Waldorf Maryland Youth Sports Inc. Organization’s President Richard Cowans Violent History, Bullying, and Suspected Embezzlement Endangers The Organization’s Future.
WALDORF, MD-As parents of the Waldorf Youth Sports Inc. youth sports organization file into the cramped meeting space one-by-one to discuss an anonymous whistleblower email that circulated the organization. The content of the email centered around the deliberate incident acts of the President Richard Cowans, his wife and board secretary Vannessa Cowans, and other board members, spanned from embezzlement, retaliation, bullying, and safety, and other frauds. The anticipation of the subject matter can be heard over low rumbles. The meeting, held at the Charles County Public Library started promptly at 6:30 pm on Thursday June 1st 2017 to a crowded standing-seated room of a rotating 40 parents give or take, the most board meeting participation that the organization has seen in years. To keep this simple and to the point we broke this down in sections to keep the overwhelming email follow up submissions we received organized.
As the rumbles of the parents lowered the meeting was initiated with a statement from the President of the organization “ I first want to say that everything in the email that was sent was a lie, now does anyone have any questions?” One after one parent’s hands were immediately raised. After two hours of proof, witnesses and questions from dedicated parents, President Richard Cowans dismissively admitted the allegations to be in fact true. Once multiple parents confronted the subjects in the email. one parent of the 7 year old 2016 football team witnessed President Richard Cowans bully, scold, and curse their Head Coach in front of children, parents, and by-standers for buying clean fitting uniforms for their children since the organization did not provide them, the parent stated that her child was “traumatized from witnessing the incident” and so was she. President Richard Cowans then placed the blame on the parent for not confronting him on his actions, at this point the 50 square foot meeting space turned into a standing room of parents in disgust.
The parent stated “how could I come to you, you are the head of the organization, what would be my recourse? Several parents mentioned that they would be retaliated against for speaking out like that, and the president would do so by several means such as not allowing their child to play or even removal from the organization without cause. President Richard Cowans attempted to deny the allegations until he could no longer do so due to several witnesses detailed accounts of the incident. One board member was reported to have told the parent of the 7-year old team that in-other words her child was going to experience that verbal abuse anyway in life someday and you can-not protect them from it so…suck it up or if you do not like how we treat you leave.
Other matters that was expressed to be a lie by President Cowans, but turned out to also be true regarding the “Good “standing of the organization, was also denied until several parents pulled out their smart phones to a not-so smart board, and showed that as of that meeting on June 1st 2017 the organization was still “NOT” in good standing for over 2 years putting the organization and youth at various risk and liabilities. One week after the meeting the status was changed. Although the treasure did provide a vague make shift financial report, the treasure and board could not provide substantial documents, or evidence of funding allocations such as receipts for equipment sanitizing, equipment re-certification for safety, or just where the parent’s money was going in general to support the organization. President Richard Cowans and Football Director Gary Kennedy became extremely defensive when parents started to question the financials and where there funding through their paid registrations upwards of $77,000 has been allocated, even to the point of President Richard Cowans clutching his fist in anger as if he wanted to strike someone fellow board member, Director of Football Gary Kennedy was summoned to diffuse President Richard Cowan’s anger.
The board members defended the status of the insurance by stating that not being in “Good Standing” does not affect the insurance for the kids. The standing of the organization dose in fact have a direct impact on the state of the insurance if ever a parent needed to use it for liability and the organization was not in good standing at the time of the incident. The State’s status of your organization has the same effect on your insurance coverage that it would have if your entity name it’s changed. So any incidents reported during the time the organization was not in “Good Standing”, the organizations insurance would not be honored if a claim was filed, as experienced by a parent.
Several parents consistently pointed out the direct-dismissive attuited of the President and some of his board members with regards to the President’s lack of professionalisms, public displays of violent acts in front of kids, lack of confidence, lack of respect and lack ability to lead the organization. During a random outburst President Richard Cowans shouted, publically verbally attacking specific parents, this can be heard an audio recording from the meeting as well “I know that your coach sent you here to disrupt this meeting” shouted President Richard Cowans while pointing at specific parents and clutching his fist. According to our sources this caused a major commotion amongst the parents as the President of the organization has just displayed the same acts of bullying and retaliation as reported on previous occasions in front of the parents. There were several violations to the organization’s by-laws of the organization directly displayed the President of the organization that require for the President to not only step down but also be removed from the organization.
As the meeting continued with parents on a quest for a remedy to save the 43-year organization, President Richard Cowans stated several times during the meeting that he would “step down if that is what’s needed, because it really is all about the kids”. One parent stated, “that is probably what you need to do” Richard Cowans violated all the codes of conduct, as well as caused public hardship to the organization which is a direct cause for removal per the code of conduct in the organization’s By-Laws. In a previous message sent to all the parents of the organization by the President, Richard Cowans stated that his board members were aware of his violations and poor behavior, in fairness, majority of the board members were in shock and in fact did not know about the violations by the President, there are clear integrity and trust issue with President Richard Cowans.
Several matters of President Richard Cowans violent behavior of verbal and physical assault and battery was brought to the boards attention, the next paragraph is from the original whistleblower email.
In the 2016 season during a scheduled game, President Richard Cowan and his 12U football team was engaged is a field-wide brawl-fight that led to the dismissal of his entire team from the Greater Maryland Youth Football League, which ended the teams football season pre-maturely. According the bylaws any member displaying disorderly conduct such as a physical altercation are grounds for dismissal. Based on this conduct and participation of the brawl, President Richard Cowan should have been removed from his position in 2016 as well as his entire football team. This was not made public, and was, as they say “swept under the rug” clearly, not swept clean enough. It seems that President Cowans has a history of violent activity according to his public record. Is this ticking-time-bomb safe for the youth? According to bylaw article 5 Membership States and Article 10 Code of conduct, President Cowans should no longer be affiliated with the organization, see below.
Article 5 Membership states;
Termination of membership of a youth or adult member shall be enacted and enforced by the Board of Directors without a refund. The termination will be enacted when an individual no longer follows the philosophy and principles of the organization and it is deemed by the Board that the individual or family has become detrimental to the growth, reputation, or overall benefit to the athletes, coaches, volunteers, or the organization. individual or family has become detrimental to the growth, reputation, or overall benefit to the athletes, coaches, volunteers, or the organization.
The sources pointed out that President Richard Cownas has a history of violent behavior, according to his criminal record. In 2010 President Richard Cowans was charged with second Degree Assault by the Charles County, Maryland Criminal Courts, and in 2014 charged with Disorderly Conduct by the Green County, Ohio Criminal Courts. This past-present history reveal raised an unanswered question by a parent, “what is President Richard Cowans doing in this leadership position?”
The meeting ended unresolved, President Richard Cowans counited to be dismissive in his approach, taking no responsibility for his direct actions of violence, bullying behavior, and retaliation, in front of children, in addition refusing to be transparent with regards to the monies paid by parents into the organization, this caused much speculation of fraud and or embezzlement. As parents are asking for community support to save the 43 year-old Waldorf Youth Sports Inc. organization publically know as Waldorf Wildcats from leadership ruled by retaliation and bullying behavior starting with the President who encourages the behavior. To put this in prospective, Children who report high levels of exposure to violence (either as witness or victim) report the highest levels of depression, anger and anxiety.
A study with children in grades three to eight who witnessed someone being hit, slapped, or punched found that 12 percent of these children reported levels of anxiety that could require treatment. Exposure to violence could have other long-term impacts as well: children could get desensitized to violence and its effects. Studies have shown how children can get desensitized to violence: that is, children can come to believe that violence is an acceptable way to solve problems and that it is without consequence. They could also come to believe that violence could happen anywhere and to anyone at any time.
Further, such children are also at a risk of perpetrating violence against others.
Our studies have shown that children who witness or are victimized by violence are more aggressive toward others. These children also show problematic levels of post-traumatic stress symptoms.
We have consistently found relationships between violence exposure and trauma symptoms, whether we surveyed children in schools, youth in the community or juveniles who were receiving treatment as a result of diversion from the prison system.
Adolescents exposed to high levels of violence reported higher levels of anger and depression. They also reported higher rates of wanting to hurt or kill themselves compared to adolescents in lower violence exposure groups. — Daniel J. Flannery, Mark I. Singer The Conversation
Parents need to fight the good fight for the qualified leadership to be in place, leaving Richard Cowans in place with his acts of violence and bullying can lead to what you have just read above. If it were child at risk to this exposure, what would you do?
The case of Waldorf Youth Sports Inc has been submitted, and is under review by the Center of Farad Prevention an organization that helps Youth Sports associations fight theft and embezzlement.