The more information that comes out about college softball coaches Angie Nicholson and her husband, Rick Nicholson, the more surprising it is that they have been employed this many times for this long. How did they even get a job at UMBC in the first place?
It sounds like the duo was pretty good at covering their tracks along the way…
The Nicholsons are unlikely to get another opportunity coaching college softball after the latest accounts of their alleged behavior. I am curious to see whether they try to get litigious or if they accept their fate.
Rick and Angie Nicholson were cut loose by UMBC.
News of their ouster first broke on March 23. However, the University of Baltimore, Maryland County did not announce the separation for more than seven days. It became official on March 31.
Head coach Angie Nicholson and assistant coach Rick Nicholson coached only 18 games with the Retrievers. The former was hired back in August. She immediately brought her husband on staff with her. That proved to be a bad decision.
According to Edward Lee of the Baltimore Sun, Rick brushed the chest of two different college softball players while attempting to swat away insects. He later threatened to cut one of the players when she objected to the inappropriate contact. An observer also overheard the threat and reported it.
That was the final nail in the coffin for his and his wife’s employment. UMBC fired the Nicholsons after an investigation. They went 10-8 during their brief tenure with the program.
UMBC decided to cancel its remaining games after a team vote because “it became clear that it would not have the level of participation necessary to be able to safely complete the remainder of the 2026 season.” That puts all of the athletes who are on the roster in a sticky spot.
They may or may not get another year of eligibility. The seniors might not get to finish out their careers. We’ll see what the NCAA decides in the coming months.
Allegations of abuse continue to surface.
Unfortunately, it sounds like this kind of inappropriate behavior has been a recurring issue with the Nicholsons. Two former college softball athletes who played for Angie and Rick Nicholson at Georgia State revealed a concerning history of abuse after they were fired at UMBC.
They are not the only ones!
Maren Angus-Coombs of Softball on SI recently spoke with Kylie Bennett and Michelle Rogers about their time at Eastern Illinois University, as well as a few of their teammates. She also spoke with multiple former players at Hampton. Angie Nicholson was the head coach at Hampton from 2017-21 and Georgia State from 2022-24. That was before a one-year tenure at Norfolk State and 18 games at UMBC.
Bennett felt like she was “mentally abused.”
“It was just a lot of mind games. [Coach Nicholson] had my teammates watch what I was eating because she was telling me that I had an eating disorder. It was because I was an athlete, and I didn’t want to eat their fast food that they would bring us on road trips. I didn’t have any interest in going to Wendy’s. So I would order a salad, and I would bring apples with me on the trip.”
Nicholson and her assistant coach, Stephanie Taylor, also made a lot of jokes that were sexual in nature. They brought dildos on the team bus to “do inappropriate things that they thought were funny.”
Bennett and her teammates did not think it was funny. They brought their complaints to the administration, which led to increased surveillance during practice.
The college softball coaches tried not to get fired more than once.
Rick Nicholson did not appreciate how things were handled behind his back. Especially when the parents would meet up before games. They jokingly referred to the tailgates as “board meetings.”
“[Rick] started yelling, ‘You’re trying to get my wife fired,'” a former EIU parent told Softball on SI. “And a parent said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He says, ‘You’re having these meetings to get my wife fired.’ The parent said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ And he says, ‘We’re going to go to the parking lot, and we’re going to settle this. You and I.'”
Rogers, a freshman at the time, claims Angie told her not to speak up.
“They said they knew people were trying to get them fired, and word for word, Angie looked at me and said, ‘If you f– us, we f– you.’”
According to Maren Angus-Coombs and Softball on SI, a similar situation also happened at Hampton. This was not a one-off occurrence.
Needless to say, if the allegations are true, neither Rick nor Angie Nicholson need to be employed as a college softball coach in the future. This ouster at UMBC is likely the end of their coaching careers. It will be interesting to see how they move forward. Will they fight the allegations or accept their fate?