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Newburyport High principal comes to defense of Gonnam

Wednesday, October, 17 By Dan Guttenplan
Sports editor

Newburyport High Principal Michael Parent defended Clippers girls soccer coach Robb Gonnam yesterday in the wake of allegations that the veteran coach recruits athletes from outside the Newburyport area.

Ipswich girls soccer coach Manny Lopes recently stated in an e-mail to the Ipswich Chronicle that Newburyport "uses school choice to its extreme by 'recruiting' players from their coach's club team." He also stated, "Eighty percent (of the players) on the Newburyport roster (do) not reside in Newburyport."

Parent said yesterday the allegations are false. By his count, seven of 47 athletes on Newburyport's varsity and junior varsity teams do not reside in Newburyport. Parent, who began his tenure as principal July 1, said Lopes' claims were the first he's heard of recruiting tactics.

"I've never heard claims of any impropriety as far as the girls soccer team is concerned," Parent said. "We don't have a soccer team with 80 percent nonresidents. We're not recruiting in any sport. I would hope school choice students did so because of academics. That's what I tend to believe." In addition to coaching at Newburyport, Gonnam coaches two SC Vikings club teams | each of which has two Newburyport High players on the roster. By Mass. Interscholastic Athletic Association rule, a high school coach is allowed to coach a club team as long as less than 50 percent of the players on the roster do not also play for his/her high school team.

Gonnam also coaches youth soccer in Newburyport. That is also in compliance with MIAA regulations as long as fewer than 50 percent of the players are eighth-graders.

"I feel he's stayed within the parameters of offseason coaching," Parent said. "As far as I know, he's meeting the standards the MIAA has set."

Newburyport has posted a 49-5-6 record since 2005 and advanced to the EMass. Division 3 Final last fall. It is Gonnam's 16th season with the team. He has established the most successful program in the area. Over the past three seasons, Newburyport's winning percentage (.817) bests all of the neighboring public schools | Pentucket (.440), Georgetown (.385), Triton (.245) and Amesbury (.173). Gonnam described Lopes' allegations as "completely unfounded" on Monday evening.

"I've never recruited anyone, and I coach plenty of kids that go to other Cape Ann League schools," Gonnam said. Parent plans to contact the MIAA to provide the residency status for the members of the Newburyport girls soccer team. "I am going to call the MIAA to give them the facts that we have so they know our team's makeup," Parent said. "They'll have all of the information on where our students live."

The claims that Newburyport uses "school choice to its extreme" will become moot, Parent says, in the next few years. Newburyport Superintendent Kevin Lyons made the decision last school year to refuse all school choice applicants due to budget constraints.

"I don't know if it will be permanent, but it doesn't look like school choice will be an option for now," Parent said. "We're allowing students who have already been in the system to finish and graduate."