MDI coach Taylor resigns after dispute on school policy

Mount Desert Island girls basketball coach Chip Taylor is adamant he won’t return to the job from which he recently resigned.

Taylor, who just finished his second year with the Trojans, submitted his letter of resignation on Feb. 13, six days before the MDI girls played in an Eastern Maine Class B tournament quarterfinal.

He gave it a lot of thought and had some discussions with MDI school officials about rescinding the letter but has decided he won’t coach the Trojans.

“I feel very strongly about the situation, to the point where I’m not going to revoke my letter of resignation,” Taylor said.

Taylor resigned over what both he and Union 98 Superintendent Robert Liebow termed philosophical differences stemming from an incident that involved one of the players on the team.

The player violated the school’s co-curricular activities policy during the season. According to school policy the violation results in a 15-day suspension from co-curricular activities such as athletics.

Students-athletes who violate the policy cannot practice or play for 10 days of the suspension and can return to practice with five days left but cannot play until after the suspension ends.

Taylor’s own policy for the team, which he said he set forth in meetings with both parents and players before the season started, was that a player who violated the co-curricular policy was off the team for good.

“I have a set of beliefs and morals and ethics,” Taylor said. “I told the girls at the start of the season, if they did anything inappropriate, they wouldn’t play for me again at MDI. Simple as that. If they can’t [behave] for two or three months in the winter, then they don’t deserve to be on the team.”

Liebow said coaches cannot make policies for their own team that are different from what the school has already set down.

“We have school policies for a reason, and those policies have to be followed,” he said. “We have to abide by those policies that are set by the school board. That’s what they expect us to follow.”

Taylor stayed on for the rest of the season, coaching the Trojans to the Eastern Maine Class B semifinals where they lost to eventual state champ Presque Isle.

The suspended player was on the bench in a warmup uniform for the tournament because the tourney occurred while she was in the portion of her suspension that allowed her to rejoin the team but not play. Taylor said the school never told him she had to play once her suspension was up.

“We would never tell a coach what to do with playing time,” said Liebow, who is himself a former basketball coach.

MDI won the Eastern Maine Class B sportsmanship award and Taylor was selected to coach in both the McDonald’s and Penobscot Valley Conference Senior All-Star games.

After he submitted his letter, Taylor said, school officials asked him to wait before making his resignation official and hear out a committee that was formed to look at the co-curricular policy.

But after attending a few meetings, Taylor said he didn’t like what he heard and even walked out of one.

“It’s just going nowhere as far as I can see,” Taylor said. “It’s almost a situation where the kids who are doing the right thing aren’t rewarded. For a lot of kids out there, 10-15 days is a slap on the wrist. … Too many times, in society, we give out too many second, third, fourth chances. I know they’re kids and they make poor decisions, but what about the kids who are doing the right thing?”

Liebow said school policies on a host of matters, such as attendance and plagiarism, are reviewed every year.

Taylor, a 1990 Ellsworth graduate, coached the Trojans to a 15-6 record and they were Eastern Maine Class B runners-up last year. MDI went 16-4 this year.

He coached the MDI junior varsity boys before taking over the varsity girls job and also served as an assistant boys coach at Lawrence of Fairfield prior to moving to MDI High.

A business teacher at MDI, Taylor said he doubts he would ever coach at the school.

“My relationship with the administration as a teacher is fine,” he said. “As a coach, that relationship has been damaged to the point where I don’t think I’d go back.”

In fact, Taylor’s not sure if and when he’ll coach again.

“I love coaching and I love the girls,” he said. “I’ll miss them. But situations like this make you think, ‘Is it worth it?'”