BY PATRICK CROWLEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
DRY RIDGE, Ky. -- Eight Grant County High School football players were suspended for undisclosed "inappropriate behavior" and barred from the team's trip to a game in south Florida.
Football Coach Mike Croley is now under investigation for what happened in Florida with the rest of the team, including a visit to a public beach in Miami, Fla., where topless women were sunbathing and swimming.
The players' suspensions and investigation of the coach by Principal Joyce Doyle were confirmed Friday by school officials. Ms. Doyle said she continues to probe what happened at the beach on the team's Labor Day weekend trip to Florida but did not expect Coach Croley to be disciplined. She would not discuss specifics of her investigation, including how long it will take or why she anticipates no action against the coach.
"The coach has some responsibility to ensure the safety of those youngsters," Superintendent James Simpson said Friday. "I've asked the principal to continue her investigation and inquiry into what actually did occur."
Mr. Croley did not return a call to comment. The superintendent and principal both said they would be the only school officials commenting on the incidents.
School officials were guarded and vague about the circumstances that led to the suspensions of eight players.
Ms. Doyle said the players were suspended from school for three days for "inappropriate behavior" and for violating the school's code of conduct on the bus ride home from the team's first game of the year, an Aug. 22 victory against McCreary Central played at Whitley County in eastern Kentucky.
The players were suspended during the week of Aug. 30 and missed only the Florida game.
Both Ms. Doyle and Mr. Simpson refused to say what exactly the players did or what code of conduct they broke. They also would not divulge the students' grade level or other information about them. Over the Labor Day weekend, the team flew to Miami and lost a Sept. 4 game to Belen Jesuit High School, 20 to 0.
Sometime over the weekend the coach from Belen Jesuit, a Roman Catholic school, invited the Grant County team to the South Beach section of Miami.
"Before the coach took the team to the beach, he asked the host coach about the beach, and the host coach responded that it was fine, that it was a public beach," Ms. Doyle said.
"Well, in Miami, some women do go topless at the public beaches, and that's what happened," she said. "Our coach expressed some concern to the hosts, and the (host team) coach said, "what's the problem, this is our culture.' "
The team could not leave the beach immediately because it had been dropped off by a bus that left and returned later to pick the members up.
"There was no way for them to leave," Ms. Doyle said.
Mr. Simpson said he called the Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau after the team returned home and discovered that topless sunbathing, while not allowed under local law, is common at South Beach.
"I was told it's an everyday occurence," he said.
The team's trip to the beach does, however, need to be explored further, Mr. Simpson said.
"The coach indicated he and some of the players did witness some of the female bathers topless," he said. "Our expectation is that adult supervisors exercise good judgment, but you have to temper that with what can and can't be accomplished.
"The coach made a decision (to stay at the beach) at the risk of offending the host team, and leaving may not have even been an option . . . since the buses were not there," Dr. Simpson said.
There have also been rumors in the community that the players watched soft pornography movies at the team's Florida hotel, Mr. Simpson said.
But Mr. Simpson said after hearing the rumors and allegations he looked into the matter. He said the coaches made sure the players' rooms could not access the pay-per-view movie channels that show such films.
However, Mr. Simpson said he could not totally rule out that some players might have found a way or a room to watch the movies. "Every attempt was made by the adult coaches to curtail the opportunity" to see the films.
There also were allegations that a player had been arrested for turning a laser tag pointer on a police officer at a Sept. 5 University of Miami football game the team attended.
Mr. Simpson said one player was warned, but not arrested, by a security guard.
The security person did escort the player from the seats to the ground level of the stadium to talk about the laser, but he was not arrested or removed from the game, Mr. Simpson said.
Mr. Simpson said the rumors about the team may be circulating because some people in the community, including parents, were upset that players had been suspended from the team and not allowed to travel.
Ms. Doyle, however, said she has received no such complaints. "This is just distressing to me because Grant County is a wonderful school, with a great community and wonderful students," she said. "I do think we have so much offer and do so many wonderful things, but we're focusing on a football trip."
One parent of a player who wasn't suspended said that based on the Whitley County trip she's concerned about how the players are supervised.
"I think that the coaches need to pay a little bit more attention to them," said Merry Jo Sweet, the mother of Justin Sweet. "I think that they need to be a little bit more chaperoned."
She said the beach incident seemed to be an unfortunate accident. "I would hope that my son would be mature enough to be able to handle that situation," Mrs. Sweet said.
Mr. Croley coached the team during its Friday home game against rival Owen County.
Grant County was recently in the national news after the school was sued for blocking two pregnant students from joining the National Honor Society for reasons of character.
Gregory A. Hall contributed
to this story.
