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Grimsley fired embattled head baseball coach Alan Ashkinazy on Tuesday, ending a four-year tenure marred by what he called the complaints of a vocal minority of parents.

“Believe me, it’s a load off my mind,” said Ashkinazy, who said he has “been accused of everything the last four years.”

Ashkinazy, who went 68-34 with the Whirlies, said he met Tuesday afternoon with principal Anna Brady, who framed the decision as “all on her.” Brady and athletics director Lewis Newman didn’t return telephone calls Wednesday.

One of the chief complaints Ashkinazy said he heard from parents was that he didn’t distribute playing time fairly. He says his only rule was to put the best players on the field. After Grimsley started last season 4-4, Ashkinazy bumped several older players from the lineup in favor of underclassmen. The Whirlies went 14-3 the rest of the way.

The other common complaint was that Ashkinazy recruited kids from other schools, a charge he vehemently denies. Ashkinazy said that rumor was fueled by his ownership of the Greensboro Batting Center on High Point Road, where he instructs many of the area’s best players. Several kids did move to the Grimsley district in hopes of playing there, he said, but how was he to stop them?

“If I was recruiting, someone would have found out,” Ashkinazy said. “You can’t hide that.”

The firing wasn’t a surprise — there had been rumors since the season ended that the school wanted to go another direction. Ashkinazy said he probably wouldn’t have returned “even if they said they wanted me back.”

The timing is curious, though. Ashkinazy said he had his standard end-of-season evaluation with Newman and then-principal Kevin Fleming in early June, and he was told the school would make a decision within four days on whether to bring him back.

Fleming announced the next day he was leaving for the Middle College at GTCC, and Ashkinazy said he didn’t hear anything else from the school for a month. Brady told him a decision was forthcoming shortly after she took over in early July. Ashkinazy said that was the last he heard from the school until Friday, when Brady left a voicemail asking him to meet.

“I thought that was classy of her,” he said. “She was put in a tough situation.”

By waiting this long, though, the Whirlies missed out on entering their teams in the fall Colt, Palomino and HiToms leagues, which all started up in the past few weeks.

“I wasn’t going to do the work for another coach,” he said. “By (the school) waiting, it ended up hurting the kids.”

Ashkinazy said it cost him money to coach at Grimsley, considering how much he could have earned giving instruction with that time. He said he “only coached because I loved it,” and that he would consider coaching elsewhere under the right circumstances. In the meantime, he’s content to tend his business and spend more time with his wife and two young daughters.

He made no apologies for his coaching methods.

“I really think that most people today would rather be on a team that’s 5-20 and play than be on a state champion and be a role player,” Ashkinazy said. “And that’s sad to me, that people have become so selfish.”

Contact Tom Keller at 373-7034 or tom.keller@news-record.com