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Kelly Cookson was notified last week she will not be rehired as the Brewer High School softball coach for the 2006 season.
Cookson, the 14-year Witches coach, said she met with Brewer Superintendent Daniel Lee, who told her he would not put her name forward when the spring sports coaches are voted on at an upcoming school board meeting.
“I was told that at 3:58 on Wednesday,” she said Sunday evening.
Cookson is the subject of a possible court case involving a former Brewer softball player who claims she was verbally abused by Cookson.
Brewer High teachers were notified of Lee’s decision Friday in an e-mail from principal Brad Fox.
In the e-mail the teachers were told Lee had decided not to renew Cookson’s contract. Teachers were also advised not to discuss the matter with students.
Lee said he had not seen the e-mail Sunday and declined to comment.
“It’s a personnel issue,” he said.
Former Brewer softball player Stacey Gomm, her mother, Beth Seaney, and stepfather, Larry Seaney, are asking for $1 million in damages in a notice of claim dated Thursday, Oct. 20, and mailed to Brewer High School athletic director Dennis Kiah and the Bangor Daily News.
Filing a notice of claim often is the first step taken before filing a lawsuit.
The notice of claim names Cookson as well as members of her coaching staff, the city of Brewer, the school department and members of the school board.
In the document, Gomm claims she was verbally abused, physically threatened and forced to walk barefoot through sheep feces at a team cookout on April 22, 2005.
As of Dec. 5 the lawsuit had not been filed. Gomm, now a junior, left the team last spring.
Cookson declined to comment further Sunday other than to say she thought everything was resolved last spring, when former Superintendent of Schools Betsy Webb was still in her position. Webb took a job in the Bangor School Department in September.
“I was under the impression that Superintendent Webb had taken care of this issue last [school] year,” Cookson said.
Bangor lawyer Paul Chaiken, who has been advising Cookson, also declined to comment.
The next school committee meeting is scheduled for Feb. 6.
Cookson, who began coaching the Witches in 1992, is a three-time Penobscot Valley Conference Class A Coach of the Year. Brewer won the Eastern Maine Class A championship in 2004 and has played in three other regional title games during her tenure.
The Witches had a 14-2 record in the 2005 regular season and gained the No. 1 seed for the playoffs but fell to No. 8 Cony of Augusta 1-0 in the quarterfinals.
Several parents of current and former Brewer softball players, who declined to be identified, said they began circulating petitions in Brewer and outlying towns Orrington and Holden, which send some of their students to Brewer High, to help save Cookson’s job.
The parents said they’ve been meeting as an organized group recently to help Cookson.
“The support for our program for the last 14 years has been absolutely tremendous,” Cookson said. “Former players, parents, the group of parents we had from this past team have been absolutely out of this world.”
Four people, including former player and 2005 Brewer graduate Kate Hanlon, spoke in support of Cookson at a Dec. 5 school board meeting.
Cookson is a Brewer High and UMaine-Presque Isle graduate, where she played softball, basketball and field hockey. She was a 1,000-point scorer in basketball at UMPI, and is a member of the school’s athletic hall of fame.
She was the PVC Class A Coach of the Year in 1995, 1996 and 2001.
Cookson also has served as an assistant varsity basketball coach at Brewer.
She is a former high school softball and American Softball Association umpire.
She has taught physical education at Indian Island School since the early 1990s.
Bangor Daily News reporter Nok-Noi Hauger contributed to this report.
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