PEABODY — Edward Nizwantowski’s attorney says the former Peabody High principal made false statements and created a “sham” hiring process to remove the veteran educator from his head coaching jobs.
Recent court filings by lawyer William Sheehan III in his client’s age-discrimination lawsuit offer a rare glimpse into Nizwantowski’s ouster as head baseball and football coach by then Principal Patrick Larkin.
“There was no circumstance or circumstances under which Larkin would have hired Nizwantowski for the head football coach position,” Sheehan wrote.
“Larkin has now admitted that the purported opening of all coaching positions, the creation of screening committees, and all of the other trappings surrounding the selection of coaching ... were a sham.”
The attorney wants a Lawrence Superior Court judge to forgo a trial by ruling that Peabody discriminated against Nizwantowski three times — once for head baseball coach and twice for head football coach.
The city, meanwhile, has filed its own motion asking the judge to throw out two of the three claims.
Sheehan submitted nearly 200 pages of documents late last month, including portions of depositions from Larkin, former Superintendent Nadine Binkley and Athletic Director Phil Sheridan, plus years’ worth of coaching and teaching evaluations and letters from Sheridan.
In depositions, Nizwantowski says he was discriminated against in three attempts to regain head coaching jobs.
“I never had a bad evaluation, whether it be coaching or teaching, my dedication, my loyalty to the community, to the children that I served,” he said. “When you do things like that and they replace you with a younger person who doesn’t meet your qualifications, it leads me to believe that they discriminated against me.”
Nizwantowski’s years of evaluations show he received nearly all satisfactory marks, the highest on a four-point scale. One letter alone from Sheridan recounts the final game of the 2003 baseball season. The athletic director discusses Nizwantowski’s decision to reject the state championship trophy, “ending a season in controversy.”
“I know that you regret the decision and not just because of other people’s reactions,” Sheridan writes. “The issues being brought forth by the Lowell Spinners Management are distressing and hurtful.”
Discrimination case
A retired teacher and current School Committee member, Nizwantowski — like all Peabody High coaches at the time — was forced to reapply for the head baseball coaching job in 2005, after 17 years in the position. Within weeks, Nizwantowski filed an age-discrimination complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. He was 58 at the time.
Later that year, he also re-applied to be head football coach but wasn’t selected. He would try once more in 2007, but never advanced as a finalist.
Nizwantowski’s complaint on the baseball coaching job was initially rejected by the state, but an appeal showed “probable cause.”
His lawyer filed the current lawsuit in March 2007 and the case has since been winding its way through the legal process.
In the latest court documents, Sheehan says Larkin gave one set of reasons for not hiring his client in an affidavit to the state and other reasons two years later in depositions for this case.
Larkin, now principal of Burlington High, said last week he did not make a “180-degree” turn in his reasons for not rehiring Nizwantowski.
“I would say my error was nothing more than an error of omission,” he said.
The former Peabody High principal said in making his initial statements he didn’t want to get into mudslinging. Given Nizwantowski’s years of service as a teacher and coach, he deserved respect, Larkin said.
The principal said he and the city attorneys felt obligated to add some information after the fact, but he never intended to get into “a war of words” about Nizwantowski.
“I’ve never been through anything like that,” he said of his deposition. “I just tried to be honest. I guess it was a huge education going through something like that.”
Larkin said Nizwantowski’s age had nothing to do with his decision to choose a new coach.
In his deposition, he cited the incident at the Spinners field as a factor in his decision not to hire Nizwantowski for the baseball job in 2005. He also criticized how Nizwantowski conducted himself in an interview for that job.
“If he had come in and been a little bit remorseful and so forth and not had the attitude he had it might have -- I might have been swayed -- to let him stay onboard,” he said in the court documents.
City fights back
The city’s attorney, William Bogaert, has separately asked the court to toss out part of Nizwantowski’s lawsuit.
Bogaert argues the former coach only claimed age discrimination a single time, with the state in 2005 when Nizwantowski was passed over as head baseball coach.
The city’s attorney is asking the judge to dismiss two additional complaints arising from Nizwantowski’s applications for head football coach in 2005 and 2007.
Bogaert says Nizwantowski was legally required to amend his original complaint to include his two applications for head football coach and exhaust all other remedies before suing. As such, he can’t now ask the court to consider them as age discrimination.
Sheehan disagrees. Nizwantowski didn’t need to amend his original claim because the latter two stem from the first, he argued.
Bogaert is expected to file a rebuttal to Sheehan’s most recent court filings before any decision from the judge.
Nizwantowski's motion, letter from athletic director
Facts of the case
Schools' motion for summary judgment
Nizwantowski's opposition to the schools' motion
Local News
November 10, 2008
Niz lawyer: Hiring process was a ‘sham’
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