The Wire

 
Post-game Homophobic Slur Costs Coach His Job

By EMILY C. DOOLEY
Staff Writer, Cape Cod Times
Reprinted with Permission

Also see:  Editorial from the Cape Cod Times

PROVINCETOWN - What was supposed to be a friendly baseball game between two high schools turned into a lesson in hate crimes last week when the coach of a visiting team made what have been described as homophobic remarks.

Nicola Nasuti, coach of the South Shore Christian Academy team, lost his job as a result of the incident.

Provincetown High School beat the South Shore school 15-3 in the non-league game April 25 at Motta Field. The game was called after six innings after Provincetown broke the game open with an eight-run fifth inning.

As players gathered for the customary postgame handshakes, Nasuti "lisped" a slur at the home team, Provincetown coach John White said.

Provincetown assistant coach Marty Menangas, who is also a town police officer, told Nasuti that Provincetown had a local law against hate crimes, including offensive speech.

Then things turned uglier, according to police.

"When Menangas spoke to him about it, (Nasuti) said 'I'll show you a real hate crime,'" Police Chief Schuyler Meyer said.

Two police cruisers appeared shortly afterward and Nasuti, 40, of West Roxbury was questioned by police at the scene, Meyer said.

Contacted by the Cape Cod Times, Nasuti denied the accusations and called those involved hyper-sensitive.

"It was all about their kids showing up our first-year program," he said. "It was over the baseball game and nothing else. They are trying to make an issue out of something that wasn't true."

Nasuti, who has a son in an elementary grade at the academy, has been asked not to volunteer to coach the team again, South Shore Christian Academy school administrator Frank C. Rydwansky said this week.

"He is no longer associated with the baseball team because we don't want any implications," Rydwansky said. "It's not our mission, direction or desire to cause any sort of problems."

Nasuti said he stepped down because he didn't want to hurt the reputation of the school.

A May 1 game scheduled between the two teams at the Christian school's Weymouth campus was canceled. Rydwansky said that although the incident was seen as typical baseball banter exchanged between students, some time between games was needed.

"The guy made some scurrilous remarks," Meyer said. "It's pretty outrageous in this day and age, especially from a Christian academy."

Baseball player Evan White, 17, said hostile remarks are routinely aimed at Provincetown athletes. As a basketball, soccer and baseball athlete, White has learned to tune out insensitive barbs. He didn't pay much attention to what happened last week.

"They were calling us gay and stuff," Evan White said. "Same old stuff. Nothing we're not used to."

When the Academy athletes were polled, they had little to say. "Our kids didn't even know what happened," Rydwansky said.

In 1992, after a year in which there were 21 hate crime incidents, ranging from slurs to assault, Provincetown enacted a hate crimes resolution. The resolution states the town will not tolerate hate crimes and would prosecute violators to the fullest extent of the law.

A few years ago, athletes from Provincetown attended a Safe Schools diversity seminar for gay and lesbian students. Students spoke about the stresses of having to compete and deal with harassment.

"Provincetown's young people have historically had a rough road when traveling and competing in sports," said Scott Fitzmaurice, executive director of the Cape & Islands Gay and Straight Youth Alliance in Barnstable. "It hurts for them to be labeled."

Provincetown coach John White said that when things got heated, he moved his players away from the scene.

"The kids see the coach acting that way and then they say, 'What's to prevent me from acting that way?'" he said.

The team held a meeting soon after the incident and discussed how players should let adults handle similar incidents. The coach said the important thing was for the students to know there were consequences.

"It's just so sad when any leader of a school is not sensitized properly," Fitzmaurice said. "It just means we have a long ways to go to break down ignorance."

Nasuti's mother, Rosa, who answered a Cape Cod Times phone call for her son, defended him.

"My son is a good coach and good man," she said.

Nasuti has coached Little League and varsity baseball, and has played the game since he was 6-years-old. Rosa Nasuti said.

"He's a good man, he's a good player, he's a good coach," she said.

May 10, 2002