Chevannes resigns, Embattled Marist basketball coach defends himself in heat of controversy
There’s no way that Chris Chevannes could have ever pictured the 1999-2000 high school basketball season ending with him submitting a letter of resignation at Marist High School.
The 33-year-old coach thought he had assembled a team worthy of competing for the NJSIAA Tournament of Champions. Or perhaps the Parochial B title. Or at the very least, a repeat performance as HCIAA champions. The ingredients were all there. He had the most talented backcourt in the state in incumbent Rashid Dunbar and St. Anthony transfer Tony Tate. Plus, there was the solid supporting cast, led by Ed Mitchell and Charles Boyd. And then, there was the arrival of a talented transfer, sophomore John Winchester. It was an awesome array of talent, worthy of a pre-season No. 5 ranking in the state from The Star-Ledger.
“Our goals were to compete for the T of C,” Chevannes said last week. “We were going to take it one step at a time. But when the season started in November, that’s what we were thinking about.”
But so many things transpired between November and last week, when Chevannes first informed his players, then the administration at the school that he was resigning after three years at the helm.
“It’s not just one thing that transpired,” Chevannes said. “There was a lot of other nonsense that transpired.”
There were the injuries suffered by Dunbar in an automobile accident last April which nearly cost the youngster his life. There was the controversy surrounding the Tate transfer to Marist, which involved the relocation of the player to a Bayonne residence owned by a former assistant coach who later became an assistant at Marist. There were the constant questions about a strained relationship between star player Dunbar and the coach.
And finally, there were the questions last week about the transfer of Winchester from a Stamford, Connecticut high school to Marist.
Chevannes answered a lot of those questions and more in an exclusive interview Tuesday.
He vehemently denied any reports that he was the mastermind behind the Winchester transfer – the maneuver that eventually led to the NJSIAA’s ruling that Marist had to forfeit all of its 20 games this season, eliminating the Royal Knights from all post-season playoff possibilities. Sources said that while Winchester had claimed to have relocated to a house in South Orange, enabling him to forego a 30-day waiting period for playing, Winchester actually did not live at that address. One source even said Winchester was living with Chevannes, something Chevannes denied.
“I had nothing to do with John Winchester coming to Marist,” Chevannes said last week. “I’m not even sure when he came into Marist. Of all the improprieties that I’ve been accused of, I’m telling you that I had nothing to do with Winchester coming here. And he certainly was not living with me.”
Chevannes said that he never really felt fully comfortable coaching at Marist and that he almost resigned at the end of last season, after the Royal Knights won the HCIAA championship.
“I told the players at the end of the season that I was seriously considering resigning,” Chevannes said. “It was only until the second week of July that I decided to stay. There wasn’t a day when people weren’t calling the school and making all sorts of allegations and accusations that I was doing something illegal. Principals calling up and saying that I was wining and dining eighth graders at restaurants. Coaches saying that I was recruiting players from their schools. It was endless.”
Chevannes added, “They were three very difficult years. I was told before I took the job that it was going to be very difficult to be a black head coach in Hudson County. I succeeded there, but it was a lot tougher to succeed because I am black. That’s a very strong statement, but it’s also very true. I’ve had to live that. No one else had to live that. I know that a lot of my decision to resign is based on the fact that it was tough for me being black.”
Chevannes wouldn’t elaborate as to why he felt so strongly about the race issue. When the 1999-2000 season started, there are only three varsity boys’ head coaches who are African-American: Chevannes at Marist, Ben Gamble at Hudson Catholic and Kyle Anderson at Ferris. Now, both Gamble and Chevannes have resigned their positions this week, leaving Anderson as the lone black head coach in the HCIAA.
Chevannes addressed all of the situations that led to the demise of his program.
He denied he had anything to do with the transfer of Tate to Marist. He also denied any involvement with former St. Anthony assistant coach Dave Lipman coming over to Marist, then putting up Tate and his mother in his Bayonne home, so that Tate would not have to sit out the 30-day transfer waiver period to start the season.
“When Tony decided to come over, I didn’t know what transpired,” Chevannes said. “But he felt it must have been important to him to leave one of the best programs in the country and come to Marist. He was coming in on a clean slate.”
In terms of his relationship with Dunbar, which was reported to be strained severely, to the point where the guard didn’t want to play any longer after participating in just six games this season, Chevannes said that there was no problem.
“The perception is that Rashid and I have a bad relationship,” Chevannes said. “But that’s not true. I have a very good relationship with him and I speak to him regularly.”
But there was a cloud of controversy that hovered over Chevannes last September, when