Ben Bevevino Out as CU Track & Field Coach; Athletes Upset with Decision

| June 23, 2018

CLARION, Pa. (EYT) – It appears that Clarion University has decided not to hire Ben Bevevino as the permanent head women’s track and field coach after Bevevino had served as the interim head coach the last two years.

(Photo of Ben Bevevino on left with assistant track coach and head cross country coach Eric Laughlin. Clarion University decided to not make Bevevino, who served the last two years as the interim head women’s track and field coach, the permanent coach angering the student-athletes on the track and field team. Photo courtesy of Clarion University)

While no official university statement has been released on the hiring of a coach, Bevevino confirmed to exploreClarion.com that he has been informed that he won’t be the head coach. exploreClarion.com has also learned that Jason Falvo, the former head coach at Waynesburg, will be named the new head coach. Falvo resigned from his position at Waynesburg after 13 years during the Fall 2017 Semester according to a story in the Yellow Jacket, the student newspaper at the school, telling the paper, “It’s just time to go. There are times to just make a clean break and move on to the next chapter in your life, and I’m excited to do that, and I’m looking forward to the next chapter.”

According to Waynesburg Sports Information Director Bobby Fox, Falvo was also an assistant football coach at the university and moved on following a coaching change, which was originally made in May 2017 with the naming of an interim coach, Chris Smithley, who had the interim tag removed in November.

“He was also a football coach, and there was a change and he decided to move on,” Fox said.

A letter e-mailed to exploreClarion.com and signed “Clarion track and field” discussed the coaching change and the team’s and alumni’s displeasure with it. According to a representative of the team, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of possible retribution by the university, the team as a whole got together to write the letter.

 

See letter here.

“We have recently received the notification that we have a new coach,” the letter said. “Our previous coach of two years had the interim tag and it needed to be removed. His name is Ben Bevevino. We did not want or need this.”

The letter outlined what the members of the team believe to be a flawed process in the hiring of the new coach.

“The plan of the athletic department was to have the girls from the track team have the option to come in and help with the process of interviewing new candidates as well as voice their decisions on Coach Ben,” the letter said. “The athletic director – Wendy Snodgrass – put the cross country coach, who is also the assistant track coach, Eric Laughlin, in charge of reaching out to the team to help with this process. Coach Laughlin failed to mention this to the team and only a select few were notified. We believe that the whole team should have been notified regarding this major change.”

The letter contends that because the team wasn’t notified only three girls helped in the process.

“Two of them were freshmen,” the letter said. “The other was a cross country runner who has not experienced Ben’s coaching. She was also the babysitter for Dr. Snodgrass, so we are not confident that they didn’t have conversations outside of the university that could have influenced the decision to not hire Ben back.”

The letter stated that the athletes are disappointed that the “majority opinion” of the team wasn’t heard.

“We have put in an extreme amount of dedication to represent Clarion University,” the letter said. “We are also losing girls who were amazing athletes and even better friends because of this change.”

According to the letter, many of the athletes on the team sent e-mails to Snodgrass stating, “we need Ben as our coach in order to succeed.” The letter also said they asked Snodgrass why Bevevino was no longer the coach in the e-mails.

The letter claims that Snodgrass “ignored” the athletes’ questions.

“We have all received very similar e-mails which look as if Wendy just copied and pasted the same response to each of us,” the letter said. “Wendy making light of the situation is very insulting to us and shows that she really does not admire or care about the track program as much as she wants to pretend. We can all agree that these examples all show a lack of professionalism.”

Three of those e-mails obtained by exploreClarion.com all stated basically the same thing.

After thanking the athletes for reaching out to her and telling them how much she was “impressed” and “appreciated” their passion for the program, she responded by telling them that “Meeting and establishing a relationship with a new coach can at times feel uneasy, and I can understand how you feel. Having met Coach Falvo, he is going to embrace everyone on the team and really support you all in achieving all of your goals. I truly hope that with time that you and your teammates are able to remain open to him.”

The letter from the team went on to outline what the track & field deals with on a daily basis.

“For you to fully understand us as a program and where we are coming from, we would like to explain to you what a typical day of practices looks like for us,” the letter said. “Depending on the weather, we will either have practice outside at the track or on the small 200-meter indoor track in the rec center. If we are outside at the track, we are either dodging footballs, baseballs, softballs or athletic training equipment. The track needs resurfaced, and the throwers really have nowhere to practice. If we are on the indoor track, this means we get to dodge the buckets that they have on the floor to collect water from ceiling leaks or trip over the wire to the camera that the team practicing below is using to record with. After doing a track or throwing workout we will usually lift. We don’t get the weight room to ourselves like most other teams do. We are unable to have home meets and bring in money for our program because we only have six lanes on our track, and as stated above, the throwers really don’t have anywhere to throw. Despite these negative conditions we still work very hard and have had very successful athletes.”

The letter said that in the two years Bevevino, who replaced his dad, D.J., as the interim track & field coach after D.J. Bevevino was named the interim associate athletic director at Clarion (he has since had his interim tag removed), the team has broken 12 school records and has had many top five all-time performances.

“With all of the success, we still get no recognition,” the letter said. “It will be track season and instead of sharing the success of the track team, the university will be acknowledging the football team. And, of course, everyone will know how the spring football game went via social media, but they won’t know how many of our athletes qualified for PSACs or broke records. Ben fought for us to get the recognition that we deserved. He was the only one to do so. We all asked for a little more recognition, not a new coach. Ben was more than a coach to all of us. He became a friend and mentor. He always checked in on how we were doing in the classroom. We felt comfortable going to him with whatever issues we were having off the track and outside of the classroom. This was a relationship with a coach that many of us had not experienced before and need as student-athletes. This year was a tough year with teammates losing family members. Ben made sure these girls took time from track to be with their families and told them that they could return when they felt ready to. No matter how much time they took off, he always made them feel like they were apart of this track and field family.”

The team concluded the letter by saying they believe there “needs to be change within the organization.”

“Future athletes who look into running for our school deserve the respect and fairness that is given to other teams,” the letter said. “In order to run a strong team, we need more support from the university. Please consider our concerns. We truly believe that not hiring Ben Bevevino back will hurt the program more than help it. Ben deserved the same respect that he gives the university, and we want answers.”

According to the team representative, by “the organization,” the team means the athletic department.

“With Tippin getting redone, everyone is getting a new locker room and equipment,” the representative said. “We don’t get anything. Our track needs resurfaced. We don’t even have an athletic trainer for our team. They send students to our practices, but we don’t have a graduate assistant or any of the three full-time athletic trainers. We only see them if we have practice around 3:30 p.m. and the football team is there and they are taking care of the football team.”

For his part, Ben Bevevino said he appreciates the support of his now former athletes but he also respects the university’s decision.

“They’re a little upset,” Bevevino said of the athletes. “They are fighting for what they believe. I appreciate their support. The university had a tough choice to make. I am OK with it.”

Snodgrass responded to exploreClarion.com’s request to comment on the letter by explaining the university’s process for hiring a coach.

“Clarion University Athletics’ procedure is to conduct national searches for coaching positions,” Snodgrass said. “At the conclusion of a national search for a permanent women’s track and field coach, the position was offered to the candidate we feel best fits the long-term goals of the track and field program.”

Before being named Clarion’s interim head coach for the 2016-17 season, Bevevino, a Clarion High School and Clarion University graduate, spent eight years coaching at the high school and college levels. He spent the 2015-16 season as a graduate assistant coach at California (Pa.), but before that spent five years on staff at Clarion University. He served as a volunteer assistant from 2010-14 and a student assistant in the 2014-15 school year.

Prior to moving to the college ranks, Bevevino spent six years as a head coach at the high school level. He coached Clarion Area’s boys’ team from 2009-15 after spending a one season as an assistant coach. He is a National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) Certified Performance Enhancement Specialist and a National Association of Speed and Explosion (NASE) Certified Level 1 Speed Coach.


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