Poll: Should Sayreville HS football coaching staff be fired?

This is the subtext of the story that has rocked the allegations of sexual abuse by upperclassmen to underclassmen on the Sayreville High School football team.

Where were the coaches when all this was going down?

Were they purposefully negligent in not knowing what was going on under their noses – or blissfully unaware that the activity described by the parents of underclassmen had been taking place.
Either way, the future of Coach George Najjar and his staff is cloudy at best.

For his part, he’s held off on issuing any statements, saying that it’s something he’d have to work out with the administration – and that eventually he’d be willing to talk.

Just not now.

As is normally the case once something of this magnitude goes down – the ones that are not silent are the local lawmakers.

According to a report on NJ.com:

“If he didn’t know what was going on, he should have known,” state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union) said. “Based on what has come out, there needs to be a total house-cleaning at the Sayreville athletic department.”

Assemblyman John Wisniewski, weighed in on the topic as well, agreeing that Najjar's time with Sayreville football should come to an end.

"I don’t think the school, the program or the district can continue as if nothing has happened,” Wisniewski said.

"It’s unclear what, if any, role the coaching staff had in this event, but what I said before is: It is hard to understand how there can be no grownup supervision that was aware of this," he said. "Who was watching these young men to make sure everyone was safe?"

While Coach Najjar has been highly successful at both Sayreville and at Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn – his tenure at the latter had been called into question – specifically over charges of hazing which had taken place during the 1980s there.

Charges that had been made by former players – although not anywhere near the magnitude of what went on in Sayreville. In those cases, the hazing involved paddling - one instance in which the coach himself intervened on the student’s behalf and had the team run as a form of discipline.

Another former player said Najjar intervened on his behalf, preventing him from being paddled, and ordered the team to run as a form of discipline.

However, he’s still received support from members of the community – some of whom have set up a Facebook page supporting both the program and him.

Sure, I get the “let’s support the program” part of the debate. Why should the football program have to be completely scrapped beyond this year? Would this necessarily solve the problem of hazing or "initiation" incidents which may be taking place in programs all over the country?

However – those in whose care these victims are left have to pay a price - whether it was willfull negligence or not.
It’s their job to have known – either by being present in the locker area – or by periodically sitting down with each member of the team to get a sense of what was going on.

To not have done so – in my mind – should lead to the coaching staff’s ouster?