GUILDERLAND — Forty years ago, Harold “Bud” Kenyon said, he caught a student — “a peeping tom,” he called him — looking into the girls’ locker room. A popular and successful varsity football coach, Kenyon took the boy to the high school principal’s office.

“The first two times did no good,” Kenyon told The Enterprise. The third time, when he found the boy hiding in the bleachers, he recalled, “I told him, ‘Get down’ and he said, ‘Get lost.’ I got him by the nape of the neck and the seat of the pants and took him to the office.”

That incident came back to haunt Kenyon this week as the Guilderland School Board decided, once and for all, not to name the high school football field for Kenyon as originally planned.

Kenyon, who is now 87, was the head varsity coach at Guilderland from 1965 to 1980, and never had a losing season, part of a 23-year winning streak; his overall record at Guilderland was 86-42-9.

In the hallway of the high school on Tuesday night, Kenyon repeated the story he had told the school board behind closed doors. The board had voted to go into executive session over the “strenuous objections” of Mark McGuire, the Daily Gazette’s executive sports editor. The district’s lawyer, Jeffrey Honeywell, said it was a “personnel matter.”

Robert Freeman, director of the state’s Committee on Open Government, couldn’t be reached yesterday because of the Jewish holiday but he has frequently pointed out that nowhere does state law name “personnel” as a topic to be avoided in public. Freeman calls it the “Personnel Myth,” adding that, if people repeat things enough times, they come to believe them. “The law says a board may enter into executive session. The board is absolutely free to discuss the issue in public,” Freeman said earlier.

Superintendent Marie Wiles on Wednesday cited the relevant portion of the state’s Open Meetings Law that allows an executive session for “employment history of a particular person....”

The Enterprise broke the story last week about the school board’s change of plans. Wiles said then, during months of planning, she “hadn’t heard a whisper of any concerns” until last Tuesday.

Wiles said yesterday that the board’s decision was “not intended to say all the players coached by him and admired by him aren’t valid. The school district has no problem with that.”

She stressed that the board’s decision was not because of “a handful of people who had a grudge.” Wiles said, “I want to be clear: That has nothing to do with the board’s decision.”

Rather, she said, “It came down to this question: Is it appropriate to name a school facility for someone who was found guilty by an independent panel of two counts of corporal punishment?”

The school board’s role, she said, “is bigger than what’s right for football. The school board has a bigger district responsibility.”

Corporal punishment

The board had met in closed session last Tuesday and voted 8 to 0, to rescind the planned naming of the field for Kenyon.

The next day, the board met again as some members were having second thoughts. That time, the vote was 4 to 3: Catherine Barber, Colleen O’Connell, and Seema Rivera favored naming the field for Kenyon, while board President Allan Simpson, and members Christine Hayes, Christopher McManus, and Judy Slack opposed naming the field for Kenyon.

Members Gloria Towle-Hilt and Barbara Fraterrigo had been out of town and did not vote last Wednesday.

This Tuesday, all of the board members were present. The meeting started at 8 p.m. After listening to Kenyon for over half an hour and then deliberating until 9:30, the board decided not to hold another vote, letting the previous decision stand.

When Kenyon emerged from the meeting room, he announced to his supporters, “I came out of there undefeated.”

Kenyon said, and Wiles confirmed, that he faced two charges in 1975: insubordination, and conduct unbecoming of a teacher. “In my file, it says the school district had done a terrible job instructing teachers on corporal punishment,” he said; in addition to the incident with the “peeping tom,” there was an earlier incident where Kenyon pushed a male student back into his chair.

Wiles said yesterday, “If the district had been more direct in sharing expectations about corporal  punishment, the penalty would have been more severe. It was a reprimand in the form of a letter.”

She also said of corporal punishment, “It wasn’t OK back then” or the school district wouldn’t have held the rare 3020A hearing with a three-member panel. Wiles added, “The level of scrutiny then was not what it is now” as twice a year now, schools have to file a report with the State Education Department.

Corporal punishment is the use of physical force for discipline. Many states, including New York, outlaw corporal punishment in public schools. New York banned corporal punishment in public schools in 1985. Public school teachers in New York may now be charged with assault and battery or child abuse for using corporal punishment.

During his 1975 hearing, Kenyon recalled, the high school principal at the time said he had discussed a letter with Kenyon about similar behavior. “I never saw that letter,” said Kenyon. Kenyon checked his daily log and found that the day the principal alleged he had discussed the matter with Kenyon, Kenyon had taken personal leave for a physical exam, an annual requirement for his job as a Greyhound bus driver, a job he held in the summer and when he wasn’t teaching.

Kenyon’s lawyer said the principal could be charged with falsifying records. “He was saying I could sue the school board,” recalled Kenyon. “My staff was handling practice in double sessions. I wanted to get back to my team. When I walked out, I thought I was free.”

On Tuesday night, Wiles met privately with Kenyon and his wife, Betty, and daughter, Debbie Lauver, in her office to explain the board’s decision. “She kept saying they couldn’t get past the letter,” reported Kenyon’s daughter, Debbie.

The letter she referred to was placed in Kenyon’s file in 1975, and said the charge for insubordination was dropped but he was reprimanded for conduct unbecoming of a teacher.

The letter cited “physical actions in excess of need.”

The school board members exited their meeting room in a solemn, silent single file, with the board’s president declining comment.

Testimonials

At the start of Tuesday’s meeting, a dozen supporters surrounded the coach and his family, waiting in the hallway outside the board’s meeting room. Kenyon went into the meeting room with his wife and daughter. “He did all the talking,” said his wife when they emerged. “No one on the board asked a single question.”

Outside, in the hallway, the supporters, all men, were eager to talk about how the coach had shaped their lives. Bill Shriver said his sons had played under Kenyon in the 1970s. “He taught them about being a man,” he said.

Art Waugh, who taught art at Guilderland from 1968 to 2000, worked as a coach under Kenyon for 13 years until he succeeded Kenyon as head varsity coach. Waugh said he couldn’t imagine what the concerns about Kenyon would be. “He was a great role model,” Waugh said. “He really knew the game.”

“I drove two hours from Vermont to be here,” said Ken Rice. He had been coached by Kenyon at Greenwich, and credits Kenyon for his becoming a football coach himself. “I had a troubled childhood,” said Rice. “Coach Kenyon changed my life.” (See related letter to the editor.)

Rick Steverson played Guilderland football, as did his brother who is now a coach.

“It’s part of the reason I’m the man I am,” said Steverson of Coach Kenyon’s influence. “I’m a good dad, and I take care of my kids.”

Steverson said that, today, students often don’t face consequences for misdeeds as parents undermine rather than back the authority of teachers and coaches. He recalled that, when he was on the Guilderland football team, three starters had violated the code of conduct, which prohibited smoking and drinking. “He dismissed them,” Steverson said of Kenyon.

He also said the booster club blossomed in Kenyon’s era because, “After we graduated, we wanted to still be part of the team.”  The booster club built the concession stand and a press box, and purchased a scoreboard, and equipped a weight room.

“When he was gone — pfft!” said Steverson of the decline of the booster club.

“As an athlete,” said Steverson, “you didn’t have to take gym class. To a man, we were all there, working out.”

He also said, “You can’t always say things to your parents but you could talk to him. He was better than any guidance counselor.”

Finally, as his voice cracked with emotion, Steverson told how Kenyon had attended his wedding and his brother’s. When Steverson asked him why, Kenyon put his arm around him and said, “It’s the valentine and the character.”

Bob Fish was coached by Kenyon at Greenwich. “Football is a pretty basic game,” he said. “He taught you to be a man, to really push yourself.”

After graduating from Greenwich, Fish went to Hamilton College and, after the first practice, he said, “I didn’t think I was cut out for college football.” He called Kenyon. “He took the time to listen to me,” said Fish, who then played four years for Hamilton.

A son’s perspective

Kevin Kenyon said he was 17 when his father was charged in 1975. “It was devastating, not just to the family but to the community,” he said. “He was a father to a lot of kids.”

Kevin Kenyon went on, “When we first heard they were going to name the field after him, I thought, ‘Finally, they’re doing something right.’” But, he said, of the 40-year-old incidents, “There are people still around, administrators and the union, who are embarrassed by it.”

Kevin Kenyon said, as he waited in the hallway, “We’d like to see the board stick to their original decision.” He said of naming the field for his father. “It’s a legacy, not just for him but for all those who played for him.”

He said of his father’s request to tell the board his side of the story, “He wants to restore his family honor.”

Of the planned Sept. 25 naming ceremony, Kevin Kenyon said, “People are coming from all over the country for this. They’ve booked planes and hotels.”

After it was learned that the field wouldn’t be named for Kenyon after all, his daughter said family members, friends, and former players who are coming from far afield would still gather to celebrate him on Friday night. “He has elected not to attend the events at the school,” Debbie Lauver wrote in an email to The Enterprise.

Going forward

While Kenyon’s family thought the school board had decided to make right a procedure they found painful 40 years ago, the current district leaders had no idea the hearing had ever taken place.

“I wish a thousand times a day,” Wiles said, “that we had uncovered this in July when I got the request from Regan through the booster club for naming the field.” Regan Johnson is the district’s athletic director.

“I said at the time we had no policy,” Wiles said, of naming school facilities.

It wasn’t until Guilderland alumni contacted school board members and Wiles that the half-century old personnel file for Kenyon was unearthed. “We traced it down to the basement of Westmere Elementary School, way in back,” said Wiles. “It didn’t occur to anybody” to look at the file earlier.

“We were all kind of stunned,” she said.

Wiles shared the information in Kenyon’s file with the board at last Wednesday’s meeting, she said.

“Last night,” she said, “the policy committee met to develop a policy for naming school district facilities. We own not having done the process right. It’s terribly unfortunate it went as far as it did.”

But, she said, the decision for the school board was, “Now that we have the information, do we choose to ignore it?”

Wiles concluded, “Nobody feels good about this and how it unfolded. Nobody. Some hard lessons were learned by a lot of people....I think the board landed in the right place. It’s bigger than celebrating football.”