Grady on coaching search

Grady High School has only five sports — boys basketball, girls basketball, volleyball, baseball and boys and girls track.

The school is in the process of finding new head coaches in all of them for the 2012-13 school year.

Alicia Rush, Grady's third-year athletic director, is expecting her fourth child later this year and has decided to give up girls basketball and track, although she plans to continue to teach and remain in the AD position.

Rush has coached girls basketball for 14 seasons and track for 12 at Grady, and also had a three-year stint as the Lady Bronchos' volleyball coach.

"I want to spend more time with my family," Rush said. "I just wanted to do something else."

Volleyball coach Robin Jones is stepping down after one season.

"It just didn't work out for her with the coaching," Rush said.

Meantime, the latest openings came late this week when baseball and boys basketball coach Jim Kneipp told the school that he will retire after eight years at Grady. Kneipp and his wife are planning to move to the Dallas area, Rush said.

"We just found out about Jim on Thursday," Rush said.

Ted Trice, Grady's superintendent, said the school is waiting to see about applications on all positions.

"We want to get it done before school is out, maybe around May 1," Trice said.

Matching coaching and teaching positions is often challenging, and Trice said it's especially so at a small school like Grady.

"I don't have a lot of flexibility to move people around," he said. "It's just like putting a puzzle together."

While Trice hopes the school can fill the coaching positions satisfactorily, he emphasized that it shouldn't in any way be at the expense of academics.

"Athletics are important," he said. "I like athletics, but I think our first obligation is to academics."