The principal at Whitewater

Middle School said the coach of the Lady Wildcat basketball program voluntarily

chose to step down from those duties recently, but a newfound relationship

with coaches at Whitewater High School has turned what started out as

a bad situation into something beneficial for the young athletes.

Principal Sandra Kidd said

high school coaches Donna Bailey and Tracy Smith stepped in to lead the

Wildcats this season when the team's former coach resigned following

tryouts last month.

Kidd said the employment status

of the former coach, Jill Collins, remains the same.

"The employee is still

employed here, as a classroom teacher, for which she was hired,"

said Kidd. "She has simply given up her coaching responsibilities."

Melinda Berry-Dreisbach, public

information officer with the district, confirmed that all coaches are

hired as teachers first, and it is up to the individual school principals

to make coaching appointments. Teachers asked to coach various teams are

rewarded with small supplements.

Other than to confirm that

Collins' remained employed by the school system at Whitewater Middle,

Berry-Dreisbach refused to comment, citing employee privacy matters.

Kidd also refused to go into

detail about why Collins is no longer coaching the team, but stated that

the decision to step down was based on a number of concerns.

Kidd refuted rumors that school

board member Greg Powers orchestrated the dismissal because his daughter

failed to make the team. Powers' wife, Bonita, did have a meeting

with Kidd and the coach to express a concern about their daughter but

that was just one factor in the decision, Kidd said.

"Nothing could be further

from the truth," she said of the rumor, circulated widely through

e-mail and referenced in The Citizen's "Free Speech" column

last week.

Kidd said the team parents

seemed to be pleased, as do the girls, now that the gossip has quieted.

Bailey and Smith have already

built anticipation in the seventh- and eighth-graders for Whitewater High,

under construction about a mile away from the middle school on Ga. Highway

85 South.

"The bottom line is, I

see this as a positive change for our girls," Kidd said. "There

are enough challenges for middle schoolers going to high school, but these

girls will already know coaches and what's expected of them when

they get there."

"Am I glad this happened?

Of course not," said Kidd. "But sometimes you have to go through

difficult times to make things better."

Whitewater opened its season

Tuesday against Rising Starr Middle. The team plays Friday at Austin Road

Middle in Henry County.