The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
SHA coach returns, expresses regret
HAMDEN — Jason Kirck sat across from me early Saturday afternoon in one of those high school desks we all remember even many years after our graduation. Kirck said he was going to look me in the eye. He’d like me to respond in kind.
And then, in his first public comments since an 88-point rout turned into a tidal wave that threatened to wash away his reputation as a sportsman and what he is building at the Catholic girls prep school on the hill in Hamden, the Sacred Heart Academy girls basketball coach delivered a prepared statement.
“I am deeply regretful for my coaching decisions Monday night against Lyman Hall,” Kirck said. “I sincerely apologize to the Lyman Hall players, coaches and parents for how the game was played. I have learned from these coaching mistakes and already made changes in our system to prevent any future errors in sportsmanship from the SHA basketball program.”
Kirck was extremely careful. The Sacred Heart administration standing nearby in this classroom above the gymnasium was extremely careful.
This is a matter they very much want to cool and disappear.
On one hand, in a week when we have endured tragedy in Connecticut sports, it had only been one basketball game. On the other, it had become a referendum on sportsmanship. And when something becomes a referendum on sportsmanship in our 21st-century world, it doesn’t remain in ethics class. It can turn into a mud-slinging, national socialmedia plebiscite on a person’s character, integrity and suitability to lead. So it did.
There’s also the matter of collateral damage … to the opposing team and players, to a coach’s own players, which in this case include two of Kirck’s daughters.
Kirck had been suspended for one game by Sacred Heart after the 92-4 rout of Lyman Hall. After
sitting out a three-point victory over Hamden on Thursday night, he returned to the Sacred Heart bench Saturday for a 54-36 win over Amity.
In a statement the day following the Lyman Hall game, school president Sr. Sheila O’Neill expressed “deep remorse” for the manner in which the girls basketball team amassed the score.
In 2009, coach Micah Grimes of The Covenant School in Texas was fired after he disputed his administrators’ view that a 100-0 beating of Dallas Academy was “shameful.” He refused to apologize.
My argument this past week was as simple as it was pointed. If Kirck was going to continue as coach at the No. 3-ranked team in the state, he needed to get on the same page as his administration and in tune with the mission of the school. One of the guiding principles of SHA is compassion. A noble tenet.
And now, upon his return, Kirck has done that. He expressed deep regret. He said he has learned from his mistakes.
He had left a full-court press on for too long Monday, and even his half-court man-to-man defense traumatized Lyman Hall to the end. There were scores of 56-0 at halftime and 80-0 after three quarters. SHA had 36 steals in a 32-minute game without a shot clock
and did nothing in the final seconds to quell an uptempo offense. SHA jacked 30 3s, hitting only five, and if it had shot like it did in the previous game against Shelton, the score would have been worse than the bucket of awful it already was.
People will react as they will. Some will argue Kirck went too far over the line and can’t be trusted. Others will say he went over no line and has no need to apologize. A few of his supporters on Twitter accused me of character assassination. Which would have riled me save the fact it wasn’t close to true and Kirck took 100 times the beating in the dark world of social media.
I believe in penance. Kirck has done his. I believe in fixing what is wrong, and Kirck said he is doing it.
There is a time for everything and now it’s time to consider the lingering effects on the kids on both teams. They are neither bullies nor losers.
“It has been a very difficult week,” Kirck said. “As well as sincerely apologizing to the Lyman Hall players, coaches and parents, I also sincerely apologize to the Sacred Heart players, coaches and parents, and the administration, Sister Sheila and Mr. Degnan (athletic director Ray). They’ve had to deal with a lot of stuff this week.
“I could not be more proud of our players, our coaches and how they’ve handled this week. It’s a
true testament to the great community at Sacred Heart.”
I’ve watched three full Sacred Heart games (two on NFHS streams) as well as video clips of the Lyman Hall game. Kirck took over a 2-18 team in 2019 and now has five senior captains. Carina Ciampi (Rochester) and Rosa Rizzitelli (Molloy) will play next year in college, while point guard Sydney Rossacci will play field hockey at Belmont Abbey. He doesn’t have any of the five best players in the state, but along with Giana Pye, sophomores Morgan Miller and Lauren Thompson (an all-SCC player who transferred from Branford) and his daughters Emma, a junior, and Meg, a sophomore, he has nine really good high school players. That is a rare, formidable treat. He substitutes them liberally, which keeps legs fresh.
“I think every year it’s a basketball coach’s job to evaluate the roster he has in front of him and come up with a system that is best conducive for success,” Kirck said.
He found out Monday that a deep, experienced roster and an up-tempo game are not automatically conducive for good sportsmanship.
Fast-forward to Saturday. Amity was not nearly as overmatched as Lyman Hall. The game was competitive, but the lead had pushed past 20 points in the fourth quarter and could have quickly run toward 30. It didn’t. Kirck
emptied his bench. He had his offense run through its set two, three times before taking a shot. In other words, he did exactly what he was supposed to do. On this day, he got an A for sportsmanship.
“The last three minutes we went through a couple of things we want to try to accomplish offensively,” Kirck said. “We definitely were working on a few things in our system that we plan to use in future games.
“That game on Monday night I made some mistakes. As a coach and as a human being, I feel very, very badly. I’m working hard to learn from those mistakes and become a better coach because of it.”
Kirck talked about watching the Hamden game from his home on an NFHS stream. He said he watched it as a suspended coach, yet also as the parent of two players.
“It has been a very difficult situation for my family, especially my daughters,” Kirck said. “It has been a very stressful situation for them.
“I mean this from my heart, I was so happy to be with the team today. I love our kids. They’re great kids and they need support through this. Please remember. They’re kids.”
At that moment, he wasn’t some fire-breathing dragon looking to win 92-4. He was a dad and a coach.