Roy Richards is out as head football coach at Portage High School.
He had been suspended with pay pending a personnel review.
“We recognize and appreciate the contributions Coach Richards has made to the program, and we wish him well in his future opportunities,” the Portage High School Athletic Department said in a statement Monday night.
Tony Klimczak will remain as interim head coach during the transition, and off-season workouts will continue, the athletic department announced.
“Our priority moving forward is to mentor our students, motivate our students to be successful both on the field and in the classroom, support the overall health and safety of our student athletes, and instill a sense of Portage Pride in Portage football and all of our athletic programs,” the statement said. “We remain committed to the continued growth and development of our football program and will take the necessary steps to provide both stability and support for our student athletes moving forward.”
Four people spoke about the issue at Monday night’s Portage Township School Board meeting.
“If he’s gone, the team won’t be the same,” football player Anton Mathis said.
“We feel like it’s a mistake” to suspend coach, he said. “He has been a big impact in our lives.”
Nicole Rains, who has a son on the team said, “They have learned a lot. They have grown.”
“This coach is very respectful. He teaches these kids academics. He teaches these kids how to be respectful,” she said. “He promotes being a human over how to be a good player.”
“The coach has done nothing wrong but encourage these kids,” Rains said. “Coach has never done anything wrong to these boys, and the ones who are crying about it are probably the ones who never had any morals.”
The other two people who spoke had differing views.
“He’s very divisive,” Jean Gholson-Warmick said. She told the board she has text messages to back up her opinion.
“He put on a big front at the team meetings,” but belittles dual-sport athletes, she said. “You have to have an adult in the room.”
When football players took a water break at the same time as wrestlers, Richards belittled the football players for interacting with the wrestlers, Gholson-Warmick said.
“It wasn’t just one infraction; it was a month,” she said.
Another parent, Fred Joseph, commended the administration for taking action against the coach.
“I personally, with my son, had a very negative experience,” Joseph said.
As a coach, “you are charged with the health and safety of our athletes first and foremost,” he said. Coaches are trained on issues like concussions and other issues to protect students’ health and safety.
Joseph’s son, a freshman, was on the junior varsity team, playing two games a week, a total of eight quarters. But national rules say an athlete can play a maximum of five quarters a week, Joseph said. “Those are rules put in place foR the health and safety of our athletes.”
“Fundamentally, it comes down to the health and safety of our kids. He had complete disregard for that,” Joseph said.
“We’re not going to be debating issues with you,” School Board President Andy Maletta said before inviting public comments.
“It will not be a Q&A,” board attorney Ken Elwood said, because the administration and board are forbidden by state law to comment on personnel matters.
No details of Richards’ case were released.
Richards had been with Portage High School two years, with a winless 2023 season and a 4-6 record last year. Prior to that, he was an assistant coach at Michigan City High School.
In 2015, he left Morton High School in Hammond after 16 seasons, amassing a record of 118-66 before resigning as football coach and athletic director. He had been under paid suspension but was cleared of charges against him by the Indiana Department of Child Services, the Post-Tribune reported at the time.
According to Post-Tribune archives, Richards said at the time that the school placed him on paid suspension to investigate a complaint about inappropriate behavior with a female student.
Morton called in Indiana Child Protective Services to investigate the complaint immediately after it learned of the incident. Richards said then that the girl’s boyfriend confronted him about touching his girlfriend in his office.
A security camera in Richards’ office captured the incident. The girl, Richards said then, had asked him who the 10 cutest football players were. Richards put his arm around the girl briefly and started pointing to the pictures of the players he had on the wall.
In the CPS report, the girl said she was “uncomfortable,” according to Richards.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
