got a fair amount of reaction to my bylined story that appeared online and in the Friday print edition of The Morning Call.
Typically, those reactions fell along a chasm as large as the Grand Canyon.
If you are somehow connected to Becahi, you thought the story was ridiculous, inappropriate, an attempt to embarrass the school. I was accused of stirring the pot. The probation didn't need to be reported.
If you were affiliated with just about any of the other schools in the Lehigh Valley Conference, including Central Catholic, the general reaction was "Good for District 11, and I hope they'll keep cracking down on what they're doing over there even more."
Someone on Facebook reacted to the story by saying: "This is like getting a mobster on tax evasion. You know there are much worse crimes, but at least this it's something."
That pretty much summed up the sentiments of many.
Look, do I believe that the infraction committed by Becahi that caused the probation was the crime of the century?
No. Hardly. It was middle school, co-ed soccer for crying out loud.
It seemed like an honest mistake was made and Becahi acknowledged it immediately and addressed the situation appropriately. Even District 11 chairman Bob Hartman admitted that it's not an easy thing to keep track of middle school sports at Becahi because there is no Bethlehem Catholic Middle School. You've got to keep track of kids spread all over the place and not just those centralized in one building.
But at the same time, I believe that District 11 used this infraction -- and no matter the sport or level, it was an infraction -- as an opportunity to send a message.
They wanted to put Becahi on notice that it needs to be a little more careful about how it is filling its rosters on all of its high school teams.
This was a middle school team, but the allegations, the claims of recruiting, the tales about Becahi doing this and Becahi doing that, are all over the place.
And they've been all over the place for several years. I digress for a moment.
I've spent time with several Becahi people over the years, and I like many of them. There is no finer human being in local sports than AD Mike Grasso.
And in talking to him and many others at Becahi, like football coach and director of admissions Joe Henrich, they believe they have a great school and do things the right way. They believe they offer an excellent educational, spiritual and co-curricular program. And frankly, they believe students and their families should be free to choose to go where they want to attend school.
And they believe that if kids want to come to Becahi, they should be allowed to come. Plain and simple.
And they also realize that because there's a rather substantial cost involved in the tuition payments to attend a school like Becahi, they have to sell themselves to prospective students and families because there's more to the process to go to a private school rather than the one in your neighborhood.
That's where the crux of the problem comes into play. There's a very fine line between marketing yourself and aggressively recruiting student-athletes from other schools.
If you talk to many school officials from the rest of the area, Becahi has crossed that fine line. Repeatedly.
Of course, it's quite difficult to get many of these officials on the record, but they have stories. Lots of them and they'll talk unless you say you want to quote them.
So, we go round and round on this topic. It has been going on for years. These allegations, these charges of an unlevel playing field, broke up the East Penn Conference in the late 1990s. They nearly had both Becahi and Central held out of the new superconference that will begin in the fall.
And, really, this distrust and animosity, was at the core of the recent Palisades wrestling forfeits and subsequent controversy.
I don't know if the distrust and animosity can ever be totally defused because people tend to strongly resent it when someone else is successful.
Parkland is generally successful in a lot of sports and after Becahi, Parkland is probably the area's second least-liked school. We don't embrace the success of others; we resent it.
Colleague Nick Fierro pointed this out in one of many pieces on the Palisades mess and it's true.
You never hear charges of recruiting when a team is mediocre or bad.
You only hear it when the teams are good and right now teams like Becahi's wrestling and girls basketball program are very good.
I've always felt that it's real easy, too easy, to accuse your rival of illegal practices, like recruiting, because it allows you to excuse your own program's failures and inefficiency.
I remember that when Bob Stem was coaching football at Becahi throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Liberty and Freedom fumed about losing to him. And they lost to him constantly. Rather than look in the mirror and see what could be done to improve their program, they just pointed fingers at Becahi.
At some point it all turned around and the bitterness toward Becahi football subsided.
So, does this stuff often come down to a bunch of sour grapes? You bet.
Yet, there are definite advantages that go with the private schools. There's no denying it. They can pick and choose and pluck from a larger, undefined area.
Although there are ways to get around the residency issue to attend certain public schools, and people do use those methods, it's much easier to simply go to a private school, assuming you can afford the tuition and the environment and structure is right for you and your child.
So, along with the sour grapes, you also have apples and oranges, too, because how a student body from a Dieruff and Central Catholic, for example, is comprised is obviously very different.
But can these two very different schools compete in a football, baseball or basketball game? Absolutely.
Do we need separate state tournaments? I don't know if we need them, but I don't think they're ever going to happen because the PIAA is all about inclusion, not exclusion.
Now back to Friday's story.
The bottom line with this probation is that a message was sent by District 11 and backed up just as strongly by the PIAA. It was largely a tap on the wrist, but still, it was a tap.
And the message was not only to Becahi, but to everyone who has issues and allegations. Don't just gripe about a situation. Make your complaint known and District 11 will, indeed, act and take appropriate action.
While this thing was truly minor, there are some major allegations out there and Becahi could do itself a favor by making sure it leads the league in compliance of all rules from here on out.
Principal John Petruzzelli said Becahi is implementing new procedures and I trust he's telling the truth.
And while Becahi needs to make sure it stays in line and does all of the right things, it's time for everyone on the local scene to take the animosity and distrust down a notch.
Open the dialogue, work together, be totally transparent about the situation with this kid or that kid.
Did Friday's story stir the pot?
Sure, these controversies sell newspapers and generate page views on the Internet websites.
But is it what high school sports should be all about?
I don't think so.
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