Executive Education has had a boys basketball program for six seasons and for six years the Raptors have won a District 11 championship.
But if Executive is going to win a seventh straight district gold this winter, it will have to do without Ray Barbosa as its head coach.
On Wednesday in Mechanicsburg, the PIAA Board of Control voted unanimously with one abstention to uphold the District 11 committee’s decision in June to sanction Executive for not adhering to the rule in boys basketball that a player who is ejected from a game must sit out the next game.
The sanctions include putting the school on probation for two years and stipulated that Barbosa can’t be involved in any basketball-related activities for the duration of the 2024-25 season, which begins with the first day of practice on Nov. 15 and continues through the state championships in Hershey March 27-29.
Executive can elect to have Barbosa coach, but if he has any involvement with the team the Raptors would not be allowed to participate in the District 11 or PIAA tournaments.
“It is not technically a suspension, but it is a situation where if [Barbosa] has any involvement with the team in any capacity, Executive will not be allowed to play in the District 11 or PIAA tournaments,” said District 11 chairman Bob Hartman.
The PIAA heard Executive’s appeal and also heard a presentation made by Saucon Valley on the case.
The sanctions date back to last winter when on two different occasions in the 2023-24 season, District 11 determined that an Executive player who was ejected in a game did not sit out the ensuing game as rules mandate.
PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi supported the board’s decision to back District 11.
“The committee listened to the testimony very closely and these are people who are educators and have been involved in interscholastic athletics their whole life,” Lombardi said. “They reviewed the presentation and the timeline and information that was shared and they supported the District 11 decision on the matter.”
Executive violated Article 13, Section 8A of the PIAA constitution, which covers mandatory disqualifications.
Lombardi made a phone call to Executive CEO Bob Lysek to inform him of the board’s decision and said a detailed letter of written notification would be forthcoming.
Lysek said he was disappointed by the PIAA’s decision.
“I’m shocked,” he said. “I believe this is excessive and harsh. I have communicated with both Ray and Paul Englehardt, our new athletic director, and I thought both of them did a great job with their presentations at the hearing. But at this point, I will await to receive the written notification and we’re going to talk to our legal counsel. However, I will say we are extremely disappointed by District 11’s decision and the whole process has been very frustrating. We want to support Ray and our program and we’re going to seek counsel and go from there.”
It is the second time District 11 has taken action with Executive in recent years. In 2021 prior to the football team’s first game, the school was put on probation for one year as the result of a text message sent by head football coach Larry Ford to an athlete enrolled at Allen High School.
Executive got through that probationary period without further incident and was not on probation at the time of the boys basketball rules infraction.
“When a school is on probation, it means that if they violate any other provisions of the PIAA by-laws or the constitution and its rules and regulations, they could be subject to further sanctions,” Lombardi said.
“When you put a school on probation, in reality you’re looking to eliminate future transgressions,” Hartman said. “If something occurs again while you are on probation, it would only serve to ramp up the penalties. We’ve put a lot of schools on probation for a variety of issues. You want to fix a situation. And you want that school to do X, Y and Z and in the case with Executive we’d like them to amend their communication plan with their coaches and so on.
“Obviously, this type of thing can’t happen again. It’s not that we want to catch someone again. It’s ‘Let’s fix it, so it doesn’t happen again.’ I have a good rapport and relationship with Bob Lysek and my hope is that relationship will remain positive as we work through this.”
