Salisbury-Boston Axis Takes A Hit?

August 19th, 2007 · 23 Comments · Education, Local

I wonder what Salisbury School’s approval ratings are like in Beantown after this troubling story that appeared in today’s Sunday Boston Globe.

I have a feeling there’s a lot more to this story. The only person quoted from Salisbury is the football coach. Still, it’s not a pleasant thing to read. I feel bad for those kids from Dorchester who say they were screwed.

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23 responses so far ↓

1 Doug Richardson // Aug 19, 2007 at 1:24 pm

Salisbury should be deeply ashamed and Adamson should be fired.

It’s not as though it was the coach’s first season at the school–he is VERY familiar with the school’s academic policies and requirements. Moreover, one simply should not make promises one is not in a position to keep.

Housatonic loses student-athletes every year when prep schools dangle $40,000 academic steaks in front of them. Some thrive, others starve.

I hope the LJ follows up on this story.
2 Amy // Aug 19, 2007 at 1:53 pm

I agree with you, Terry, I think there is more to this story. It also appears that Adamson went above and beyond in trying to find placement at other prep schools for the two boys.

Yes, what happened to those boys was horrible, but it would have been worse if and when they were asked not to come back next year because they were not doing well academically.
3 Tom Cowgill // Aug 19, 2007 at 3:12 pm

As a former prep school teacher and coach, I find a couple of things troubling about this story. Coach Adamson said he thought that they were admittable, based on word of mouth. I have never heard of such a thing. Every body involved knows the admission standards of their school and would not make any assumptions. Second, the timing is odd. Admission to the school was settled months ago. Why were the recruits just now informed? Did the school find better prospects in which to invest?
Amy, I think it would not have been worse for the school to give them a chance to succeed, especially given that a member of the school administration had made a promise to them. I have seen many with low prospects succeed, and many with higher prospects fail. The number of students “asked not to come back” at the end of each school year is a testament to the fallibility of the admissions process.
4 Marshall Miles // Aug 19, 2007 at 4:19 pm

It is not the first time it’s happened, and it won’t be the last.

It sucks. It’s not just Salisbury, its the rule rather than the acception.
5 Marshall Miles // Aug 19, 2007 at 4:44 pm

Thats EXception!
6 Amy // Aug 19, 2007 at 5:24 pm

Tom, I did not mean it would be worse for the school, I meant it would be worse for the two boys. To go to Salisbury for a year, then have to go back to Dorchester the next year because you couldn’t hack it academically, and then face the criticism from your peers would be just awful. Their current situation is bad, but I think that this would be worse.
7 Tom Cowgill // Aug 19, 2007 at 6:52 pm

Amy, I took your comments to be about the boys, but your speculation about their fate is just that and not necessarily accurate. I spent 35 years in prep schools and had my share of pleasant surprises. It appears to me that the school was misleading to the two boys and owed them a chance. I fail to see how they would be better off left in Dorchester.
Marshall, you are far off the mark. This situation is exceptional. You would be hard pressed to find very many similar examples.
8 Amy // Aug 19, 2007 at 9:17 pm

Tom, in the article, Chris Adamson said that he learned that the boys’ grades were not what Salisbury likes to see, hence the reason to have one boy take the SSAT, and the other to attend summer school at Salisbury. I assume that this was to see if they would be able to compete academically, because inner-city schools are known to be lacking; and perhaps their bad grades there were a result of poor teaching, and were not entirely the fault of the boys. It seems that was not the case. And this seems to be the reason they were not ultimately accepted. Unfortunately, it seems the Globe reporter didn’t think it prudent to call the admissions office and glean the true reason the boys were not admitted to Salisbury.
9 Tom Cowgill // Aug 20, 2007 at 1:29 pm

Amy, I feel like we are not talking about the same thing. Certainly Salisbury has every right and obligation to select students that they feel can succeed. The issue here is that a representative of the school seems to have promised these boys admission and scholarships and then, at a very late date, the school reneged on the promise. The story is not about the admissions office or policy, but about that promise.
10 Marshall Miles // Aug 20, 2007 at 2:37 pm

Right on Tom!

It would seem that the coach would NEVER go out on his own and tell the kids that they would be playing for Salisbury on a scholorship.

Somewhere, someone, led these kied, their parents, and league on. The kids gave up a year of playing time to stay healthy, coame and praticed with the team a year ago..and then…all of a sudden…poof…no football, no free ride, no attempt at a Salisbury education.

Aftre talking about this on-air this morning, I am distressed that no comment has come from any Salisbury administration. I called the headmasters office this morning and I am still waiting for a call back.

Someone screwed up big time. But this screw up involves people. Suck it up Salisbury, make it right.
11 Amy // Aug 20, 2007 at 3:50 pm

Ah, now I see the light, Tom. I would agree with you completely: someone screwed up. Maybe it was Adamson “promising” the kids they had spots in the school, maybe it was someone in admissions who gave the green light too early, maybe it was even the kids and their parents who only heard what they wanted to hear: that their kids would have a way out of the ‘hood and a better life. It sucks, it really does. I’m not making excuses for anyone, but I know that there has been a lot of turmoil in Salisbury’s front office this summer. Maybe that contributed, I don’t know. This situation with these two boys seems to go back further than that. Hopefully someone will issue a mea culpa, and soon.
12 Geoff Brown // Aug 21, 2007 at 3:22 pm

After re-reading this case, I have a feeling that the Dorchester families thought they heard one thing and the coach felt he said something else. The key element here seems to be the lack of documentation of much of what’s described as actually having happened.

While I have no first hand experience trying to bring ghetto kids into boarding schools, I’ve been involved for nearly half a century as an alumnus in trying to find good candidates for my boarding school and my college. Also, for the past 20 years or so I have tried to help kids in the horse world whom I thought had potential to be seen by the people who were in a position to help them advance.

While no situation I’ve ever found myself in has been anywhere near as egregious as this one, I will say that I have seen several situations where my own enthusiasm about a kid’s potential has led me to encourage the kid to try for something most people would have considered out of reach. Once I can recall telling a family about what another kid did a few years before, and later found the family had assumed that the same thing would happen for their child more or less automatically.

Basically, what I had described as possibilities were heard by the kids or their families as being certainties.

Because we’ve heard only one side of Dorchester/Salisbury story, I suspect that is what we are seeing in this case.

I’m hoping that when this all is cleared up, we will find the coach said “IF you bring up your grades” or “IF you do well in summer school” or “IF you ace the SSAT” then you “MIGHT” get into Salisbury on a full scholarship, coupled with the absolutely necessary “Of course, you will have to go through the normal application process and be accepted.”

The newspaper article basically tells us what the kids and families believe they were told. While it will be cold comfort for them to learn that they did not hear all the conditional words and focused only on the best possible outcome, I suspect that’s what happened.
13 Paul Bartomioli // Aug 22, 2007 at 7:59 pm

sounds like “Bonfire of the Vanities.” The protagonist hits an inner city youth with his car and flees. Kid dies, I think. As the newspaper “investigates,” this kid goes from a street dweller to an honor student, without the pre-reqs to back it up. No one wants to speak ill of the “victim,” so, it snowballs.

IF the questions were asked of parents, coaches, teachers, etc, might they not have sugar coated their answers, considering what the prize may have been? Without school transcripts, every student is at least a 3.5 scholar.

I don’t expect that Salisbury will make a public statement. Hotchkiss chose the silent route with a much more serious situation a few years back. The public has a very short memory, tomorrow is another day and another breaking news story.
14 Brady // Aug 23, 2007 at 4:24 pm

Of course this is a hard situation. But if you know Coach Adamson, you know that his character is not being protrayed correctly. Ever since he was at New Hampton School, he’s been so good about bringing in Inner-city kids to prep schools, and not only building them football wise, but academically, making school always be their number one priority. He never PROMISED them anything. Salisbury is a strictly politics school. And the headmaster is being a jerk about the whole thing. Chris is the coach. Not the person saying wether they can come or not. It was a sketchy thing that it happened so close to the year starting, yes I agree with that, but I don’t understand how all the blame is being put on Coach Adamson. It was the Headmaster and admissions staff who decided to keep these two boys from coming. It could have been because Salisbury couldn’t let go of that much scholorship financially….who knows. But the way the story is protrayed is horrible. The writer of the “Rude Awakening” article spends his time crashing on other people….not just Adamson. It is very hurtful to know that these boys won’t be able to go to Salisbury and get out of Dorchester. Yes. However, Coach Adamson is not the one to blame.
15 Marshsall Miles // Aug 24, 2007 at 7:07 pm

BINGO Brady!

As I have said on-air, the administration should just admit that there was a communications foul up, and apologize. We have said all week long that there is no way the coach goes out on his own acting on hism own without knowledge of someone else at the school in the administration.
16 Paul Bartomioli // Aug 25, 2007 at 7:54 pm

BTW, how “close to the school year starting” did this occur? Does anyone know when the boys were rejected? Since the story started in the Globe, perhaps that is where the questions should start.
17 Karen Bartomioli // Aug 26, 2007 at 11:44 am

Seems pretty obvious, given the MO of prep schools, that Coach Adamson was doing his job, and expected others to do theirs and determine academic eligibility.
Now there’s word these kids were told “No” months ago. Did no one notice they attended summer school and took various tests? Wouldn’t they have come forward and said, “Hey, there’s a problem here.”
Sounds like the butt-cover scramble to me - that includes making a good coach the scapegoat - by administrators who want to raise alumni funds for a new football field.
18 2003 NE CHAMP // Aug 27, 2007 at 4:15 am

Chris Adamson is a great man who has done good things for many kids. As a former athlete for coach Adamson, i can say he has influenced my life and the life of other team members around in a postive way. He has turned the life of my peers around when we were heading in the wrong direction. Chris always made sure we were in class on time and our school was done to our fulliest potentional. The circumstance that occured at Salisbury is something that happens at all prep schools across the country. It is the fault of admissions giving false information to the person relaying to others. I do not think it is fare to say that he should be fired he made a mistake that was not entirely his fault but the fault of the entire admissions staff of the school. I did cheerish the memories i had at New Hampton when coach Adamson led us to a New England foot championship that turned the football program there around. He has helped many kids and his heart is very big he does care alot about the kids who play for him he would do anything for them!!!
19 Ele // Aug 28, 2007 at 5:50 pm

I am not american, so I see all this big mess from aneother point of view…..
and I really don’t understand where this scandal is!!! He was only doing his job…. he must have been the first to be disappointed….
Fired??? for what????

The creazy thing about this is that in your country you select such young kids! T
hey should all have the same possibilities when they’re so young!!!!
20 Paul Bartomioli // Aug 29, 2007 at 1:42 pm

The scandal is that the “impartial, unbiased, ad nauseum” “reporters” gave only 1 part of the story and only those “facts” that support their position.

Perhaps the Jason Blair episode is not so isolated. Perhaps it permeates all levels of “journalism.” Why was innuendo published in the first place? Why was it repeated without fact checking in the second place?

As Homer Simpson would say, “Oooh!! A doughnut!”
21 Marshall Miles // Aug 30, 2007 at 11:37 am

Your off base here Paul.

The reporters spoke to the coach, the kids, the league. The only ones they did not speak to is the administration. Salisbury School chose NOT to comment.

It took two calls from me to get a simple “no comment” fax back from the school.

I will not vouge for the reporters credibilty, or quality, just that they spoke to who would speak…they gave more than one side of the story.
22 Salisbury Student // Aug 30, 2007 at 4:26 pm

I think that this is rediculous. It is terrible that this happened to these kids and I feel for them but, there is only one thing that matters, they didnt have the grades to put themselves into the school. There was no intention of hurting these kids by any of the administration members at Salisbury. Coach Adamson is a great man who, as said in the article, did all that he could do for these kids. Once he realized they were not coming to Salisbury he tried as hard as he could to find a place for these kids but it was too late.
23 Paul Bartomioli // Aug 31, 2007 at 8:20 am

So, Marshall. All the people the “reporter” from the Globe spoke with told the truth. How’s that bridge you bought working?

AS I stated earlier, without transcripts, every kid is a 3.5 student.

Where is the answer to my question, when did the kids get notified? No where in the Globe story, or Terry’s version is any date mentioned.

No, Marshall you are wrong. Once again the, see description above, “reporters” told only the information that supported their position. Either the questions were not asked or the “reporter” ignored them because his story would not be “newsworthy.”

Ooooh! A Doughnut!

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