State Championship Winning North Attleboro Baseball Coach Smeared By “Journalist” After Anonymous Parent Sends Illegally Wiretapped Video Of Coach Using Foul Language
This is North Attleboro High School baseball coach Mike Hart.
In 2018 he was selected as the Hockomock’s Baseball Coach of the Year after leading the Rocketeers to an 18-2 record and their first ever Division 2 State Championship.
“Not only did North Attleboro have a lot of talent this year, they bought into Coach Hart’s game plan and that paid off in the end,” said HockomockSports.com Editor-in-Chief Ryan Lanigan. “They were prepared for every scenario they encountered throughout the season and had a very aggressive approach at the plate that resulted in a successful offense.”
North Attleboro's Mike Hart selected as 2018 @HockomockSports Baseball Coach of the Year – https://t.co/HgE2bkfWYX #hockomock
— HockomockSports (@HockomockSports) July 2, 2018
He’s also a former 3 star athlete coaching at his alma mater, and is widely respected by students and parents.
However, one anonymous parent wasn’t happy with Coach Hart because he once used foul language when addressing the team for misbehavior after a win over Canton last spring. This parent’s disobedient and out of control son illegally wiretapped the coach admonishing his team for their behavior, then ran to Attleboro Sun Chronicle Reporter Tom Reilly to tell him about it:
That guy makes Mr. Feeny look like a good time.
The parent played the tape for Reilly, but never told the reporter if his son informed the coach that he was being recorded. A real reporter in this situation would’ve told the parent that this was not a news story, but the Attleboro Sun Chronicle isn’t a real newspaper so they ran with it anyway.
Oh dear, not profanity! From a high school coach too? No high school coach has ever used profanity before when dealing with his players. I hope the poor children survived this before going on their iPhones and watching hardcore pornography.
This article was like something out of the Babylon Bee:
A coach delivered an angry, profanity-laced speech to members of the high school’s varsity baseball squad last spring in what one parent is complaining was an abuse of the players. The parent, who did not wish his name used in this story, forwarded a copy of recordings of the remarks by North Attleboro varsity baseball coach Mike Hart to The Sun Chronicle Monday.
The second the parent said they wanted to be anonymous bootleg Feeny should’ve told him he wasn’t going to publish a hit piece on the coach. If you don’t have the balls to put your name on it then you shouldn’t be weaponizing a newspaper to smear your kid’s teacher/coach. The media really is the enemy of decent people everywhere.
The parent said in an accompanying email that the audio files were made “by a scared juvenile student athlete,” whom he did not name, but which, he said, have been widely circulated on social media.
Scared? You can’t possibly be serious.
It’s unclear if Hart knew he was being recorded.
Spoiler alert – he didn’t know. This is illegal in a two party consent state like Massachusetts. Just ask the woman who I have to testify against after she illegally taped Hadassah Robeson on the phone 3 years ago and is facing a felony charge for it. Sucks to be her.
We wrote about Antonucci in 2020 after he voiced his support for Duxbury Middle School principal Sarah McGuire, who forced students to watch a propaganda video glorifying BLM protesters including Colin Kaepernick, for kneeling during the National Anthem.
Finally in March of 2021 Duxbury once again made headlines after it was discovered that the football coach was calling plays called “Aushwitz” and “rabbi” during games, and somehow thought that would be a good idea.
This guy got driven out of Duxbury because he had no control over his rapey teachers, communist principals, and anti-semitic coaches, and the North Attleboro School Committee came the conclusion that he was the best of the 29 applicants who applied for the job. The same guy who let his football coach call blitz plays by yelling Auschwitz, has a problem with a coach who uses foul language.
A superintendent rocked by back-to-back school scandals this year including anti-Semitic language used by players on the 🏈 team and sexual assault allegations by a teacher, is leaving for North Attleboro.
John Antonucci’s start date, pending contract negotiations, is Aug 1. pic.twitter.com/6l85Ww6L07
— Kelly O'Neill (@kellyoneilltv) June 11, 2021
So what exactly did Coach Hart do?
Hart’s address to the team, which included sophomores, juniors and seniors, evidently came after the Rocketeers’ 3-1 victory over Canton High last May 24. In a talk heavily salted with swears, Hart sharply criticizes the team — not so much for their on-field play as for their behavior. After the bus ride home, the parent writes, Hart called the team together. Despite the victory over a Hockomock League rival that evened their record to 4-4, Hart was upset with his squad, as seems clear from his agitated and almost pained tone. In the course of the approximately 6 1/2 minutes of audio, Hart claims that some team members were using foul language during a pick-up basketball game at the high school before leaving for Canton and goes on to say he’ll do the same when talking about their actions at the baseball game.
If you’re ripping into your players for their behavior after winning then you’re not a good coach, you’re a great coach. You’re instilling values and teaching them that winning does not give you the right to be a horrible person.
This anonymous parent also got nowhere with the last superintendent.
The parent first made his complaint to former Superintendent Scott Holcomb in July and later forwarded a copy of that email to the newspaper. In it, he says the game against the Canton Bulldogs was “chippy” from the beginning. “Even the coaches were bickering back and forth.”
Scott Holcomb did nothing, presumably because he’s a normal person. Then this cowardly parent waited for a new superintendent to show up from Duxbury, knew that he feared yet another scandal, and pounced.
My football coach freshman year of high school literally called me a cunt. I was shocked at first, but at the end of the day I was fine. You quickly realize that the demeanor teachers have in the classroom is not the same on the field, and you get used to it. If you screw up they yell at you. Teachers can’t do that, but coaches can. However, Coach Hart didn’t come close to using the language my coaches did:
“I’m so (f**ing) embarrassed,” Hart tells the squad, a sentiment he expresses more than once. He criticizes the team members for believing they are “tough” because they play for North Attleboro. “You cheer on your teammates and that’s it. Who gives a (f***) what the other team does,” he says. “We had a good win today and you ruin it with that (shit).” He goes on to say that players who want to behave improperly can turn in their uniforms. “You can be an (asshole) or you can be a baseball player. You cannot be both,” he says.
That’s it? Asshole, fuck, and shit? Maybe if he raped them or told them they look like Auschwitz prom kings Antonucci would look the other way.
“In July 2021, the North Attleboro Public Schools administration was made aware of an incident where a coach used strong language, including curse words, when speaking to the team, following a game where some players had exhibited inappropriate and unsportsmanlike behavior toward another team,” the superintendent said in an email to The Sun Chronicle.
So the very successful coach rightfully laid the smack down on his out of control players, one of these brats illegally recorded him, and somehow the coach is the one in trouble here? Cool values.
Anyway, Coach Hart isn’t even in trouble, so there’s really no story here. But the Gumshoe Feeny ran with it anyway because he wanted to humor this horrible parent for clicks:
The parent who sent the email and the recordings says he had been in contact with former Superintendent Scott Holcomb and other officials over what he referred to as “abuse” of the players, including his son. He also forwarded a long list of communications with school officials as well as some internal emails he obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
At least one of those emails referred to Hart’s having apologized for his behavior. Others mention a workshop on “positive coaching” that was held at the high school in August. However, the parent said he reached out to The Sun Chronicle because he felt the incident was “being swept under the rug,” and that the administration was committed to defending Hart from the beginning.
Abuse? He called your kid an asshole because he’s probably an asshole, and is definitely being raised by one. Coach Hart shouldn’t be the one getting shamed here, the parent should be. If anyone reading this knows the parent’s identity or has a copy of the video, feel free to reach out to me on Facebook at Clarence Woods Emerson, Twitter at @DoctorTurtleboy, or email [email protected].
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