After learning that a four-camera video system was recording footage of a facility used as a changing area, a group of parents have pulled their kids out of a South Burlington youth football program.

The fallout has pitted supporters of a longtime community football coach against those who say he crossed a line, including former volunteer coaches — one of whom said the situation led to an exodus of coaching staff.

Hayden Dodge is among the parents — of which she estimates there are at least 20 — who are cutting ties with the South Burlington Dolphins youth football program. Dodge, who has enrolled her kids in the program for the past five years, said she is not out to hurt anyone’s reputation, but she finds the presence of cameras in the locker room disturbing. 

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“We simply do not want to play for the Dolphins anymore,” she said. “I understand (if) there are cameras on the outside of the building … that kind of thing. I totally get that. It never occurred to me that there'd be one in the changing area.” 

Acting on a report from a concerned parent last October, South Burlington police spoke with one of the team’s coaches, who said he had noticed the camera system and unplugged it, according to a police report. That led police to pay a visit to the facility, which is owned by the longtime head coach, Rene LaBerge.

The building is partitioned into two rooms: one for players in grades 1-4 and one for players in grades 5-8. The cameras film on both sides of the partition, according to LaBerge.

“Nobody changes down to (nothing),” LaBerge told VTDigger. “Everybody's wearing shorts. It's not like a high school locker room or that kind of stuff.” 

The South Burlington Police Department completed its investigation in May, determining that “nothing nefarious is going on,” said Shawn Burke, the city’s police chief.

During the investigation, LaBerge told police the cameras were installed to prevent equipment theft and protect his investment in the program, Burke said. 

It marked the second time in a decade that South Burlington police looked into a complaint about cameras surveilling a Dolphins’ changing room. A 2012 complaint, also brought by a concerned parent, was closed after police concluded there was no evidence of a crime, according to the police report.

In the recent case, a police detective who conducted an extensive review of DVR footage from the locker rooms found videos of parents going into the facility to help younger players put on their gear, but noted that the older players were “at times” unsupervised while disrobing — in some cases down to their underwear — to put on gear.

The police did not find any instances of children completely disrobing on the tape, Burke said.

“That's not to say that there wasn't an instance (of full disrobing) that was once overwritten,” Burke said. “DVRs only hold so much data before they start to overwrite.” 

LaBerge said there is a bathroom, without cameras, that the children use if they need to get completely undressed. 

Police did not find any footage of LaBerge going in to access the DVR system containing surveillance recordings. There was also no sign that the recordings were tampered with, according to Burke.

“It wasn't like we found any evidence of LaBerge trying to cover up any nefarious activity or anything related to that,” the chief said. 

Still, police said they advised LaBerge to more clearly inform parents of the presence of cameras in the changing area. “Above and beyond the signage that is placed within this garage area, it probably should be explicitly stated in any type of parent handouts or handbooks related to the program,” Burke said. 

“Is it the best practice? Probably not,” Burke said. “In consultation with (the Vermont Department for Children and Families) we don't really feel that there's anything afoot here and the detectives are going to just confer with the state attorney's office to make sure that they affirm our position.” 

Though Dodge said she was unaware of the cameras prior to the investigation, LaBerge said he informs players. He said no parent had ever personally expressed concern to him over his use of cameras in the changing room. 

“There's just some people that are grumbling because of what I did,” LaBerge said. “It's no secret. It's been there forever.” 

The facility designated as a locker room is located on a piece of LaBerge’s property, which sits on the west side of Jaycee Park on Williston Road, where the Dolphins practice. It is essentially a one-and-a-half car garage, used for the players to don their gear, and for equipment storage. 

“They refer to it as a locker room but it's like a garage with storage racks and all the youth football gear is kept in this space,” Burke said. 

LaBerge told VTDigger that there is between $30,000 and $50,000 worth of equipment in the space that he wants to protect, adding that the cameras are also used to ensure the childrens’ safety in case of a fight or break-in. 

“Nobody ever accesses it and (police) can see that and I told them that. If something happens I just give them the camera,” LaBerge said.

“You can't have facilities anymore without cameras,” he said. “The coaches are on the field, which is about 100 yards away, 150 yards away. Something happens in that locker room or kids get in a fight or somebody goes in there, nobody's got a clue what's going on.” 

But in his more than five decades of coaching, LaBerge said he has never had an issue with fights or break-ins involving his locker room facility. 

LaBerge said he believes the added security is also needed due to incidents in the surrounding area, where he said six cars were recently broken into in one weekend. He said his motorhome has been broken into twice and his personal car has been targeted at least three times in the last three months.

Burke, the police chief, said the cameras are “overtly present” with posted signage — though children are often not as cognizant of such notices as parents might be. 

“All these kids are young, right? And they're not thinking about these things,” Burke said. “As a parent myself, of a couple of student-athletes, they don't think up until the time they're 18.”

But like Dodge, Sam Jackson, a former coach, said he was not aware of the presence of cameras and hadn’t noticed the signage. According to Jackson, the entire six-person volunteer coaching staff left the program after last fall’s football season after learning of the cameras in the locker room, deeming the practice inappropriate.

Jackson said the coaches left because they did not want to be involved in an organization that would condone or insist on such a practice. He said LaBerge was resistant to taking any complaints seriously last fall, insisting he didn’t have to do anything with the cameras, even though they were on his private property.

LaBerge, however, tells a different version of events, saying he let the coaches go because he didn’t like their coaching methods. 

LaBerge, who was a finalist for USA Today’s Best of Humankind Awards last fall, said those who claimed to be upset were “disgruntled” and out to ruin his reputation. 

Jackson and Dodge both denied this was the case.

LaBerge still has support in the community, where he has coached youth football for generations.

Stacey Savage’s husband was a coach for about two decades and she was a “team mom” for a majority of that time. During those years, she said, the cameras had never been an issue, and she believes those who are complaining now are “grasping at straws.” 

“It's been blown out of proportion,” Savage said, adding that the situation was “heartbreaking.”

“Rene is a great guy. He has given his life to this football team. He has never once shown any bad character or anything along those lines. He's been nothing but respectful to me, my family, my son, my daughter. It's sad to see somebody trying to destroy something just out of spite.”

LaBerge said it broke his heart to have people questioning his ethics and character.

“I put 55 years of my life into this,” LaBerge said. “If there was something that really hurt the kids, nothing like that would ever happen around me. I’ve raised about —  I don’t know how many — some of them actually lived in my house over the years, because they didn’t have any place to go or needed some extra love.” 

For her part, Dodge said she would never have allowed her child to change in the presence of a recording camera had she known it was there. While Dodge recognizes it’s doubtful the children get completely undressed there, she still feels the presence of cameras in the changing area is inappropriate and too close to “pornographic.” 

“At the end of the day, they are changing for football,” she said. ”There was not something that I signed that said, ‘Hey, we're gonna have pictures of your kid in his underwear.’” 

Dodge would like for the tape to be deleted. LaBerge said he never watches the tape and doesn’t plan to do anything to tamper with it now, but said the footage will be overwritten with time.

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Ella is a student at the University of Vermont, where she is majoring in environmental studies and was recently elected editor in chief of the Vermont Cynic, the school’s independent student newspaper. She previously was a reporter and news editor at the Cynic and interned last summer at the Burlington Free Press.

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