College Fires Baseball Coach for Cheating in a Surprising Way

If you know me at all, you know that I’m a massive college baseball fan. Naturally, I’m a fan of my alma mater, the University of Georgia Bulldogs, along with some other teams that I follow regularly, but I’ll also watch college baseball games on TV when I don’t have a team in the fight.

One school I’ve never watched — or even heard of — is Atlantic Cape Community College. But the New Jersey college has fired its 13-year veteran head coach, Rodney Velardi, over a cheating scandal that erupted in a most unusual way.

During the first game of an April 22 doubleheader against Rowan College Gloucester County, another New Jersey community college, “Rowan pitcher Ethan Dodd approached his coaches after the game wondering if he had been tipping pitches during an 11-6 victory,” the Cherry Hill (N.J.) Courier-Post reported.

“He had a feeling they were getting really good swings on pitches that he thought were good pitches,” Rowan Roadrunners head coach Rob Valli told the Courier-Post. But, Valli added, at first “We kind of dismissed it. We didn’t think there was anything there. In hindsight? His senses were OK.”

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As the game progressed, Valli began to think that something wasn’t right. Atlantic Cape batters were swinging aggressively at tough pitches and running particularly well on the basepaths, but nobody thought that cheating was involved until Rowan first baseman Felix Diaz said he heard voices coming from an Atlantic Cape player’s helmet.

Valli was skeptical at first. “I didn’t believe it,” he said. “I just thought, nah. I didn’t believe it. I didn’t not believe him, but for that sophisticated of cheating, I just didn’t think they would do it. I didn’t think they would do it. For me, I wasn’t going to go right up there in the first inning. We had to confirm that’s what it was. So, second time up, those same guys got on, and [Diaz] was confirming with me the whole time. Once those guys got on, he’s saying I hear it. I hear it.”

So in the third inning, Valli asked the umpire to check the helmets of Atlantic Cape players. The umpire discovered that Atlantic Cape players had headsets embedded into their helmets.

A junior college baseball manager in New Jersey has resigned after 13 seasons after illegal communications devices were found in the helmets of two players during a game pic.twitter.com/Oh4pPpDxOg

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The umpire was “as surprised as I was,” Valli said. “The reaction was I went out and said they have headsets in their helmets, and he seemed surprised. … He’s like how do you know? I explained our first baseman has been hearing this now and we just confirmed it the second time these guys got on base.”

“In 30 years, I’ve never asked an umpire to check a helmet, but I’m out here now, and I’m telling you now you’re going to find earpieces in these helmets, and he goes OK, let’s check,” he added.

Needless to say, the earpieces in the helmets of any players other than catchers fall afoul of NCAA rules. Valli took his team off the field until the team removed the earpieces from the players’ helmets and a camera in centerfield was turned off.

“They had a center-field camera, which I wasn’t watching the stream, but the center-field camera, they can see in, they can see the catcher, they can see the signs,” Valli said.

Atlantic Cape launched an investigation but couldn’t confirm that the devices were in use during that game, but the school determined that the earpieces were a violation of the rules.

“We found that coach Velardi was in direct violation of the (NJCAA Region 19 rules),” Atlantic Cape Chief Marketing Officer Laura Batchelor said. “Whether or not that was done intentionally, we couldn’t tell, but he was in violation.”

Atlantic Cape suspended Velardi at first and later fired him.

“After the situation with the game, he was suspended pending the outcome of the NJCAA Region 19 review, and at that time, we had asked for him to resign,” Batchelor said, adding, “And of course, as an institution, we had no idea. I apologize on behalf of the college to Rowan College Gloucester County and anyone else that might’ve been affected.”