Litchfield High School's swim team is without its head coach until Jan. 29, the result of Bill Dranginis being suspended for falsifying the time of one of his swimmers last year.
The inaccurate time in the 50-yard freestyle allowed the swimmer to qualify for the Class S trials meet in March.
The suspension of Dranginis, the team's coach since 1993, came after an investigation by high school Principal Kristen Della Volpe. During the investigation, which was prompted by a complaint from a parent of a swimmer, Dranginis admitted to doctoring the time, according to Della Volpe.
The complaint was filed last month by Michael Dunn, whose daughter, Shannon, is a senior on the swim team. She was not the swimmer whose time Dranginis altered.
Dunn said he filed the complaint because Dranginis had been treating his daughter unfairly. He would not elaborate. Dranginis has declined to comment.
Della Volpe submitted the result of her investigation to the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference and asked the CIAC's Board of Control to review and respond to the matter.
The Board of Control issued a ruling on the matter Friday, according to its associate executive director, Paul Hoey, who declined to comment on the findings. Superintendent of Schools Deborah Wheeler also declined to comment.
Assistant coach Andy Parker is filling in for Dranginis during the suspension.

Photos Available @ John McKenna Photography

Back to Sports

We encourage our audience to contribute newsworthy material to each of the sections of Litchfield.bz by sending information, articles, photos, videos, pod casts and other content to webmaster@litchfield.bz. We reserve the right to edit material for content.