To the Editor,

I first met Rich Cascella when he coached my son’s youth soccer team. Ahead in their final game of a winless season, Coach Cascella let my son remain as goalie even though he obviously wasn’t up to the task of stopping the opposing team from scoring. The coach could have easily substituted a better player and thereby probably secured the team’s only win, but he didn’t do so. Instead, he practiced what he’d been preaching all season long: that playing sports (and, by extension, life in general) wasn’t about winning and losing, it was about creating an inclusive community, sharing opportunities equally, building moral character — all while having fun, of course.

I was impressed enough by this to vote for Mr. Cascella in 2016 and 2018 when he was running for office in Ward One (notably, the first time I’ve voted GOP since 1968).  So it came as something of a shock when I read in Adam Zangari’s piece “Cascella hopes to bring new vision to Ward 3” (Beacon, Aug. 29) that “Cascella plans to walk the ward for at least two hours each day” to garner support from “enthusiastic Republicans,” both for himself and for Donald Trump, that “can put him over the top.”

I wish Mr. Cascella were running again in Ward One so I could ask how he could actively stump for Mr. Trump, a self-absorbed individual whose words and deeds consistently belie the very character-building values that Coach Cascella was so intent on teaching my son and his teammates on that soccer field?

Peter Carney

Warwick