Top coach quits just before city title game

A highly successful Bronx volleyball coach whose girls’ team played for the city championship after press time Tuesday is quitting because of his displeasure with the Public School Athletic League (PSAL).

Jeremy BasSie, coach of both the Bronx High School of Science’s boys’ and girls’ volleyball teams submitted his resignation to Marion Dietrich, the school’s athletic director on Nov. 19. 

“I didn’t want to keep going the way things are currently set up,” said BasSie, whose girls’ team is 48-9 in the regular season during his seven years as their coach. The boys’ team is 57-3 during BasSie’s six-year tenure.

“I have seen no improvements to PSAL volleyball as long as I have been around,” he said.

BasSie has several criticisms about how the city’s athletic league for public schools is run. 

One of his complaints — often echoed by other schools’ coaches and athletic directors — is that highly skillful teams are bunched together in the same divisions as struggling teams. 

“There is no promotion or relegation of how teams fare,” said BasSie. “You see a lot of ugly games and lopsided scores.” 

The PSAL ignores the restructuring suggestions of the coaches at the advisory meetings held after each season, BasSie charged. 

“I would rather have a .500 record in a better division,” said the coach. 

As an example, he noted that this year’s championship game in the B Division features the David A. Stein Riverdale/Kingsbridge Academy, MS/HS 141 against Fort Hamilton from Brooklyn. 

RKA has approximately 400 students, while Fort Hamilton has more than 4,000.

A Department of Education spokesman disagreed with BasSie’s assertions, both about the PSAL casting a blind eye on the wishes of school officials and about not doing enough to ensure parity.