UPDATE: Franklin High School coach faces losing job amid unspecified allegations

Officially, the name of the high school coach who’s job is on the line is not known at Tuesday night’s El Paso Independent School District board meeting.

A district spokeswoman wouldn’t even say what kind of allegations the coach is facing, let alone confirm her name.

But all you had to do was look at the crowd at the meeting to know who they were talking about.

“We support Coach (Lauren) O’Neill,” was written in bold print on tangerine shirts worn by dozens of parents, teachers, and friends.

They all showed up at the meeting to beg the board to reinstate O’Neill.

The Franklin High School girls basketball coach was reassigned this winter amid a district investigation and the board was to discuss on Tuesday night the possibility of firing her.

EPISD’s spokeswoman said the district does not discuss personnel issues but O’Neill’s supporters seemed just as hesitant to talk about the allegations against O’Neill.

“I know that there’s a lot of rumors going around… bullying against one of the students and I guess coach was trying to protect her,” said Monica Lopez. “There were others allegations about another student. I’m really not sure, I haven’t spoken with her directly. I don’t want to have another rumor going around so I’d rather not say cause I really don’t know the extent.”

“It was a rumor taken too far from a player that had issues with coach O’Neill and it was a personal vendetta against coach O’Neill is all it came down to,” Nancy Serwatka said.

In a closed door meeting, the EPISD board of managers voted to remove girls basketball coach Lauren O’Neill from her position at Franklin High School and reassign her within the district.