Norwalk Athletic Director Reacts To Scandals

As a coach, counselor and athletic director, Wayne Mones has seen a lot in a career that has spanned more than 30 years. But the man who runs the athletic department at  has been stunned by the scandals at Penn State and Syracuse that have gripped the nation. The alleged heinous acts of child molestation by coaches have put everyone associated with athletics on notice.

"Am I shocked? Absolutely," Mones told Patch on Tuesday morning. "Children are our number one priority as parents, administrators, educators, and coaches. To see this happen is alarming."

A few weeks ago, an alarm sounded in Fairfield County when a Norwalk resident and assistant coach for the freshman football team at Staples High School, was charged with felony risk of injury to a minor for allegedly giving the password to a pornographic website to some players. Pickering, like all coaches who are employed by area high schools, went through a rigorous background check, but Mones says that, sometimes, it's still not enough.

"We have a process that we follow along with the Board of Education," he said. "There are background checks and finger prints are checked. We check references and do follow-ups, but as we saw in Syracuse where Bernie Fine was there for a long time, there are no guarantees."

There hasn't been a knee-jerk reaction at Norwalk High School because of the incident at or the ones at Syracuse and Penn State. Mones says teachers and coaches get guidance every year and talk about coach-player relations on a regular basis.

"The coaches are well-aware of the do's and dont's when it comes to dealing with student-athletes," Mones said. "We go over it all the time. And they are told what to look for. If a student or player has a concern, it should be addressed immediately."

Mones admits that he has to "be on his toes" all the time, but that comes with the territory when you're the athletic director of a high school. He said he feels that the scandals at Penn State and Syracuse are real tragedies and is sympathetic to the victims, but says that some good may come out of all of this in the end.

"It's terrible what happened there," Mones said. "But this may allow others who have been abused to come forward. I'm sure what happened to them could be eating at them for a long time. This puts the focus on a bad situation and maybe this will make sure nothing like this happens again."