Police in Morrisville, NC are investigating following a season-opening road game victory over Durham-based Hillside High School last weekend.
According to Stephanie Smith, public information officer for the town of Morrisville, police have an open investigation into the incident. Citing the unfinished investigation, Smith was unable to release much information about the incident.
According to Smith, the incident apparently occurred at a Holiday Inn in Morrisville near the Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
Smith said that prostitution is not a big problem in Morrisville, a 7-sq. mile town with a population of 20,000 near Durham.
"This isn't something I've known of happening before," said Smith, commenting on the rarity of high-school athletes involved in prostitution transactions in the area. "This stuff doesn't come up ever in this town."
Morrisville Police Chief Ira Jones also said that while prostitution is not unheard of in his town, it's not a big problem either.
"Being in such close proximity to the airport, we've had that issue in the past with prostitutes," said Jones. "But it's nothing that no other progressive city or town isn't dealing with."
Late Thursday night, in the early morning hours after their rout of Hillside. According to the Post, two players involved have withdrawn from the school, two others face expulsion and a fifth was slated for a disciplinary hearing today.
Earlier today, DeMatha by the player's actions at the team hotel.
According to the release, McMahon said that the players were able to sneak the prostitutes into their hotel room at 5 a.m., about an hour after chaperones had conducted a final check of the hallways. The school had 18 chaperones and coaches on the trip overseeing the 65 student athletes.
McMahon said that school administrators first learned of the scandal on Tuesday, Sept. 4. Jones said that his police department was notified of the incident by school officials two days later on Thursday afternoon.
As one DeMatha mother said on the news tonight, (paraphrasing) "finally, something hasn't been swept under the rug." Sunshine DeMatha, ask the Archdiocese to conduct an outside independent investigation as to how you run your sports programs. If not, immediately fire your principal and football head coach
Bed checks at 4:30 AM? I thought DeMatha as a Catholic school would have students of sufficient character such that bed checks would be unnecessary, much less the last one at 4:30 AM.
I am a Catholic who attended a Catholic high school and was an athlete. I know Catholic education in a very insightful manner due to my lifelong involvement with it. DeMatha is a disgrace. It's reputation is as a national jock school, evidenced by it's national travel schedules and being on ESPN. Sports Illustrated rated it the #2 athletic high school in the country while saying nothing about its academics. Washington is blessed by its Catholic secondary schools. Don Bosco gives the poorest of the poor a free education because the kids go to class for 10 hours a day/4x a week and on Friday work as paid interns at companies like IBM, Capitol One, etc. They make connections that set them up for college and life. Bosco schools are nationally ranked in sports but never with a scandal. St. Anselm's Abbey is rated by the Post as the best academic high school in the DC Area, even over TJ in VA. It's ranked the #1 private academic high school in the U.S. by U.S. News and World Reports. The Academy of the Holy Cross is a nationally respected secondary school for the young women it graduates who go on to prominent national leadership roles. DeMatha, it is what it is IMHO, the Archdiocese's embarrassment.
My son graduated from DeMatha, was not a jock, and received a stellar ACADEMIC education. He chose DeMatha from among half a dozen Catholic schools he visited. DeMatha does work wonders, but mind control is not one of them. These boys have to account for their own actions. Oh, and by the way, I, too "know Catholic education in a very insightful manner". I attended Catholic schools all my life, sent my child to them, and have taught in them for the past 23 years. I know of what I speak.
Kids will be kids and do stupid things. Catholic student-athletes calling hookers on a national road trip @ 5 AM goes way beyond stupid. It speaks to a warped sense of athletic entitlement IMHO. What high school, particularly a Catholic & religious one should *need* 1 chaperone for every 4 students on a road trip? Why should room checks be required until 4:30 AM? Those students, IMHO, knew how they could pull this off. How reflective of DM's intellectual molding of their character, I think, is evidenced by that? I'll paraphrase a DeMatha mother interviewed by WJLA yesterday. The essence of her remarks were that it's about time things like this (from DM) finally saw the light of day. Ouch! Other parents said they hoped this could be put behind them and the football season continue. How convenient and easy that should be, right? I strongly disagree. Either the Archdiocese or the principal should demand a formal and independent investigation of this and its relativity to the entire DeMatha athletic program. This is the kind of situation where a principal and-or a head coach should either resign as a matter of personal accountability or be fired as far as I'm concerned. DeMatha should forfeit any away game further away than St. Mary's Riken in the WCAC for the remainder of both the football and hoops seasons as an intial internal gesture of remorse.
Your son, albeit a non-jock, got what you believe to be a terrific education from it. That's great and I'm pleased he did! You visited 6 of the 14 Catholic high schools that admit boys in the Archdiocese. Given that, you must have observed however that DeMatha is, IMHO, not the academically strongest program of them? I'd say it's closer to the bottom than the top. Would you agree that DeMatha's "rep" is for athletics at a national level? How many nationalized recognized men do you hear about in the media as "a DM graduate?" The likely ratio of those being pro athletes to: military, business, political and other leaders is heavily weighted in favor of the pro athlete, correct? "DM works wonders," I question that compared to the results of the other Archdiocese secondary schools which boys may attend. Individually, such as with your son, I will agree with you. In terms of the larger and bigger picture is where we will likely disagree with respect. Rumors about DM's athletic programs have been around for decades. Of course rumors are just that, rumors. However, will you agree with me that given "Hookergate," the time has arrived to investigate DM's jock culture?
Would you agree if most people hear a boy attended DM, they immediately think "sports!" above anything else, first and foremost? How does that compare and reflect compared to other Archdiocese high schools teaching boys like: The Heights, The Avalon School, St. John's, St. Anselm's Abbey and Georgetown Prep? Each Catholic secondary school has a dedicated mission from the Archdiocese to grow, develop and mold the character of its students within the confines of the Catholic Church, its teachings and philosophies and the respective philosophical views of the specific religious order responsible for each individual school. The leadership and professional staff of DeMatha has the sole responsibility for providing the environment to nurture those developmental needs of each student. Certainly each boy and his parents share in that responsibility but it primarily rests on the school as representative of the Archdiocese leadership under our Cardinal. I've no ax to grind. OTOH, perhaps you are on the defensive because you are aware of DeMatha's jock school reputation, relative to your son's superior academic achievements (and again, terrific for him and your family!) while being associated with the school? It's time for DM to implement change.
I graduated from DeMatha without ever being a varsity athlete. Instead I involved myself in the music program, the radio club and the student newspaper and yearbook. I can name three other journalists from my class who are now senior editors at news outlets across the state. Fact of the matter is, DeMatha has the academic honors to prove that it is one of the better educations you can get in the D.C. area.
OTOH its 13 AP courses leave many questions IMHO. Among those are: the #s of students who take AP courses, the #s allowed to do so, the average AP grade per class, the average AP grade per student overall, etc. along with other such questions? Why is DM among the *very* few Catholic & private DC area high schools who refuse to provide its AP data to the Post for inclusion in the annual Challenge Index which rates secondary schools strictly on academic achievements? That's a rhetorical question which I don't expect you to answer, being fair. OTOH, St. Anselm's Abbey is the current top rated area high school in the Challenge Index ratings and is also # 1 in the nation among private schools according to U.S. News and World Reports. Michael, compared to: The Heights, The Avalon School, St. John's, St. Anselm's Abbey, Georgetown Prep as well as the Catholic girls schools like: Stone Ridge, The Connally School, Holy Cross and Brookewood among others - do you sincerely believe DeMatha is anywhere close to their levels? Sports-wise, DM is a powerhouse, Academically, IMHO, it's in the lower tier among other Catholic high schools in the DC area. That may be hard for DM's community to accept but it is closer to reality than perhaps they want to admit. Of the 17 Archdiocese high schools, in my estimation, academically DM would likely be rated somewhere between 12-17 and likely closer to 14-15. YMMV & with respect.
Pragmatically and practically speaking however, DM is by no means the academic leader, or even in the top half, academically of the 17 DC area Catholic high schools, I don't think. That can be a hard assessment for a DM associated person to entertain but how many DM people yell "We're #1!" when it wins another sports championship or tournament? How many times in the past decade has DM made the semi-finals of "It's Academic?" Does the ratio of students to National Merit recipients approach those of the 16 other Archdiocese schools? The larger question is the "DeMatha culture." It's perceived, rightly or wrongly, by the public and other Catholic high schools, I think, as a "sports/jock" school first and foremost. "Hookergate" only extends that. Why does DM send teams across the nation for sports and appear on ESPN? Is it for the academic value to the school or the athletic appeal? Of course, the big bucks of the bright lights are likely the reason! Bravo to the mom on WJLA who said it's about time incidents like this get publicized. Rumors, and just that, rumors about DM athletics have abounded for years. Why doesn't DM now, step back and inspect itself via independent and outside means to prove this is indeed a "one off?"
As an alum and as a journalist, I think DeMatha (and other private schools) should release academic performance data if for no other reason than for accountability. However you classify DeMatha as one of the "very few" private schools in the area to release its academic performance data. This is incorrect. As noted by the Post, only 200 schools nationwide released their data to the newspaper for its survey. The researchers were pulling at teeth to get them. The overwhelming majority of private schools locally and nationally did not release their data. Now, having seen where kids from the various private prep schools go to college, I would say that not only is DeMatha's academic rigor up to par with those schools, I would also say that dollar-for-dollar, it's one of the best values you can get for a private education in the D.C. area. Tuition is only $13,950 per year (roughly $3,000/year more than when I went there in the late 90's). Georgetown Prep's boarding tuition is $50k/year, day school is $29.6k/year. St. Anselm's Abbey costs $22k/year. The Heights costs $21.9k/year. St. John's costs $15k/year. Rival Gonzaga costs $33k/year. Only the Avalon School, (with which I am unfamiliar) at $14k/year comes close.
re-instatement. It wasn't until the student's dad put a new roof on the building that the school reconsidered and allowed him back in. Get real. Michael sounds like he's the marketing director for the school. It's time to shut down the athletic program and issue sanctions - then the students will learn - and so will the parents.
What room checks? Knocks on doors? Did they go into the rooms and look? What a joke.
The fact is that many more Archdiocese secondary schools than not...allow their "numbers" be used in The Post's Challenge Index and the same applies for most private schools. Why any school would not is key and leaves numerous questions as to why it would not? How many DM students as a percentage of the student body take AP exams? How many as a percentage are even permitted to do so? What's the average score per class as well as per student? If these were numbers equal to the "successful" numbers of the athletic programs, you know IMHO that DM would be bragging about them. DeMatha's silence on these figures I think speaks volumes. As for cost, the other schools you mention do not require fundraisers, booster club activities etc. to "augment" tuition which DeMatha does according to what I've been told by some DM parents. DM's sticker price is the base price while the other schools show their net price. St. Anselm's provides extensive scholarships throughout the entire student body. Does DM? The other schools do not provide athletic scholarships, does DM? It's a question of priorities and IMHO DM's is athletics first with academics second compared to the vast majority of other Archdiocese schools. Let me put it a different way, I think the true academic students at DM provide the academic cover for the various athletes who may not be as academically interested. Hookergate remains. What else might not have seen the light of day?
This is a typical story of the reality of prostitution: http://youtu.be/ZvnRYte3PAk