Lisbon High School will not renew the contract of football coach Chris Kates. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald, file

Lisbon High School will not renew the contract for football coach Chris Kates, Superintendent of Lisbon Schools Richard Green wrote in an email to the Press Herald on Tuesday.

The decision to sever ties with Kates comes after hazing allegations derailed the school’s football season this fall.

“Mr. Kates was notified last week that he would not be nominated/renewed as the head football coach for Lisbon High School,” Green wrote in an email to the paper.

Green added that current assistant coaches were “contacted and also informed that we would be starting the hiring process for a new head football coach and that they were eligible to apply with the understanding that the new coach would have direct input in the hiring of their own assistants and volunteers.”

Parents of Lisbon football players were informed of the decision to not renew Kates’ contract in an email sent by Green on Jan. 8. In that email, which was provided to the Sun Journal, Green said that a meeting with himself, athletic director Chris Spaulding and Kates occurred on Dec. 18 to discuss Kates’ contractual employment after the completion of the school’s hazing investigation.

Green then said Kates was informed the day of the email, Jan. 8, that he would not be “nominated/renewed” as the head football coach. Green finished the email by noting how difficult the past few months have been for the Lisbon community and that “we want to assure the players, parents and community members that all options were researched and discussed prior to making this difficult decision.”

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“On behalf of the Lisbon School Department, I want to personally thank Mr. Kates for his dedication and commitment to the program and wish him the best in his future endeavors,” Green wrote.

Kates was hired in 2017 as only the third head football coach in program history, following the 40-year career of former coach Dick Mynahan.

Kates graduated from Lisbon in 2005 and served as assistant to Mynahan for eight years before becoming the Greyhounds head coach.

Appeals process in the works

Lisbon forfeited the second half of its season after officials began investigating hazing allegations.

Portland law firm Drummond Woodsum led the school investigation and found that there was a “culture of hazing and roughhousing” within the Lisbon football program. Seven players were ultimately removed from the team. The firm’s final report was issued in late October.

Lisbon police also conducted a separate investigation into hazing allegations, but Androscoggin County District Attorney Neil McLean said in November that his office would not pursue criminal charges against any members of the Lisbon High School football team.

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“Much of what was disclosed was self-described by involved juveniles as ‘horseplay,’ ‘goofing around,’ and the incidents all involved voluntary participation,” McLean said in a written statement Nov. 26.

Lisbon forfeited its final four games of the season. High school varsity teams that don’t complete a season face a two-year ban from competition, according to Maine Principals’ Association rules.

In the email sent to the Press Herald on Tuesday, Green said Lisbon plans to present its appeal to the MPA Interscholastic Management Committee on March 20. The MPA’s management committee, which is in charge of hearing and handling appeals, is holding three meetings this year, on Jan. 23, March 2o and May 8.

According to an email sent by Green on Jan. 10 to football players’ parents, the original plan was to present the appeal at this month’s meeting, but the hazing investigation with the Mt. Ararat/Lisbon/Morse boys hockey team has delayed the process.

“As many of you are aware, the first opportunity to present our plan is on January 23, 2025, and administration has until next week to request that our appeal be added to their agenda,” Green wrote. “Unfortunately, the Lisbon School Department is currently involved with another investigation involving our co-op with the Mt. Ararat hockey team.”

Green’s email also said that although Mt. Ararat Superintendent Heidi O’Leary indicated that the matter involved bullying and harassment, speculation of hazing has been circulated.

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Green’s email to the Press Herald said that Lisbon plans to begin the process of hiring a new football coach will begin in March, following its appeal to the MPA.

Parents react in public forum

Parents spoke out in the Jan. 13 Lisbon school committee meeting, expressing public support for Kates and disdain toward the school administration for how the matter was handled.

Lisbon resident Jesse Walling, a parent of two children in the Lisbon school system, was first to speak and read a series of emails from Green to parents. He also read his replies to both Green and school committee members.

“This conclusion was reached, and there’s a severe lack of concern, understanding and consideration on the part of Superintendent Green,” Walling said in his reply to the email about Kates’ contract not being renewed. “The news delivered is in direct opposition to the parents involved. The actions are contrary to the expressed wishes of the parents involved, and the negative results on the boys involved is beyond approach.”

He added that Kates “earned his respect due to his actions, but always put the players and the team first,” and “in a nutshell, the culture of the Lisbon High School football team was community oriented, community supported and player focused.”

“Lisbon lost a coach who genuinely cared about his job, his co-workers and the kids he was entrusted with,” Walling said.

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Another community member, Brian Chase, directly called out Spaulding and other administrators for their handling of the hazing allegations before and after investigations were completed.

“You continue to use the word hazing over and over and over and over again to create a situation that you started, you continue to carry the word hazing to defend your decision, which was to shut (the program) down,” Chase said. “All these kids were considered guilty until proven innocent.”

Lisbon parent Cara Macvane criticized the emails from Green, as she felt they placed all of the blame on Kates, when reports showed it was a long-standing “culture of hazing,” and not a situation created by a lone individual.

“I understand (Kates is) not a full-time employee, he doesn’t have tenure, he’s just got a contract,” Macvane said. “I get that, but it seems to me that this whole case was set on his shoulders. The investigation itself said the coaches were unaware this was definitely not a single point of failure. If anything, the fact that we didn’t have policies in place puts it more on the shoulders of the administration.”

She added that she feels that the current investigation of Mt. Ararat boys hockey team proves that the issue of hazing goes beyond the football team, since no football players are on the hockey roster.

“It may be that our issues are bigger and across multiple schools, and I would say it has much more to do with the administration, what’s going on in our schools, than it ever did with a sport or a coach, and yet, we have a coach that’s terminated, who was loved by everybody, begged by everybody to be a part of our program,” Macvane said. “Parents wrote letters, kids wrote letters, people have spoken over and over again, and nobody has listened.”

School committee members do not respond at meetings to comments made during public forum.

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