Keith McSweeney will step down as Solon AD

SOLON - Keith McSweeney will vacate the athletic-director position at Solon High School at the conclusion of the school year, he revealed Wednesday.

In an email to The Gazette and others, Sweeney said the Solon Community School District 'has elected to expand the contract of the activities director from half-time to full-time beginning in the 2016-2017 school year.

'As a full-time administrator, I would not be permitted to continue coaching, or have any classroom/teaching responsibilities, and this has given me pause,” he added. 'Recently, I've been reminding myself of the reason I decided to become an educator in the first place - to foster relationships with students and help them have a tremendous educational experience. And although my role as activities director would provide me with some of this, at this time, I'm not prepared to abandon the positive daily interaction that only being a teacher and coach can provide.”

'Therefore, I wanted to share with you my plan for next year to continue teaching and coaching at Solon High School, only now, with a much narrower focus and in a full-time role.”

McSweeney is the varsity baseball coach.

'I'm looking forward to assisting the district in making the transition for the new AD as easy as possible,” McSweeney said.

l Comments: (319) 368-8857; jeff.linder@thegazette.com