Williamsburg coach resigns as police open investigation

One day after police opened an investigation into Williamsburg Boys Basketball Coach Rick Jones, Jones resigned as both a teacher and a coach at the school before coaching a single game.
“I can only confirm there is an active investigation,” Williamsburg Police Detective Wayne Bird said in regards to the Jones investigation.
He declined to discuss the nature of the investigation, but said school officials are cooperating fully with it.
Bird started his investigation on Thursday after being contacted by social services, and would neither confirm nor deny that the investigation deals with a student.
Bird said he won’t know if charges will be filed until after he completes his investigation, and further confers with Commonwealth’s Attorney Allen Trimble, who declined to comment on the investigation Tuesday morning.
Bird said he doesn’t know when he will wrap up the investigation, but that it will probably be weeks or months rather than days before it is completed.
“It is not a case I want to get in a hurry with. It may be a little while before we wrap everything up,” Bird said. “There are a lot of things that have to be done in this case. I don’t think it is anything that is going to be wrapped up in a couple of days.”
Efforts to reach Jones on his cell phone were unsuccessful, and the number is no longer in service.
Williamsburg Superintendent Denny Byrd informed members of the basketball team Monday morning that Jones had resigned as of 5 p.m. Friday.
“The only statement I am going to make in reference to that is this was a personnel decision that had to be made and it was made,” Byrd said.
Byrd wouldn’t comment on the nature of Jones’ resignation, but did say “it was a personnel decision and that’s about all we can say about that.”
Jones, a former Mr. Basketball, who played at Corbin and Scott County High School and Vanderbilt University before ending his playing career at Murray State University, was hired July 1 to take over Williamsburg’s boys’ basketball program.
Marcie Puckett, an open records custodian with the Kentucky Education Professional Standards Board, said Tuesday afternoon that “at the present time no complaints or issues” had been filed with the board in regards to Jones or his teaching certificate.
The standards board is an entity, which certifies teachers and can revoke a teaching certificate or take other action based upon misconduct.
According to its website, the board’s division of legal services opens about 160 cases of educator misconduct annually.
According to statutes, the district has 30 days to issue a report to the state board in regards to a resignation, termination, or non-renewal of a contract regardless of whether disciplinary action was or was not taken, Puckett said.
Jones applied to the Kentucky Education Professionals Standards Board for a health and physical education teaching certificate on Aug. 14, but the board is still waiting to take action on the application.
Puckett said the paperwork for the application is pending, and that it was on the agenda for the board’s September meeting, but that no action was taken on it or any other application because the board still didn’t have a quorum by the end of last month’s meeting.