Hamburg Area administrators received kudos on Sept. 23 from a school director and the parent of a varsity football player for their handling of two separate incidents involving a member of the football team.
Brooke Adams, school directors’ president, commended superintendent Steven Keifer, high school principal Chris Spohn and athletic director Aaron Menapace for their handling of the incidents involving quarterback/defensive back Joey Cominsky.
Adams also voiced his support for head football coach Joe Sinkovich and his staff.
‘Someone once told me that all God’s children spill milk and our administrators have cleaned up the spillage very well,’ Adams said.
Andrew Barter, whose son plays on the football team, praised administrators for ‘the exceptional service that you provided to the community and for how you handled a difficult situation in the national media.’
Barter said after the meeting that the media coverage was ‘woefully incomplete and inadequate’ and that there was not a ‘remote possibility of a culture of violence in Hamburg athletics.’
‘I couldn’t let that (comment) stand with personal knowledge and (with) our experience in (athletics),’ Barter said.
The incidents brought a national spotlight to the school district and specifically to the football team when video surfaced of Cominsky striking an Annville-Cleona player in the head with the player’s helmet during an altercation when the teams met on Sept. 6. in Annville.
A second video which came to light showed Cominsky throwing a football into the stomach of a teammate earlier in the year and resulted in Keifer issuing a press release on Sept. 18.
‘In both cases there were significant consequences given in a timely manner to those who made mistakes,’ Keifer wrote. ‘Since these are student and staff disciplinary actions they are confidential in nature and therefore will not be released to the public.’
The second video was released to some media outlets by Karen Hoagland, mother of two former Hamburg players.
Hoagland said that she released the video weeks prior to Cominsky’s on-field fight.
‘I don’t consider my kid’s life a glass of milk,’ she told school directors.
Hoagland addressed school directors about administrators refusal to sign off on her son’s waiver to play football at Berks Catholic after he transferred to the school. She told school directors that the school has signed off on waivers for others, but she believes that there are some who hold a grudge against her son.
Dalton Hoagland was ruled ineligible to play this season at Berks Catholic by a District 3 Committee after Hamburg administrators refused to sign off on the waiver, according to reports.
Hamburg administrators had no further comment on the issues or on Cominsky’s status going forward.
Police in South Annville Township, Lebanon County have said they considering filing criminal charges in the first incident and Berks County District Attorney John Adams is looking into the second incident at this time.
School directors met in an executive session prior to the meeting to discuss personnel and negotiations. No further details were available.
School director Lolly Lesher was absent.
The next meeting of school directors’ will be on Monday, Oct. 14 at 6:30 p.m. in the James A. Gilmartin Community Room.