The Dorothea Epps saga — parental accusations, followed by an investigation and findings of innocence — has come and gone.

Or has it?

Fall-out from the what turned out to be needless drama involving the Butler High School girls basketball coach has yet to be felt.

Hopefully, lessons have been learned and the role of a high school athletic coach can be more respected and appreciated.

Butler has a young girls basketball team coming back next season. Some of that youth earned appreciable playing time last season and could have used spring league time to further develop their talents.

Because an investigation was going on, Epps was not permitted to associate with the team, leaving it without a head coach while teams from other schools were reaping the benefits of these ever-popular off-season leagues.

In Epps’ own words, “the kids are left behind to clean up this mess.”

Butler’s girls did have access to open gyms — thanks to the program’s dedicated assistant coaches — and that helps development somewhat. But it’s not the same as being coached in actual game settings.

Those assistants — Holly Geibel and Ashley Nocera — played for Epps at Butler, by the way. So did Olivia Bresnahan, Casie Cygan, Samantha Marak and others who moved on to successful college basketball careers.

Countless other girls have learned life lessons from Epps that go beyond playing the game itself. Things like teamwork, self-discipline, socialization and time management all come into play when a student takes on any type of extra-curricular activity.

Epps is not a teacher, yet she’s been involved in coaching Butler girls basketball for 20 years now. She’s had section championship teams. She’s had losing teams. She’s always instilled work ethic and the desire to get better.

Her husband, Paul, coaches in the program as well. Their son is head coach at Hempfield. Their daughter teaches in the Butler district, played for the Golden Tornado in high school and handles the scorebook for the junior varsity and varsity games.

Simply put, this is a quality family that, as a whole, is into helping develop kids as athletes and quality youths.

Epps feels like she was treated as a criminal and has been told how to coach by the very district she’s loyally served for two decades. That’s a shame.

She deserved none of this.

Yes, Dorothea Epps yells at her players at times. I’ve seen that many times. Then again, I’ve never seen a coach who hasn’t done that. It’s all part of the intensity of sports.

While being put through this investigation and told to stay away from her team, and despite her frustrations, Epps never once considered quitting.

She always preaches to her players to never give up. Now she’s proven she walks the walk as well as she talks the talk.

Seems like a good coach to me.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle