San Diego School District Lied — Serra High School Website Still Lists Con Man James Pantera As Swim Coach

According to a San Diego Unified School District spokesman, con man James Pantera is not the head swimming coach at Serra High School. He merely was projected to be the assistant coach after “his application [is] reviewed for eligibility for employment with our district.”

Bullfeathers.

The Serra athletics website lists Pantera as the one and only swim coach. See http://serra.sandi.net/athletics/springtryout.html. In the event the district took down that page in the moments while I was preparing this post, you can view a facsimile of the page at http://muchnick.net/serrasportslisting.pdf.

Pantera is Charles Baechler redux. Baechler is the disbarred Washington State judge with a guilty plea in a sex offense, who moved on to become a USA Swimming coach and top state official in South Dakota. Last year he landed as the coach of a club in Colorado that could practically be seen from “safe sport director” Susan Woessner’s office window. When Woessner was confronted, she said no worries, Baechler was just a provisional coach trying out for a permanent appointment. (In fact, Baechler had already been introduced to the Woodmoor Waves parents.) Woessner even ruled by fiat that the complaint submitted to her was not worthy of an investigation of the club.

See:

Background Checks? Washington State Judge, Convicted of Assaulting Woman Who Had Appeared in His Court, Went on to Become USA Swimming Coach and Official in South Dakota

I have reintroduced myself to San Diego school district superintendent Bill Kowba and Serra High principal Mike Jimenez, and demanded a better explanation of the Pantera mess.

Irv Muchnick
tips@muchnick.net