In this sluggish spring of rebirth, changes among coaches and administrators in the county are in full bloom this month.
Some of the most well-known names on the local prep sporting world are leaving or switching schools. The changes are across a broad spectrum of sports. Ron Rhodes, Sean Breeze, Dave Cook, Terry Crump, Robert Bradshaw, Kevin Stoffey and Amond Prater are all on the move after forging successful careers.
And football coaches in the I-55 Conference can breath a sigh of relief as Crystal City Superintendent Phillip Harrison and Hornets athletic director Ken Jones have assured me the school’s varsity football team will be alive and well come August. Grandview’s re-entry into the varsity ranks this year means the other six teams in the I-55 won’t have to scramble to fill an open date.
“We’re not co-oping with another high school, whether it’s Herculaneum, Festus or Jefferson, and there was never any talk of a JV season,” Jones said. “When you lower down to JV, there’s never a guarantee you’ll get back (to varsity).”
Some of the soon-to-be-vacant positions have been filled, while others will be filled soon. The clock is already ticking on the start of the 2018-19 school year as far as athletics are concerned, so administrators will be busy sorting out resumes and interviewing.
Jones has had to keep his hand on the rudder at Crystal City in the most trying of circumstances. In February, his youngest daughter, Makenna, 12, suffered cardiac arrest playing in a CYC basketball game and spent three months in the hospital recovering. The Jones family, including older sister, Maebry, who graduates this month, spent the majority of their time at Makenna’s side.
Thankfully, Makenna is at home with the rest of her family and has been undergoing intensive physical therapy at Mercy Hospital Jefferson in Crystal City.
Crump taught physical education at Crystal City for 22 years and was the head football coach for the last three. The Hornets finished 0-10 this year and were 5-25 during his tenure. The football program teetered on the edge of being able to field enough players to play last year. Fewer than 20 players were able to suit up for the Hornets by season’s end.
If you’re going to hire a football coach, picking one from the most successful program in the county is a good way to start. At its April 17 meeting, the Crystal City Board of Education voted unanimously to Dan Fox to replace Crump.
Fox, who lives in Crystal City, has been an assistant coach at Hillsboro for the last 11 years.
Jones said all Crystal City athletes need to be stronger and have more endurance to compete effectively. Fox, who has also been hired to be the track and field head coach, excels as a strength and conditioning coach. He replaces Matt Dee as the track and field coach. Dee coached the boys and girls for two years.
Fox will be paid $64,785 to perform all of his duties and teach.
“Maybe having someone new to energize the kids will encourage more kids to come out for the team,” said Jones, who left no doubt he’d be returning for his 16th season as the school’s girls basketball coach. “He seems to have an energy about him and he’s ready to be a head coach. This is his opportunity to take the lead.”
The timing of Crump’s retirement from teaching is murky. Crump, 60, insists he wanted to coach the Hornets this fall. Harrison said Crump wasn’t fired, but the superintendent, whose son will be a senior and on the football team this fall, said last week that “(Crump) was evaluated on his coaching and we decided to hire to a new coach.”
Whatever the case may be, Crump, a resident of Festus, said he’s not finished coaching football and will seek other opportunities.
“You can’t worry about things you can’t control,” Crump said. “This might have opened the door to something else.”
Even in the best of times, Crystal City was going to be hard-pressed to stay competitive with the likes of conference rivals Jefferson and Valle. The Hornets were a combined 0-6 against the Blue Jays and Warriors under Crump.
“We play a tough schedule and it’s going to be hard to win games,” Crump said. “Football bonds people together that other sports doesn’t have. These kids had a bad season but they have memories that will last forever. If they were to go to a larger school, they might not get to play. Everybody wants to win but it’s more important to be out on the field. Ten years down the road, the first things people ask is if you played high school football.
“I’m proud of the kids. It always comes down to them. That’s the most important thing. We didn’t have the record we wanted but these kids got some experience they couldn’t get at any other place. Football gets in your blood.”
The Hawks won 18 games the last two seasons and the Class 4 District 1 championship last fall using a combination of speed and strength to subdue opponents. Fox said he’s always aspired to be a head coach.
“I’m a patient person and I was waiting for the right opportunity,” he said. “(Crystal City’s) a program that’s struggled and the numbers are down and it’s a great challenge. I’m not getting any younger, so I wanted to take advantage of when the job at Crystal City came open.”
Fox is taking all of this on despite having a 20-month-old son and a daughter to be born next month.
“I’m used to not sleeping,” he said.
Fox said he’s aware of the rich history at Crystal City and knows about the legacy that was started by favorite son Bill Bradley, the Olympic gold medalist, basketball hall of famer and U.S. senator. Between 1984 and 2006, the Hornets girls track team won eight state titles. The baseball team has captured three state crowns, the most recent in 2010 with another favorite son, Alex Winkelman, leading the way on the diamond.
“I’m aware of the history of Crystal and that’s why they’re going this way with their athletics,” Fox said. “It’s not going to happen overnight. Hopefully we can get some wins. This year we want to compete, get some wins on the table and get the kids motivated in all athletics.”
Harrison said he expects great things from Fox.
“It’s going to be a small (football) team, but he’s big on the weight-lifting program and that’s all across the board for all of our athletes,” Harrison said.
Jones has more time to hire a new boys basketball coach. Breeze coached the Hornets for the last 11 years, in March he accepted the job to coach the boys at Jefferson. Jones said he’s received several applications from people who have head coaching experience.
Bradshaw, Cook stepping down at Herculaneum
Becca and Dave Cook’s lives changed forever when they were awarded custody of Joseph Cook in December.
Joseph Cook, 8, is in second grade at Pevely Elementary School, but Dave said last week he’d like to move into a school district better equipped to teach students with autism. He resigned as head football coach at Herculaneum on May 1.
Like Crump, Cook’s team finished with its worst record last (1-9) fall and Cook ended with a mark of 27-36 in six seasons as head coach of the Blackcats. Like Crystal City, Herculaneum’s football turnout is in decline and Cook said it’s becoming more difficult to draw new faces into the program.
Cook is also the head coach of the boys and girls track and field teams, and the time required to coach late meets is taking its toll at home.
“Last week after the conference track meet, I got home around 10 or 10:30 (p.m.), said Cook, “and Joseph likes a routine and I wasn’t there and it was hard for him. I feel like I need to be at home more.”
For now, Cook said he’s keeping his job as the head track coach. He said he’s fortunate to have quality assistants like Kyle Davis to help run the team.
“I’ve always felt that if I could get our students involved in training, like in the weight room, that would certainly improve our football program, but it would help all the programs,” Cook said. “The fight I had was they felt I just wanted to improve the football team. There’s a team aspect to this, too. There’s a camaraderie that comes with training together, having someone to hold you accountable.”
Aside from family responsibilities, Cook said his message might not be getting through to the students.
“I felt like the last two years my voice in our community with our kids had gone dull,” said Cook, who has three grown children. “I’m not saying anything different; they’re just not hearing me. I always said, ‘When the day came that I couldn’t influence the community and kids, it was time to give it up.’ And that day came. Hopefully, somebody else can take it where I couldn’t.”
Right now, Cook said he feels relief stepping away from football. Most people just see the action on the field for a couple of hours on Friday nights in the fall, but the preparation to get those players ready to safely play a violent sport is unrelenting for six or seven months.
“I’m going to miss practice,” Cook said. “I’m going to miss the day-to-day interaction with the kids, the planning for the games.”
Then Cook said something that totally caught me off guard.
“The games I didn’t like so much,” he said. “Not coaching football will hurt our family financially, but money isn’t everything and it doesn’t buy you happiness.”
Bradshaw has been athletic director at Herculaneum since 2008. Matt Lichtenstein, communication director for Dunklin R-5 School District, said in an email that Bradshaw’s last day in that position will be June 30, but until then Bradshaw would be seeking candidates to fill Cook’s position as football coach and any other coaching vacancies.
Bradshaw did not return the Leader’s phone calls.
Fox wrestling coach going to Fontbonne
Talk about leaving in style.
Amond Prater was chosen as the Fox High School Teacher of the Year for 2017-2018, but he is leaving to become Fontbonne University’s first-ever wrestling head coach this fall. Prater has been the head coach of the Warriors for the last three seasons.
Prater will be the first coach for the Griffins’ men and women and he called the St. Louis campus a “hidden gem.”
“The fact it’s a smaller campus really appeals to a student who wants to be connected to their teachers and outside business opportunities,” Prater said.
Seven Fox wrestlers advanced to the Class 4 state tournament in Columbia under Prater’s watchful eye. He said he’ll continue to monitor the progress of wrestling in the county to help fill the ranks of his new program. The Missouri State High School Activities Association is considering adding girls wrestling as its own sport, perhaps as early as the next school year.
“The beauty of (starting women’s wrestling at Fontbonne) is the decision to start girls wrestling at the high school level. That’s exciting,” Prater said. “The obvious answer in recruiting would be to go to more established states, like California and Georgia. In terms of the kind of wrestler I’m looking for, they have to be well-rounded. I did band, choir, ran cross country and pole vaulted (in high school). I want them to help make a change in the community. We want a good student-athlete as well. That will help us sustain success for the long haul.”
Prater is a 2006 graduate of the University of Missouri, where he notched 71 victories on the mat. After Mizzou, he earned advanced degrees at Missouri Baptist.
It takes a strong set of shoulders to launch a new athletic program. Prater has already been the strength and conditioning coach at Fontbonne for five years and he’s been a national champion for the American Drug Free Powerlifting Federation.
Prater’s power-lifting score was the total of the best lift in the bench press (350 pounds), dead lift (565) and squat (405).
Prater said it was a tough decision to leave Fox, but being a college wrestling coach has always been his goal.
“The (Warriors) participated in one of the toughest districts in Class 4 this year,” Prater said. “The state has a lot of good wrestlers. A lot of kids don’t get to the next level because they’ve been behind tough wrestlers.”
Fox athletic director Zack Brown said he hopes to have a new wrestling coach by May 25, and that he doesn’t currently have a frontrunner. Brown said Prater was a major influence on the students at Fox.
“As a coach, as a person, as a motivator, he’s an all-around good guy and I’m really happy for him to move on to Fontbonne,” Brown said. “He knows what our kids are all about.”
Rhodes is not retiring
Any rumors about Ron Rhoades retiring – again – have been greatly exaggerated.
Rhodes will not be the head coach of the Festus girls basketball team for a sixth season, but instead he will lead the Climax Springs girls team onto the hardwood this winter.
Climax Springs is a Class 1 school located near the Lake of the Ozarks halfway between Camdenton and Warsaw. Rhodes said the school has a graduating class this spring of 19 students.
Rhodes, who resigned as head coach of the Tigers in early April, had been commuting between his home in Pevely to his father’s home in Climax Springs and living in a small cabin nearby. His father, Joseph (J.H.) Rhodes, recently passed away and he was the pastor for 20 years at Pentecostal Church of God, now called Radiant Life Church in Festus.
“It was so inconvenient, living in two places,” Rhodes said. “I resigned before I took the (Climax Springs) job. A week later, I got a call to take the job. It’s about five miles from where we live.”
Rhodes crafted a long and storied career as a coach in Jefferson County. He was brought out of retirement in 2013 to revive the flagging girls program at Festus. In five seasons, Rhodes’ teams won a district championship, never had a losing record and went 80-46 (.635). Festus won the Jefferson County Activities Association large-schools championship the last three seasons.
But Rhodes will always be mostly remembered for guiding the De Soto girls basketball teams to back-to-back titles in 1988 and 1989. He retired as a teacher and a coach in 2010. In 1995, Rhodes led his alma mater, Herculaneum, to second place in the Class 3 baseball tournament. That same year, he was hired to be the women’s basketball coach at Jefferson College (where’s a member of the hall of fame) and led the Vikings to a record of 201-49 and two appearances in the National Junior College Athletic Association tournament.
“I left every program better than before I got there,” Rhodes said. “All coaches want to do that. I always treated the kids fairly and that led to a mutual respect.”
Festus athletic director Eric Allen said he hoped to bring the name of Rhodes’ replacement to the school board by May 16.
“We want somebody who’ s going to be dedicated to the program and continue its winning ways,” Allen said.
Windsor wrestling looks for new leader
Kevin Stoffey was hired to build the Windsor wrestling program in 1995, and by the time he retired earlier this year, he was able to see the fruits of his labor in the form of back-to-back state champions.
Jacob Warren was the first member of the Owls’ wrestling team to win a state championship when he captured the title at 145 pounds in 2017.
Exactly one year later, Warren was back on the medal stand, this time in third place at 152, and he watched teammate Ryan Yarnell cap off an incredible undefeated season (53-0) at 182 pounds with Windsor’s second state title.
As of Monday, Windsor has not hired Stoffey’s replacement.