Remember that ‘Twerk Tour’ at Miami Beach High? Don’t blame the basketball coach

All Jacob Shaw wanted was to send his Hi-Tides to a basketball tournament in Las Vegas.

Shaw has coached boys basketball at Miami Beach Senior High for eight years. A friend of a friend, celebrity twerker Nastya Nass, was stopping in Miami for her “Twerk Tour.” She needed a venue, and Shaw had keys to the school gym. Shaw would get $4,300 for his team.

The twerking video went viral — and so did the consequences.

Now the 39-year-old coach says his principal and activities director both knew about the arrangement, but he questions why he was the only one punished.

According to Shaw and and text messages he showed to the Miami Herald, Shaw not only got approval from both Principal Maria Rodriguez and Activities Director Maylee Ann Costa, but the messages also show they wanted and received a cut of the cash, too.

“We’re good for AC request :)” Costa, who goes by Ms. Mac, texted Shaw. “I expect my cut lol.”

Shaw and Costa arranged for the air conditioning to be on and for the alarms to be turned off on the weekend of Feb. 22-23. A school janitor was assigned to clean up after the 300 women who came to learn to twerk from one of the best in the game. The janitor was paid with proceeds from the event, according to Shaw.

Yet Miami-Dade County Public Schools only blamed Shaw for holding an “unauthorized event” on campus. Rodriguez and Costa were quietly put under investigation for the same event, but while Shaw was reassigned away from campus, Rodriguez and Costa stayed at Beach High. Shaw says Assistant Principal Julio Echemendia also knew about the arrangements.

“They’re at the school working, and I’m here,” Shaw said, referring to his reassignment to the region office. “I don’t like to bring the race card out, but it’s three Spanish people, protecting this one Spanish lady, and I’m the butt of the joke.”

The school district declined to answer questions, citing the ongoing investigations. None of the employees Shaw named responded to requests for comment, except for Rodriguez, who referred a reporter to the school district.

“When an allegation is brought forth, several factors are taken into consideration, which may, at times, result in the removal of an individual from a worksite,” spokeswoman Daisy Gonzalez-Diego said in a statement. “Each investigation is unique. Throughout the course of the investigation, employees maintain their salary and benefits.”

Principal asked for $1,500, coach says

Shaw said he didn’t know if any official paperwork had been filled out to rent out the facility according to school district procedures, which school principals are aware of and responsible for, but he thought he got all the approval he needed. Nass actually visited the campus during the school day ahead of the event and some students recognized her, Shaw said.

Rodriguez not only said yes, she wanted a cut of $1,500, Shaw said. And, ahead of the Twerk Tour event, Shaw had a three-way phone conversation with Rodriguez and MyTypoLife, the video producer who filmed the event and produced the video that became viral.

According to Typo, who declined to give his name, Shaw called him for the three-way call with Rodriguez. Typo said Rodriguez asked who was teaching the classes. They went over why they needed the space and that he would be filming the classes. Rodriguez’s only rule, according to Shaw and Typo, was to make sure the school’s name or logo didn’t appear in the video.

“It really wasn’t like a conversation like it seemed like it was going to be a problem, otherwise we wouldn’t have done it for two days in a row,” Typo told the Herald in a phone interview. He also confirmed Nass visited the campus during the day, and students recognized her. “She [Rodriguez] knew who the person was. It was mind blowing to see someone blatantly lie like that.”

“I remember talking to her and having conversations about everything and having security, keeping everything clean,” he said. “And we came to the school to check out the location. It wasn’t a surprise pop-up little secret.”

300 women paid $50 each

Nass charged $50 per person. There was security to escort the attendees. Typo and Shaw both made announcements that only adults 18 years and older were allowed at the event.

Typo, who has 176,000 Instagram followers and works closely with Nass, said Nass could not be reached because she was in a remote part of her native Ukraine.

That following Monday, Rodriguez called Typo screaming. She had seen a TikTok video posted by one of the attendees, and the school’s logo and name were seen in the video. Typo’s video wasn’t posted yet.

“It was like Monday afternoon, and she’s like mad, ‘I thought you guys were going to be working out,’ ” Typo recalled Rodriguez saying. “How would you think it was working out if I talked to you and told you who she was and what we’re doing? If you look her up there’s no way you couldn’t see what we were doing.

“If she wants to pretend and say she didn’t know what was going on she should’ve never approved it.”

Typo said he thought the event was controlled and instilled self-esteem. There were all types of people twerking, including men and women of all shapes and sizes, not just professionals.

“It’s all cool and stuff for women and women empowerment until they see someone twerking and they get afraid, and I don’t even know why,” he said. “I thought it was so cool that a school would let us use a gym that’s a safe and good environment for all of that.”

Shaw arrived at the school that day to dole out the cash: $1,500 for Rodriguez, $400 for Costa and $500 for school janitor Jorge Exposito for his two days of work.

Reached by phone, Exposito said, “This is not my problem. This is not something I had anything to do with. Right now, everybody is giving their own version. But the truth still has to be open. Here, nobody’s helping me. I’m going to remain neutral. I’m trying to maintain a neutral position.”

Shaw took a photo of the cash in the envelope. He had a hunch, he said.

The next day, Rodriguez called Shaw into her office. She handed him his notice and told him he was under investigation but reassured him. She also wanted his keys to the gym.

“But it’s nothing, don’t worry about it,” Shaw said Rodriguez told him. “You just can’t talk to anybody.”

On Wednesday, Shaw says Rodriguez told him he couldn’t be on campus. He was to report to the region office. Again, she reassured him, he said.

Shaw said Region Superintendent Jose Bueno reassured him, too.

“He sat me in the room and he says, ‘Don’t talk about this investigation. Listen, let me tell you. Wait for your [United Teachers of Dade] agent. Don’t talk to nobody about this,’ ” Shaw said.

Later that day, the Herald story about the Twerk Tour at Beach High went viral. Shaw’s phone blew up with calls and texts from friends, family and former players.

Other allegations

Shaw is also under investigation for making an inappropriate comment to a player during tryouts. He was recently put under another investigation for allegedly grooming students for sexual relationships, based on an accusation made on Twitter.

The Herald reached out to that accuser. The tweeter, Cesar Arevalo, who attended Beach High from 2014 to 2016 said Shaw groomed girls and had sex with them after they graduated. Shaw vehemently denies the accusation.

“I kept getting investigations open and investigations,” Shaw said. “Anybody can make up a Twitter account and say something? And now I’m getting written up any time? They didn’t even call me to ask me anything about the situation.”

Christopher Dreeson is a veteran language arts teacher at Beach High. He’s been the announcer at the boys basketball games and has known Shaw for five or six years.

“I’ve observed practices. I’ve taught many of his kids,” Dreeson said. “Coach Shaw might be one of the only coaches at Miami Beach High who was very serious about checking on students’ grades... to the point where if any of his players get a Z or zero in a class, his players get very nervous.”

Dreeson continued. “He imposes pretty stiff penalties for his players who are lacking academically. He’s fairly well known in basketball circles for getting kids to play in college.”

During the school day, Shaw works with students with disabilities.

Asked about the accusations against Shaw, Dreeson said he hadn’t even heard rumors about that. He said Shaw is well respected by school faculty and emphasizes family values with his players.

“First I’ve heard of it. I haven’t heard any of that,” Dreeson said. “I’ve been there for so many years. I am privy to a lot of alumni and a lot of kids who do graduate. That’s really the first time I’ve ever ... I’ve never even heard any kind of innuendo about that.”

What’s wrong with twerking?

Dreeson said he remembers Rodriguez saying at a faculty meeting that she was unaware of the Twerk Tour before the event and that the matter was under investigation, “but she really couldn’t say too much about it,” he said.

Dreeson said Shaw showed him the text messages with Costa.

“It was then when I kind of realized, at least from my perspective, Coach Shaw was being thrown under the bus,” he said. “It was pretty obvious that at least our activities director, at least that for sure, gave clearance for the event.”

Dreeson said he thinks there might have been some miscommunication or top-down pressure from the school district. He recalls Shaw’s swift removal from campus.

“For someone to be investigated for that when I kind of know for sure that Coach Shaw did seek out prior permission to do that...it just seemed a little ludicrous that it was such a knee-jerk reaction by the district,” he said. “The principal has a big heart, good understanding and [is] a pretty good communicator. I think maybe there was some district pressure to call this a bad event.”

Dreeson said he didn’t understand the outrage about the Twerk Tour.

“The teachers, at least the cadre of teachers we know, we’re kind of laughing about it because this is a twerking thing and we’re getting all upset over a thing that happened in the gym,” Dreeson said. “When we have pep rallies, in front of the entire school, we have girls doing this on our dance team. It’s not like it’s something that’s lewd or vulgar. It’s something we’ve shown students and encourage students to do themselves. Somehow it’s viewed negatively when it’s done not in front of students [but] with women who are there to learn how to do it.”

Shaw just wants to clear his name.

“You guys can have this job,” Shaw said. “You’re not going to destroy my name.”

This story was originally published June 26, 2020 at 11:10 AM.