Marblehead coach case continued

LAWRENCE – The hearing for an injunction against Marblehead High School football coach Doug Chernovetz was continued without any action in superior court Monday.Judge Kathe Tuttman issued the continuance after lawyers for Chernovetz went through the amended complaint against the coach – which includes a request for an injunction barring Chernovetz from having contact with Timothy Morris (the son of the plaintiff) – literally paragraph by paragraph, calling for items he labeled either unsubstantiated or scandalous to be stricken.Attorney Sam Perkins also asked Tuttman to dismiss the complaint altogether.A contingent of Marblehead football players filed into the courtroom shortly before the hearing in support of their coach. Many left halfway through, interrupting the proceedings to be back in school by a certain time or risk ineligibility for Monday’s sporting events – something that attorney Gerard F. Malone, representing the Morris family, labeled offensive.Five members of the track team were deemed ineligible after arriving back at school 10 minutes late.Chernovetz, 40, who completed his third year as football coach last fall, was suspended earlier this spring for two games, for using chewing tobacco in front of his players – a violation of a Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association rule. However, parent Michael Morris subsequently filed a complaint charging Chernovetz with “aberrant” behavior toward his players generally; and for trying to harass and intimidate his son, Timothy, specifically, after he quit the team last October.The amended complaint charges Chernovetz with assault, intentionally inflicting emotional distress upon the younger Morris, and for violating his civil rights.The third charge, according to Morris’ attorney, Gerard F. Malone, stems from the fact that Timothy Morris has not attended school since April 4 (the day the original complaint was filed) because he fears for his safety,”The temperature in the town has risen dramatically,” Malone said, referring to the division within Marblehead the incident has caused. “The temperature at the school has risen dramatically.”Perkins, however, told the court that outside of an incident last November, which precipitated the complaint, Chernovetz has not been in contact with the Morris boy, and that the family had not met the standard for claiming civil rights violations – or for having a restraining order put on the coach.The incident has as its roots a meeting between the Morris family and Athletic Director Michael Plansky that took place prior to basketball tryouts, in which Michael and Timothy Morris sought to assure the athletic administration that the boy was committed to playing basketball. Chernovetz did not attend the meeting, but, according to the complaint, was outside the office looking at the family “in a menacing manner.”The next day, the complaint charges, Chernovetz confronted the boy at school and “began to scream at him regarding the meeting that he and his family had with Plansky on the previous day,” thereby inducing the assault charge.Perkins said that a coach confronting a player fell far short of being labeled “extreme and outrageous,” which is how the complaint labeled Chernovetz’s actions.Subsequent to that issue, the complain alleges, Chernovetz called the Morris boy’s cousin – an eighth-grade athlete at the middle school – to assure him that his problems with the family would not affect him. Malone called that outright intimidation – a charge Perkins flatly denied.Tuttman said she couldn’t rule on the injunction until she could rule on the questions of dismissal and of how much of the material in the complaint had merit.Neither side saw Monday’s action as either victory or defeat.”There’s a lot to this,” Malone said. “The judge has to be thorough.””There’s no victory until we hear from the judge,” Perkins said.The Morris family declined to talk to the media, but Chernovetz did say he was moved by the actions of his players.”That