Clarke baseball coach Abruscato suspended for 4 games

The Nassau Athletic Council has suspended Clarke baseball coach Tom Abruscato for four games after his team participated in what the athletic council said were unsanctioned baseball activities against a Virginia squad last spring break. It's a move that some in Nassau baseball are protesting as retributory and excessive punishment for the coach's vocal opposition to ability-based grouping.

Abruscato, coach of last year's Class A champion Rams, was suspended after his team practiced with the CVHAA Patriots, a home-schooled team in Central Virginia.

"You can't play, practice or participate - you can't be on the same field [as an unsanctioned team]," Nassau executive director Todd Heimer said. "Whether they played against them or not, it doesn't make a difference."

Still, the move raised eyebrows in the athletic community, where Abruscato was known as a vehement and influential speaker against ability-based grouping - a provision put into place by the athletic council more than three years ago. The county has since shifted its stance on ability-based grouping and said this is the last year it would be used in baseball.

Abruscato declined to comment.

"This is an incredibly severe punishment," said MacArthur coach Steve Costello, who went to Albany with Abruscato to petition NYSPHSAA against ability-based grouping and who plans to attend Clarke's home game Monday with a number of other coaches as a show of solidarity. "It's not a competitive advantage; they weren't violating the spirit of the law."

As to whether he's ever seen similar measures taken against other teams that travel out of state, sometimes without the athletic council's consent, Costello said: "Oh God, no. Absolutely not."

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Abruscato and the East Meadow School District appealed the measure, but the decision was upheld by a two-person appeals committee. "It was done right," Heimer said. He added that any allegations that the athletic council acted in retribution were "ridiculous."

The NYSPHSAA handbook, which delineates the bylaws governing state-sanctioned athletics, leaves room for dissension. Heimer said that as far as he was aware, Abruscato didn't request to play the Patriots in writing, a key oversight. However, the handbook does say that "each school will observe its own State regulations" and that any opponent must be "in good standing" with its respective athletic association. The Patriots, though not part of the Virginia High School League, are allowed to play Virginia public schools in-season.

"This is disheartening," Costello said. "We're educators; it was a disagreement and it should just be that."