Austintown softball coach to keep her position

The Austintown Board of Education has decided not to fire varsity softball coach Melody Rice.

The board voted 3-2 at a special meeting this morning to rescind its consideration of terminating Rice’s supplemental coaching contract.

Rice has been suspended since the board decided unanimously Jan. 10 to consider her termination. She is expected to sign an agreement this afternoon with the school district, and then return to her coaching duties by tonight, when practice begins for catchers and pitchers, said Superintendent Doug Heuer.

Details of the agreement were not immediately available.

Rice was not immediately available for comment.

The dissenting votes were from board president Michael Creatore and member Richard Zimmermann. Both have daughters who were or are involved in the softball program, and had come under fire from the district’s teachers union for voting on the issue.

“I find it sickening you would have a teachers union say we had a vendetta when we don’t,” Creatore said today. He said that school administrators recommended to the board that she be fired after several varsity players’ complaints against her, and he supports those administrators.

For the complete story, please see Wednesday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com.