BERLIN–On Thursday, less than a month after it was revealed that athletes on the Berlin High School football team had recruited members from nearby towns, the team’s head coach was officially fired.
On November 5 FOX 61 first reported that the team was being investigated by the state’s official governing body for public school athletics, the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, after reports that some of the team’s athletes did not live in Berlin, or had been given financial and other incentives to move to Berlin.
The athletes that lived in other towns came from New Britain.
There were four athletes found to not be eligible to play.
After the initial reports, coach John Capodice was accused of actively recruiting those players, and even promising housing and a college scholarship to some.
On November 18 the CIAC ruled that Berlin had violated CIAC rules, and in the report said that Capodice was solely responsible for the violations. The school was forced to forfeit all victories from the 2015 season in which one of the ineligible players participated in, and a $4,000 fine was imposed–$1,000 per ineligible player. The students were also banned from playing at Berlin, and from any CIAC team for half of the 2016 season.
Capodice was suspended on November 19 while the school conducted its own investigation, and he has now been officially fired.
Capodice will still teach physical education at the school.