Preppies gone wild
B'klyn coaches axed over boys' boozy bashes
The lacrosse team at a tony Brooklyn prep school is paying a heavy price after more than a dozen players got busted for sneaking out of their rooms at night to throw wild, booze-soaked parties during a trip to Disney World.
Poly Prep Country Day School in Dyker Heights — which counts rocker Jon Bon Jovi’s son and New York Knick Joakim Noah as alums — fired the entire lacrosse coaching staff after the disastrous training camp at the Orlando resort last month, school officials confirmed.
While their coaches slept, about 15 Poly Prep players — roughly half the team — hopped in Ubers to local liquor stores, used fake IDs to stock up on booze and returned to an artificial-beach area at the complex to party, a team source said.
Students from other schools joined the nightly bashes — and the Poly Prep students sold them some of the alcohol they stockpiled, the source said.
“The coaches would go to bed very early and so they don’t watch any of us and all the kids would get to go out because there is nothing going on at Disney and because the coaches were asleep,” said the source. “We would Uber to liquor stores and use fake IDs.”
Despite their daytime lacrosse activities, a source said the parties, which attracted up to 50 participants, took place for six consecutive nights.
While coaches, including respected former head coach Brooks Sweet, apparently never caught wind of the misconduct, word leaked to administrators once the team returned home.
On April 14, Poly Prep Head of School Audrius Barzdukas sent an e-mail to parents acknowledging the misbehavior and announcing the firings.
“It came to our attention that members of the boys’ lacrosse team did not uphold our shared values and expectations on their training trip during spring break,” the message read.
Sweet, another full-time coach and several part-timers were all axed.
“You can’t just have coaches who allow students to do that,” said a school source. “They didn’t suspect anything, but adults should know kids are going to try to do that and they better be prepared.”
The nursery-through-12th-grade school, which costs up to $43,650 a year for tuition, also suspended one student for the rest of the school year and barred five others from attending prom.
Poly Prep considered scrapping the season because of the mess, but ended up canceling six games and removing itself from official league play. It resumed its season against Horace Mann Wednesday with new coaches.
Sweet, who has retained a lawyer, declined to comment Thursday.
Several school sources said Poly Prep reacted decisively because of prior alcohol- and drug-related incidents and other scandals.
Former school administrator Steven Anderson was accused in 2015 of using school funds to take two former students — Bon Jovi’s son, Jesse Bongiovi, and his own son — on a boozy jaunt to Cuba.
In a far more grim case, a group of graduates filed suit in 2009 alleging that longtime football coach Phil Foglietta regularly sexually abused them from the mid1960s until 1991. Poly Prep finally settled that case in 2012 for an undisclosed sum.
Despite the setbacks, Poly Prep is still considered an elite academic and athletic school with generous alums and loyal backers.
“Since the announcement, we received positive support of our actions and I’m proud of the way our school responded and how our students have grown from this,” said schools spokeswoman Jennifer Slomack.