The agreement the School Department reached with longtime Plymouth North Coach Dwayne Follette allows him to continue coaching North’s baseball team, but give up all other coaching duties. In addition, he agreed to work with school officials to educate students about the dangers of underage drinking. Coach Follette has been under fire because of allegations that he drank alcohol at a party attended by student baseball players following one of their games in June.
The Coach addressed this at the School Committee meeting Monday night: “I made a mistake. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I did nothing illegal, but I was definitely in poor judgment. The end result is I’m still going to be able to coach kids. I’m going to be able to hopefully help more kids in the future on some of the tough issues in society.”
And that hope is shared by the School Committee, according to Chairman Dennis Begley: “I’m hoping that somebody of Coach Follette’s stature in the media and in the community will help us to get the message out.” The message needs to get out according to some grim statistics given by Superintendent Gary Maestas: “64.7% of kids in Plymouth in 2008 indicated that by grade 12 had consumed alcohol within the last 30 days of the survey.”
Coach Follette’s contract has been extended by one year.
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