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NCHS Athletic Director Calls for More Inter-Sport Support among Student-Athletes

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New Canaan High School’s athletic director said Monday night that he’d like to see more of the school’s athletes supporting fellow students who compete in matches and games in other sports. Jay Egan told members of the Board of Education at their regular meeting that he’s been at NCHS for a number of years and that inter-sport support “used to be more pronounced than it is now.”

“I think by coming up with some incentives and working with captains, to really get our athletes supporting each other more during their competitions would really be a good direction for us to move,” Egan said during the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. The comments came during a presentation in which Egan spotlighted outstanding Rams sports coaches Priscilla Schulz (girls’ golf) and Ben Young (boys’ tennis), reviewed athletics participation data, listed recent championships (state football, state boys swimming, state boys tennis and both county and state girls golf titles) and laid out Athletic Department goals for next academic year. Those will include improving the functionality of the Rams website, surveying athletes and parents after each sports season, developing a core values statement to integrate with all teams and seeing that more athletes support fellow athletes. Board of Ed member Maria Naughton said she was “surprised” that Egan had outlined that goal, “because I feel like the athletes are very supportive of each other.”

“And with some major percentage of our students in a sport, I am not sure how you can actually increase their presence,” she said.

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‘I Think It Is Chilling’: Board of Ed Rejects Proposed Change to Bylaws Regarding Public Comments at Meetings

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Saying they shouldn’t risk the perception that questions, suggestions or thoughts from the public are unwelcome, members of the school board this week rejected a proposal that would have limited the scope of comments from attendees at their meetings. The Board of Education also softened some new language regarding behavior at its meetings, changing two instances of the word ‘boisterous’ to ‘unruly’ in defining conduct that is not allowed, after school board member Penny Rashin flagged it. To the suggestion that a member of the public who wishes to address the board present his or her thoughts ahead of time for inclusion on the agenda, Rashin said, “I think it is chilling, actually, to require somebody in town to think they have to get a board member on the side in order to speak.”

“It is not obvious from the face of this that that’s the case,” Rashin said at Tuesday night’s regular Board of Ed meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “I think somebody could just read the policy and think, ‘Oh, I have no right to speak,’ even though procedurally they could get a board member to support it. We do have controls, the controls are two minutes to any speaker, I think sometimes you do have uncomfortable comments that you listen to as a Board of Ed member but we are elected representatives and I think that there is a real difference between email communication and face-to-face communication and it takes a lot of courage, actually, for a number of people to come to speak publicly to a board like this and I have always been proud that we have encouraged anyone that wanted to come, to come.