The Camp Verde Unified School District Governing Board meeting April 17 featured a large audience, as the school complex library filled up with middle schoolers and their parents, eager to find out the fate of the embattled New Breed wrestling program.
In early March, the program was shut down pending an ongoing investigation into an alleged assault by a volunteer coach against a female New Breed wrestler while at the state wrestling tournament. The school board met to decide what would happen to New Breed.
The future of New Breed is even more in flux since the group’s written contract to use school facilities had lapsed, leading to concerns about the school’s liability with the wrestling club using school facilities on an informal agreement.
Camp Verde Middle School Principal and district administrator-in-charge Danny Howe laid out three potential options for New Breed’s relationship with the school district: Instating a new contract with the wrestling club, removing it from school facilities but maintaining a relationship or fully cutting ties with the organization and no longer employing any of its coaches.
Members of the school board were unable to come up with a solution during the meeting, as they frequently expressed support for the wrestlers and the program while also trying to find a way to distance the school from its issues.
“I have been impressed with the amount of support that this program has generated. However, New Breed wrestling is not a program of Camp Verde Unified School District,” said Governing Board member Helen Freeman at the meeting. “I have every confidence that people who love this program and have supported it over the years will continue to support it and make it as successful as it has been in a different facility.”
“Our district has culpability in this,” said Governing Board member Bob Simbric. He added that changes in leadership in the district led to a situation without hands-on oversight over a program that affects so many Camp Verde students. But he also expressed hope that the board could find a way to keep New Breed in existence. “I think this program is very worthwhile in saving, by any means. If that’s by moving it off campus, I have no problem with that as long as that causes continuity with what’s going on right now.
“I really do think it would be wrong to let this program disappear,” Simbric said.
Board members frequently sought balance between their support for athletic programs like New Breed and their concern over the incident. Governing Board President Tim Roth told of his own history as a wrestler when he was a student and called New Breed a “wonderful program,” but nevertheless came back to concerns about what had happened.
“We’ve gotten a lot of letters and a lot of support for this program. But the one thing that really hit me hard is that our job here as board members is to protect our students,” Roth said at the meeting. “We’ve heard all these people talking, and yet we have this young woman and her life is changed, probably forever. And in all the letters and all the talk, there’s no mention of that.”
The school board’s discussion ended not with a resolution, but with a request for further comments to be collected, in the hope of convening again in the near future to make a decision. Larson Newspapers reached out to coaches at New Breed but did not receive a response.
Jon Hecht can be reached at 634-8551, or email jhecht@larsonnewspapers.com
