Schools

Updated: Buscetto Supporters Get No Promises from Shine (With Video)

The passion and the fury of supporters fuel a morning rally outside the Norwich Diocese office

They came from Norwich. They came from New London. They came from as far away as Louisville, KY.

They came from work, from school – even, one woman said, from her chemo bed.

They came to the road outside the Norwich Diocese office this morning to support Bill Buscetto, dismissed last week as athletic director of St. Bernard School.

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Headmaster William McKenna, in the very last stages of his tenure, instigated the proceedings.

Since it is a personnel issue, few of the pertinent details are available.

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The Passion

For the 60 or so parents, students, coaches and alumni who gathered on the roadway, the pertinent details are simple.

Buscetto was loved.

And he should be hired back.

That’s “based on the amount of people he’s affected in a positive way,” his brother Mike said. “Students, teachers, colleagues, players, it’s a well-rounded group” supporting him.

“No one’s perfect,” Mike Buscetto said, “but it should be the overall person” who is judged.

Josh Bowyer and Jeff DeLucia, recent graduates who played baseball and basketball at St. Bernard, said that yes, Buscetto yelled.

“He’s a coach,” DeLucia said. “Obviously he’d yell. But he always took care of us. He always cared about the kids.”

“His doors were always open,” Bowyer said.

Matt Rollins started this year as the junior varsity basketball coach. Buscetto recruited him, he said. They’ve known each other for almost 30 years.

“Buscetto is passionate,” Rollins said. “He does it because he loves it.

“Why would you get rid of someone who loved the school? I don’t understand it.”

 

The Fury

Glen Aldrich was one of a small delegation that went inside the Norwich Diocese office and spoke with Norwich Diocese Superintendent of Schools John Shine.

Afterwards, he led the conversation with the group waiting on the sidewalk.

He said the group asked Shine to reinstate Buscetto, and maybe even to require that he be mentored.

Shine listened, he said, but didn’t promise anything. Events will unfold in their own time, Aldrich said Shine told the group.

“If this stays the way it’s been,” Aldrich said, “this could be the beginning of the end for St. Bernard’s. Before (new Headmaster Thomas Doherty) even steps foot in the school, he’s destined to fail,” Aldrich said.

Ron Gallagher, a parent, said he had stopped his tuition payment.

“Based on this,” he said, “we may want to take our kids out.”

Diederick Vandervelde, who flew from Louisville, KY, to attend the rally, said that he donates every month to St. Bernard’s, and always writes on the memo of the check “only athletics.”

“I feel Bill took my money and made improvements,” Vandervelde said.

“He (Shine) owes us to come out and speak,” Vandervelde said.

“I’m a proud Catholic. If Bill Buscetto did something unethical or immoral, I want to hear about it. Put a letter of reprimand in his file and hire the guy back and let’s get going.”

He said that the timing of the dismissal seemed very wrong. "There's something so smelly here," he said. "You don't let somebody go, on your last week of work unless it's personal."

 

The Future

Michael Strammiello, director of communications for the Diocese of Norwich, said that Shine made a very clear point that the meeting was very respectful on both sides.

“He listened carefully,” Strammiello said, “and that was very much what he was there to do.”

The next step, he said, will be to bring the “deciding parties” together – including the Xaverian Brothers – to decide what should happen.

Shine made no promises, Strammiello said.

“The unspoken promise is that everything he heard today will be carefully reviewed and considered,” he said. “There should be a bit of a quiet period,” and then, he said, there will be a decision.


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