The Swim Committee embraced half of the debate by forming a subcommittee to study the mixed-gender issue. Said committee chairman Ray Grant of Seekonk, “It’s certainly not a new issue for this committee.’’
Grant said a similar subcommittee was formed three years ago and its recommendation was simply to monitor the issue. With the subject again on the front burner, a subcommittee of Grant, tournament directors Pete Foley and Richard Lennon, plus Belmont’s Jim Davis, Monson’s Patrice Dardenne, Northampton’s James Hirtle, Wahconah’s James Conro, and MIAA assistant director Ned Doyle will decide whether more than monitoring is needed after a fall in which Higgins broke a sectional record and Walpole won the 200 freestyle relay with two boys at the same meet.
No boys won a state title, but Methuen’s Scott DelRossi was second in the 50 freestyle at the Division 1 state championship; Higgins was academically ineligible for the state meet.
The subcommittee will report back to the full committee April 12.
But Grant distanced the committee from answering the question of who holds the South Sectional record, echoing a familiar MIAA refrain: The organization in charge of high school sports since 1978 doesn’t keep individual records in any sport. Therefore, Higgins broke the meet record as recorded by the tournament directors; he didn’t set an MIAA record.
So if the MIAA won’t replace Kangos’s name with Higgins’s, or decide to leave her as the meet record-holder, whose job is it?
“That’s a real good question,’’ said Foley, the retired Weston swim coach and director of the North and South swim meets. “Technically, the meet directors have been the ones who’ve kept the sectional and state meet records. I think what we will have to do is get together with the coaches association and ask them what they want to do. I’ll take the guidance from them.’’
That’s fine with Mike Foley, Pete’s son and the current president of the Massachusetts Swim Coaches Association. Foley coaches the Framingham girls in the fall, the Wayland boys and girls in the winter. Father and son, along with other swim coaches, will discuss the case of Higgins vs. Kangos after the winter season.
