Aram scooped everyone and reported that St. Paul High School has fired football coach Elijah Asante, according to a statement by the school and obtained by this newspaper late Wednesday.
Asante later released a statement on Aram’s blog explaining, “I’m thankful for the opportunity to coach at St. Paul. Although it wasn’t a long tenure, I learned a lot from the players and the community. I’m grateful and I wish them good luck. They have the makings of a good team.”
For area football followers, it probably means former Charter Oak running back Kurt Scoby returning to the area. According to Aram, Scoby is expected to leave St. Paul as early as Thursday, a source telling Aram, “there’s no way Scoby will be playing for St. Paul on Friday night.”
Fred’s thought: What’s the high school world coming to? St. Paul created the environment of transfers by hiring Asante, then fires him after a 1-5 start knowing the Swordsmen set up one of the toughest preseason schedules in the section. I don’t get it, because if there was something outside of football that led to this, then why did he remain on staff as a teacher? I was at Amat following St. Paul’s loss to the Lancers and leaving the stadium after finishing my story, there was a parent, fan or booster in Asante’s face screaming at him on the steps of the bus with his team looking on. It bothered me that a coach — at that time — would have to deal with that sort of thing moments after a game. If there’s a problem, deal with it privately, away from the football team. But it appeared Asante was ambushed and didn’t have a choice. Welcome to coaching 2012. In any case, I’m as curious as all of you to learn the fallout in the coming days and weeks but certainly, the players that Asante brought in are likely to leave and leave soon. What does this mean for Scoby? It means we’re probably back on the Scoby watch and where he ends up is anyone’s guess.
