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Chicago Tribune
13-05-2025
- Sport
- Chicago Tribune
Richards out as Portage High School head football coach
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.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
The other tornadoes that hit Southwest Michigan on May 7, 2024
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Outside of the devastation brought to the Portage area by an EF2 tornado on May 7, 2024, three additional tornadoes spun up farther south. The first tornado of the evening touched down at 5:11 pm just north of the Dowagiac Municipal Airport, moving northeast and uprooting several trees and causing damage to homes along its path. Courtesy NWS Northern Indiana. The historic nature of the May 7, 2024, tornado outbreak A power pole was snapped and a few center pivots were flipped in a field next to the Amtrak railroad near the intersection of Gage Street and Atwood Road. The tornado reached its maximum width near Twin Lakes, where hundreds of trees snapped. The tornado dissipated as it reached the Cass-Van Buren county line. Another tornado nearly matched the strength of the Portage tornado: An EF2 touched down in St. Joseph County at 5:41 p.m. on the south side of Centreville tracing northeast past Colon into Branch county near Goodrich Lake. The greatest damage related to this tornado occurred north of Colon to north of Sherwood. Roof lifted off home on Goodrich Lake Road. (NWS Northern Indiana) Roof damage near Dane Lake. (NWS Northern Indiana) Homes within the path lost their roof and walls as estimated winds peaked at 130 mph. This was a multivortex tornado as it reached its maximum intensity. A brief, weaker tornado spun off from the EF2 tornado as it slid past Sherwood. This EF1 tornado with winds up to 95 mph touched down along W. Girard Road between Babcock and Arbogast roads, destroying a machine shed and ripping out some of the anchor posts. This tornado was only on the ground for a couple minutes with a path length just over 1 mile. Weathering West Michigan: Portage Pride Following the outbreak of severe weather in May, Southwest Michigan did not see another tornado touchdown until August. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
The historic nature of the May 7, 2024, tornado outbreak
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The tornadoes that struck Southwest Michigan on May 7, 2024, and the warnings that preceded them were historic. A total of 17 tornado warnings and upgrades were issued by the National Weather Service offices of Grand Rapids and Northern Indiana that Tuesday evening. Some communities, including those in Calhoun and central Kalamazoo counties, were placed under more than one warning with less than two hours of separation between them. In all, the 17 warnings and upgrades encompassed a cumulative 1.359 million people that evening. UPGRADED TORNADO WARNINGS The two EF2 tornadoes that struck Portage and Sherwood were given special tornado warning upgrades. The NWS upgraded Kalamazoo County to a 'particularly dangerous situation' tornado warning as the Portage tornado was confirmed to be 'large and extremely dangerous' shortly before 6 p.m. Less than 30 minutes later, a confirmed separate 'large and destructive' tornado prompted Michigan's first ever tornado emergency for northern Branch County. The NWS uses tiered warnings that are effective when urgent and lifesaving messaging is needed amid a large, ongoing tornado. A particularly dangerous situation tornado warning is issued when a large and strong tornado is confirmed using either eyewitness reports or radar signatures. A tornado emergency is reserved for the most dangerous of tornadic situations, when a confirmed large tornado is moving toward a population center. Upgraded tornado warnings are exceedingly rare in Michigan and throughout the United States. Of the more than 61,000 tornado warnings that have been issued in the U.S. since 2005, just 2.24% have been declared particularly dangerous situations and only 0.49% have been designated as a tornado emergency. The other tornadoes that hit Southwest Michigan on May 7, 2024 The tornado emergency for Union City remains the only issuance in the state of Michigan. Only 15 particularly dangerous situation warnings have been issued in the state since 2005, five of which came on May 7. COUNTING THE TWISTERS Four tornadoes ultimately touched down from three separate storms: the Portage EF2, the Union City/Sherwood EF2, an EF1 through northern Cass County and an EF1 in Branch County. Three of the four were on the ground for more than 20 minutes. Weathering West Michigan: Portage Pride Of the 270 tornadoes that have touched down in Michigan since 2005, only 29 of them were of EF2 or EF3 strength. That equates to roughly 11% of all twisters. While the tornadoes of May 7, 2024, were destructive, Michigan has not been hit by a tornado of EF4 or EF5 strength since 1977. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to
