms and equipment 2 weeks into the school year inflicted wasted time during practice resulting in 3 hour practice sessions Monday thru Friday. 

In the initial “meet the coach” night, parents were told that grades below D’s would not be tolerated and that any student with more than one F would be removed from the team. Parents were also told that any disrespectful behavior would not be tolerated and would also be grounds for removal from the team as well as missing various practices. None of these standards were enforced by the head coach and the athletic director nor were they communicated to all parents in a timely manner when the offences occurred. Low grades and behavior issues in school were not addressed in time to all of the parents whose children needed to be addressed and assisted therefore study hall was also never implemented.  There are various students who now have multiple Fs and while study hall is finally a priority given your ultimatum forcing the head coach to get their grades up it is another example of lack of care for our children. This community like many other communities have suffered immensely emotionally and mentally as a result of COVID and the many hardships it has posed on our families. Football like other sports was supposed to be a way for our children to have something positive in their life, and for many this was their first experience as being part of a sports team. As the athletic director, we expected Mr. Sexton to be involved and truly advocate for all of the children playing sports which encompasses his ability to make sure all coaches are doing their part and upholding standards. While we understand that not every child has the same support at home we also feel their education should have taken priority above all practices and games. It is quite obvious that “coaching” is not just failing them on a personal level but also professionally on that field! It is with deep regards that we ask you to please consider removing Mr. Mullins from his position immediately if at all possible. We also ask that you please reconsider your selection of Mr. Sexton as the athletic director position given his failure to commit to his duties and responsibilities. We sincerely hope that your decisions regarding these matters are considered with the utmost care and support to our children and this community. 

We thank you in advance for your valuable time and future considerations. 

Sincerely,

BMS Parents