Joe Godette no longer AD at Dudley High School

Joe Godette out as the Athletic Director at James B. Dudley High School here in Greensboro and it all involves an issue that deals with the NCHSAA Regional Swim Meet….

CLICK HERE to read all on this from Joe Sirera at the News and Record….

14 thoughts on “Joe Godette no longer AD at Dudley High School

  1. I sympathize with the freshman swimmer but termination as AD seems kind of drastic. If there is more to the story than I support the decision BUT if the story is completely accurate then, I don’t think the punishment matches the crime. Just my opinion. I hate it for all parties involved.

  2. After working with ADs for the last few years I have come to one conclusion. The main thing you want from an AD is to be extremely organized. Dot all of your “i’s and cross all of your “t’s” as they say. It is obvious from the last few months this was not the case at Dudley High. He may be a great guy but at the end of the day you need to put in the work for your athletes.

    And BTW, just because it is women’s swimming makes it no different from the problems in the fall. This young lady apparently busted her tail all year to have the right to make it to sectionals. You should absolutely lose your job if you are the reason she can not compete.

  3. If you read the article in this morning’s News and Record there is a lot more to the story. The swimmer was on Smith’s roster and not Dudley’s. She should have been on Dudley’s roster because she lived in the Dudley district but attended the Academy at Smith. So the Smith swim coach, AD and principal are in trouble for putting her on their eligibility roster when she does not live in their attendance zone. Godette could not submit her name because she wasn’t on Dudley’s eligibility roster. How many other times has this happened in other sports? I thought everyone knew the rules but apparently that choose not to follow them. Every AD and head coach is required go over the rules and sign off that they attended. You can continue to plead ignorance or make it a race issue. How much longer is Mo going to allow GCS to be embarrassed on the state level in athletics? It’s time for a change at the top of athletics in Guilford County.

  4. It’s a good idea to reread your comments but you hit submit.

    Correction: ….but apparently they choose not…
    You can’t continue to plead….

    Next time I will be more careful.

  5. Now I am even more confused.

    Guilford County athletics is becoming a joke. Why not use the Forsyth model and just let these kids go where they want to go to school for sports?

    The schools with the Academies or special programs have an advantage now anyway. It is not a level playing field. I would love to see the Dudley football geographic roster, the Dudley girls geographic basketball roster, the Grimsley girls geographic soccer roster.

    There needs to be one of two changes made. Either open up the schools like Forsyth County or make a kid play sports for the school where you live…period. If you want to go to one of the academies for school that is fine but play sports where you live. This keeps kids and parents from attending schools for sports reasons instead of academic.

  6. Aleah was never on the Smith eligibility roster. Her mother hand-delivered her eligibility folder to the Dudley AD before the season ever began. She has been swimming as a Dudley swimmer all season. Smith High School entered her in swim meets as a courtesy to the students without a team. The real issue here is that students are penalized for living in a school district that doesn’t offer them a sport. She is a swimmer. Dudley has no swim team. The county policy forced her to swim alone as a representative for her home school. Student-athletes like Aleah should not be punished for living in a district without their chosen sport. Had she been allowed to swim at a neighboring school with their team, this would not be an issue right now. The county policy needs to change. It’s a shame that the Dudley AD lost his position, but he knew Aleah was a swimmer, had advance notice about submitting her qualifying times, and he didn’t. End of story.

  7. Turning Guilford county into Forsyth county is the last thing they need to do. Things would become so political. Players love these schools(Page,Northern,Dudley,Grimsley and Southwest. The war to recruit players is already at an all time high now. Allowing parents to jump from school to school is not the answer. The only upside would be that our county would be able to compete with raleigh and charlotte to win more state championships.

  8. But it is already happening now. That is the problem. Any school that has an academy is doing it already and getting around the rules. They have an unfair advantage now that no one seems to want to bring up.

  9. There are some misconceptions here.

    Aleah was specifically told by GCS that she could NOT swim for Smith despite the facts that a. Dudley did not have a swim team and b. she attended the Academy. She was not on Smith’s roster at any time. She was entered as an individual and her times at the invitational meet are listed as times for Dudley. As she was not a Smith swimmer, the Smith AD and coach could not enter her times for Regionals. This was all explained in advance and all necessary information was communicated to Dudley.

    I don’t think we should lose sight of the other issue here. The system, as it functions now, is not serving the best interests of all children. The bottom line is that due to a broad-sweeping policy with no provisions for unique situations, a student was forced to swim for a school with no team, excluding her from the opportunity to compete in any relay event and ultimately leading to her not swimming in a meet she completely deserves to swim in. If this rule had not been an issue, Aleah would have been allowed to swim for Smith and none of this would ever have been an issue. I am truly sorry someone lost their job over this. I am also sorry that a hard-working student-athlete was left out of this opportunity due to bureaucracy and oversight.

  10. Tom,

    Let me know if I missed anything. We have

    Dudley Academy
    Smith Academy
    Page IB
    Grimsley IB
    HP Cental IB
    HP Andrews Aviation

    What other schools have loop hole programs?

  11. For what it’s worth, at some point the person in charge of athletics will be found out as “nothing more than a politician”. The ADs do have a “thankless task”. They must be hard-working, organized, honest, passionate, and political in an environment where the principals normally do not possess these qualities. These occurences are happening way too often in the GCS arena. For the AD @ Dudley, this must have been the last straw after the football debacle. Maybe each school should have an AD, 2 assistant ADs, a secretary and add a Regional AD to mimic the bloated administrative structure we have in Guilford county.

  12. Tom,

    The only recruiting going on in Guilford County is by the privates and you know it. Look at the level of play in basketball between the publics and private. The landscape has changed over the last 10 years unless you have been hiding under a rock somewhere.

  13. Coach P, you need to check your facts. She swim for Smith in several meets. Dudley had no female swimmers and only one male that didn’t finish the season. I was at several meets this year and she was with the Smith team. Every meet is done on the computer and it’s very easy to go back and look at the meet and show exactly which event and which lane. I believe that the News and Record or Greensboro Sports should be able to see the results from the meets. Maybe someone could do some investigation and put all of this to rest.

Comments are closed.