Michael Belcaster, head coach of Hinsdale South High School’s boys varsity basketball team, was quietly let go at the end of the season.
The news broke Wednesday morning after the Chicago Sun-Times reported multiple sources privately claimed Belcaster had been fired.
Back in January Belcaster was placed on administrative leave and subsequently reinstated by the Hinsdale Township High School District 86 Board of Education after a large outpouring of support by the team’s players and their parents.
“Belcaster leads by example, he’s one of the most hard-working coaches I’ve ever seen,” Olasupo Akande, a senior on the Hinsdale South varsity boys basketball team, told the school board back in January. “He stays up late at night watching film on teams that we play weeks in advance, and allows us to stay in the gym after practice when most coaches would go home to their family.”
The board deliberated in private for roughly an hour before announcing to the room that Belcaster would be able to finish the season with his team, leaving an overjoyed room of supporters unaware this would not extend past the team’s March 13 end of season.
During the meeting, no explanation or comment was given by District officials as to why Belcaster had been suspended. However, on Nov. 22, the mother of a senior at Hinsdale South, Erin Savage, filed a lawsuit against the school district after her son, a former all-conference player on Hinsdale South’s varsity basketball team, was allegedly cut in retaliation for filing a complaint against former head coach Michael Moretti for “verbal abuse, bullying (and) humiliation,” according to the lawsuit.
Savage’s son was reinstated to the team on Nov. 28 and eventually elevated to the team’s starting lineup.
“The District is unable to discuss Mr. Belcaster’s employment at this time,” District 86 Administrative Chief of Staff Debra Kedrowski said in a statement Wednesday after requests for comment by the Pioneer Press.
