An evenly divided Dowagiac Board of Education lacked the votes at a special meeting Wednesday night to confirm teacher Matt Alward as varsity wrestling coach.

President Larry Seurynck, Sheryl File and Stacy Leversen supported the recommendation of new Athletic Director Scott Lawler.

Randy Cuthbert, Mark Dobberstein and Julia Smith voted against Alward’s appointment after the board listened to a group of parents and wrestlers, who favor assistant coach Dave Helmuth to succeed John Green.

The seventh board member, Michelle Helmuth, abstained because the issue concerns her brother.

“Is this a choice or a lack of options?” asked Dobberstein, who indicated he received a “slew” of e-mail in addition to the room full of people.

One factor in the discussion was the intimate setting of the Wolverine Building conference center as wind howled outside the second-floor window.

The audience, seated around the board table, pressed for a back-and-forth dialogue with the board on details of the decision-making process involved in the personnel matter.

Board members, who have discussed moving the furniture into perhaps a horseshoe-shaped configuration that would make the cavernous middle school cafeteria feel more welcoming to the public, felt the emotion and wanted them to have an outlet for their input.

Patty Niva, mother of junior Spencer Calley, and Kelly Smit, mother of junior Ryan Smit, spoke on behalf of Helmuth, as did Craig Checkley.

“I don’t have anything bad to say about (Alward),” Checkley said. “I’ve met him a few times and talked to him, but I don’t know him. I know Dave.”

The boys want Helmuth as coach “because he’s always there for us. He’s been our assistant coach the past two years and basically ran it last year.”

Smit said, “If Dave was sitting here among the adults and speaking, he probably wouldn’t impress you guys at the table, but he speaks at the level of these children, which is very difficult to do. I almost envy him because when my kid has a problem, he’d call on Dave first — even if it’s not wrestling. My son has been going to wrestling twice a week in Kalamazoo to qualify for the tournament the first week of November.

Who was there, sitting on the bench, even though he knew he couldn’t be actually coaching them? When they’re running late, I don’t worry because I trust him 100-percent with these kids. I think the biggest thing for a coach is to gain respect of kids first. He already has that because he respects them. Do I have something bad to say about this other coach? No.”

“And he has the parents’ trust, which is huge,” Niva added.

Checkley said, “I’m basically in the same mode as them. There is not a better person to deal with kids in a wrestling situation than Dave. He was the one who originally started the youth wrestling program in Dowagiac. He knows all the kids and volunteers for every sport you can think of — and not just wrestling. He’s there for baseball and football. I’ve been working with Dave in youth sports the last seven years, and I wish I could do as much with the kids as he does.”

Lawler responded, “You might not like to hear this, but 11 years ago I was the assistant coach at Northern Illinois,” like Western Michigan University a Division I Mid-American Conference member.

“I was that same guy” as Helmuth, the athletic director said. “I think 18 kids went in to say I should be the head coach. I was their friend and got them better. Northern Illinois was not a good baseball program and it turned into a pretty good program while I was there and even after I left because of some of the work I had done.

“I thought for sure I’d get the job,” Lawler said, “because 18 kids went in and had parents call who said the same kinds of things. But I remember this: The athletic director told me ‘there’s more to the job than just having the respect of the kids. It’s getting the job because you did a great job in the interview process and be able to do everything that I feel’ — this is the AD talking to me — (is necessary) to establish a program.’ I was 23 years old. I thought, she might be right on a few things. I’d only coached for one year. And I was going to take over a Division I program. I ended up going somewhere else. I did get offered a job, not in the way I wanted, but the guy who took the job went on to have the winningest season in Northern Illinois history. I could say I had a part in that, but it’s not just the respect of the kids. You’ve got to come into the interview process and put your plan out in front of somebody in an administrative setting that says, ‘This is what’s going to happen three, four or five years from now,’ and then you’re held accountable for that.”

Lawler’s point is that wrestlers’ respect is but one aspect of the job.

“I’m glad you said that and I respect that,” he told the parents, “because it sounds like he did an unbelievable job as assistant coach in what sounds like a turmoil season. It sounds like (Helmuth) was a bright spot. I am listening and I hear all of that, but you have to look at it from a whole different point of view than just what the kids are saying Until a person has become a head coach, I don’t think you can really give that person a ‘track record.’ The only way you can be completely judged is to have your own program.”

“A lot of the boys are thinking about quitting because of this situation,” the mothers said. “It means a lot to the kids. If the other guy is chosen and Dave’s not the assistant, that will be huge. If Dave’s not involved, these kids are going to be upset.”

“This is not about whether or not Dave will be part of the wrestling program this year,” Seurynck said.

“Our responsibility is to decide the recommendation,” File said.

“Generally speaking, how it works is the athletic director conducts the interview process and takes his recommendation to the superintendent (Dr. Mark Daniel, who also inherited the situation upon arriving in August). He decides if he thinks the recommendation needs to go to the board. We received that recommendation. Our responsibility is to consider the recommendation the superintendent has made. We’ve hired the superintendent to run our school district and we hold him accountable for the decisions that are made. He will then hold the athletic director accountable for the decisions that are made to make sure that the program runs in a smooth manner. The board’s job isn’t to micromanage and decide who should run what. We have lots of other responsibilities.”

Seurynck added, “We can’t have personnel discussions with the press present,” nor could the board adjourn to a closed meeting as the president desired because the employee was not present to request such a session.

“It’s not appropriate to discuss what each coach does well or not because you’re really going to hurt someone’s credibility,” Lawler said. “If you went down the street and interviewed for a job, someone’s not going to go in and say, ‘Why didn’t that person get the job?’ This is no different. We can talk about the program, but not the interview process. That’s pretty private.”

“You guys are recommending a man to spend an awful lot of extra-curricular time one-on-one with my son and my friend’s children. I would like to know why him over someone I personally trust,” Niva said.

“I think Scott went into quite a lot of detail about how he makes his decisions,” Seurynck said.

“That framework he outlined is the framework in which he made his decision. A circle of things go into it.”

File mentioned that she approached football players Alward coaches and “got positive reviews on the candidate.”

Cuthbert claimed that after the discussion at the previous work session, Seurynck said Daniel would talk to Alward and ask him to withdraw from consideration.

“No, I did not,” the president denied. “I would not do that. It’s really not appropriate for us to talk about the different players involved in the position. We want you folks to be heard. It’s not our job to make a coach recommendation, but to approve the recommendation of our athletic director expressed to us by the superintendent. Unless that recommendation is withdrawn, it’s on the table and we vote it up or down.”

“I appreciate the fact that when we as parents come to address the school board, we’re told that our questions are inappropriate,” Niva said. “I go to school and I’m actually skipping class right now” to be present.

“I met with Mark and Scott back in August and told them this was the wrong direction,” Cuthbert said.

Dobberstein said, “We have a roomful of people, a slew of e-mail from parents and personal discussions about this issue. I don’t think this is in the best interest of kids. No disrespect to Mr. Alward, but is this a choice or a lack of options? I have a lot of concern when we’ve got this much constituent feedback about the decision.”