Head Coach Speaks Out After Losing Job From Series of Lies

I might also need to mention that after my case was dismissed in August of 2021, I had the matter expunged, which means legally, this situation does not exist. I have communicated with the leadership of the paper and even more recently, their attorney, I have supplied them with updated police reports where the only “witness” a young child, told police that the entire allegation was made up, but this article has expressly been named by people who have recently decided my fate.

The continued presence of this article has cost me AT LEAST 3 Head Coaching jobs and I’m now seeing it cost me other opportunities in sports and/or education. This article remains in the way despite approximately 70 education professionals, that I am aware of penning a letter to the paper, to have them re-examine some things.

What has been an interesting development while I have desperately searched for every avenue to advance my life, was the Johnny Depp case. Admittedly, I couldn’t watch much of the coverage and many of the awful things that were done or said to him sounded exactly like what I went through. I was happy to see that he won, it was very inspiring, and it has inspired me to at least think of following a similar course of action.

Granted, I don’t think there is any scenario where tens of millions of dollars will be given to me, but I think a lot of safeguards along the way were not enacted and many people failed me, but more than that, this directly effects my ability to provide for my 13-year-old daughter Lillyan.

As I am writing this, this event took place 376 days ago and many people, start to give me the look of “get over it” when I talk openly about my situation. I don’t know if there’s ever any forgetting what happened: locked in jail, your life upturned, scrambling to meet even the most basic needs, and forced to try and restart your life with an immovable albatross that precedes you.

I have beaten long odds before and I remain confident that I’ll do so again. Many people who were in a position to be helpful, just plain haven’t been and they stop just short of blaming me with their apathy.

I hope this isn’t the end of my coaching career as a Head Coach, I hope that I’ll be able to continue in my lifelong passion of being involved in interscholastic sports. If you have ever watched my teams play, you’d walk away thinking that we are quirky or unconventional, but I have always tried to live and coach football the same way, trying to find any avenue to being successful and continuing to operate within that avenue. The players that I coached, I hope, would echo that sentiment and I think I was always very relatable because we always were honest with one another.

Lastly, I would be remised if I didn’t at least mention this, the people that have surrounded my daughter and me throughout this crazy ordeal have been amazing! Some colleagues (namely Conneaut’s Head Coach Rocco Dobran, Lakeside’s Buzz Edwards, and Grand Valley’s Clint Nims), co-workers, but the most of which are the students that I have had an entire school year to work with.

I can clearly recall instances of young people, who aren’t always perceived as caring or empathetic, stopping to check on me early on or just spending a few minutes with a teacher that they enjoy talking to, and every appearance or chance to talk that I have made, I thank them.

They helped lift me through an absolute dark time with the resiliency that only young people can have. I mentioned Coach Klinefelter earlier, and I heard him talk about this exact topic hundreds of times in my life, and now after living through what has just went on, I understand it, and as always, he’s right!

I thank you for your time in reading this and I hope that some of the points included can be helpful to someone. I’ve often joked that you can either be an example or a cautionary tale, but I hope that I can be a little bit of both for someone who may be experiencing something similar.