OREGON/IDAHO
Willamette Week
November 19th, 2014 BETH SLOVIC
Seventeen years ago, David Douglas High School fired its varsity girls’ softball coach after a 16-year-old player accused him of sexually assaulting her during a trip to a summer tournament in Idaho.
The coach, Patrick Jay Wallace, then 37, declined to answer questions from school officials about the incident. David Douglas’ principal oversaw the investigation, and the district fired Wallace after concluding his behavior constituted “poor judgment” and created “an opportunity for inappropriate behavior and the appearance of impropriety.”
The reason for Wallace’s firing, while rumored at the school, was never made public. A municipal prosecutor in Post Falls, Idaho, charged Wallace with battery, a misdemeanor, but later dropped the charge.
Today, Wallace is on the coaching staff of the Central Catholic High School football team, ranked No. 1 in the state.
And the man who runs Central Catholic, President John Harrington, was the David Douglas principal whose investigation of Wallace in 1997 led to the coach’s firing.
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