A Crowd Showed Up At the School Board To Plea for the School District To Reconsider Renewing Park City Baseball Coach’s Contract

Tonight 30 baseball players and 20 parents poured into the School District office to protest the district not renewing the contract of Park City high School Baseball Coach Lou Green.

Seven parents, coaches, and former players got up to speak in defense of Coach Green and to plead for the district to reconsider their stance. These people noted that Coach Green changed their lives, “was an amazing role model”, and grew youth baseball in Park City. Mike Stokes, who was a Park City Baseball coach last year, credits the the coach with changing the program. He said that until Coach Green arrived Park City players were often called “jerks” and acted poorly in many cases. He says that has all changed due to Coach Green.

The school board repeatedly stated that they were not responsible for employee matters. One member of the public said they are being told that the school board is ultimately responsible. The citizen said that supporters of Green want to know who they can talk to get the coach rehired.

In the only official response during the meeting, School Board Superintendent Dr Ember Conley commented that it is an adult matter and she “can’t get into it here.” She said that ultimately Administrative decisions are on her shoulders. She says that personnel decisions are private by law, so she can’t get into details of issues.

After the meeting I got the chance to speak to a few supporters of Coach Green. I asked their opinions on why the Coach Green’s contract was not being renewed. The supporters said that was the problem; they said no one, not even the coach, knew why he was not able to continue coaching at Park City High. One person noted that they were told there was something in Coach Green’s file that prevented the coach from being rehired but that the coach provided his file to parents of players and they saw nothing definitive.

Right now there seem to be a number of questions but a whole bunch of people who wish to see Coach Green back in the dugout. Hopefully the School District and Mr. Green can come to an agreement about what can be shared so the public can understand what has actually happened and decide what actions they should take based on the facts.