A sports psychologist is crying foul after a provincial basketball association awarded Ian Hyde-Lay, a coach at a prestigious Victoria private school, a major award – even as allegations surfaced that some of the coaches, including Hyde-Lay, bullied several former basketball players.
Dr. Alan Goldberg told CTV News that giving coach Hyde-Lay a coach of the year award further traumatizes some former students at St. Michael’s University School who alleged on W5 this week that they were sworn at and humiliated by him, in front of other players.
“Winning an award like that makes a mockery of how these kids were mistreated,” said Goldberg, who treated one of the former students. “It doesn’t make anything better.”
But the B.C. Boys Basketball association defended its decision to give Hyde-Lay the Ken Wright Award, saying Hyde-Lay has worked hard, and is an excellent coach.
“Just because there are allegations that something inappropriate might have happened, that shouldn’t diminish that he has accomplished a tremendous amount,” said BC Boys Basketball President Paul Eberhardt.
A joint W5/Toronto Star investigation looked into allegations by former students and their parents that several coaches including Ian Hyde Lay used obscenities, and bullied and humiliated some of the players. A formal complaint was launched in 2012 by a group of parents, alleging emotional abuse.
The report noted that the school commissioned two investigations which exonerated the accused staff of emotional abuse. A subsequent provincial investigation found the coaches did swear, but their actions did not amount to professional misconduct. A statement from St. Michael’s University School indicated that all the investigations “found there was no basis for the allegations of emotional abuse” against the coaches and that the "SMUS and its faculty members have conducted themselves appropriately.”
But the experience still haunts two students who were interviewed, according to the W5 report.
“My final years playing basketball were terrible because of the treatment from the coaches,” said one former student, Colton Stockus. “The common language they would use would be f--- retard. Colton is f--- soft, waste of a player.”
Goldberg said the negative experience didn’t end at the court – he said some students were outed as “whistleblowers” in a meeting at the school, which isolated the students from teammates.
“It was really quite destructive,” said one student’s mother, Jennifer Fraser.
Eberhardt said that swearing at high school basketball players is inappropriate.
“In our pursuit to push kids hard, all of us coaches have said things we shouldn’t have said,” he said. “In the end I know that’s what his goal is. I know he’s absolutely torn up about this. He truly cares.”
Eberhardt said the decision to give Hyde-Lay the award was made long before the allegations aired.
Saturday night, after the victory of AA St. Michael’s University School Blue Jags, CTV News asked Hyde-Lay for his comment on the allegations.
“I haven’t seen them, I can’t comment,” he said. He referred CTV News to St. Michael’s University School, which didn’t return calls.
