Terra Nova High School on Oct. 27, the girls’ locker rooms were left in a mess, with trash left all over the floor and the bathrooms being left in a dirty condition, physical education (PE) teacher Celina Reyes said. Although there have been messes left behind after certain matches, the condition of the locker rooms that was left after this match was unusually worse, she said.
“There was lots of tape everywhere, garbage everywhere, clothing everywhere,” Reyes said. “You can tell that people opened lockers and pulled stuff out. And then in every single toilet in the entire locker room, there was urine, lots of it. And on the floor too.”
Reyes is not sure if the mess created was an act of vandalism or a lack of manners, but it was excessive, she said. “It was never to this extent,” Reyes said. “We’ve had the locker room left dirty (with) Gatorade, bottles, tape—not this.” Sometimes, a custodian cleans the locker rooms before the next
school day, which did not happen this time, Reyes said. “We had to kick everybody out of the locker room,” Reyes said. “And then we had a custodian and I think the custodian supervisor came down to look at it. We even took pictures of it.”
Varsity football assistant coach Vito Cangemi believes that it’s important for visiting teams to treat the other school with respect, he said. “Visiting teams should always clean up after themselves,” Cangemi said. “It’s common courtesy.”
The MHS athletics department reached out to Terra Nova High School’s athletics department to
discuss the incident, Assistant Principal Jonathan Mach said. “I am in good faith because it’s the first time that we’ve had this type of interaction with them in our area,” Mach said. “I can’t just really just pin it on the school, but we can start communication, or maybe we have to lay our expectations out a little bit better.”
Mach believes that the incident was not due to ill intent, as the Terra Nova football team did not believe they had created a mess, he said. “We always work with people, and if they don’t live up to our expectations, we can always model what we’re looking for,” Mach said.