Entire girls basketball staff resigns at Indee

By Brady Smith, KCRGINDEPENDENCE -- All five girls basketball coaches for Independence schools announced their resignations on Friday last week. Assistant coach Rob Ratchford said Monday that he and the other four coaches made that decision, after dealing with a recent string of unreasonable accusations and criticism from a handful of parents of players.Ratchford said he is well aware that as a coach, criticism comes with the territory. "You read things on social media and you try to ignore those kinds of things, people approaching you on game day and phone calls on game day, and phone calls after the game."However, Ratchford said some parents have gotten out of hand, constantly questioning decisions made by coaching staff, and even threatening him in one case."I received phone calls this week threatening to fight me, to come over to the house and fight him over summer basketball stuff," Ratchford said.So, Ratchford said he and head varsity coach Rod Conrad decided they had enough. Ratchford said the three other girls coaches agreed that resigning was the only way to send a clear message to overzealous parents."They need to take responsibility for their actions."Senior Kelsey Ratchford, sister to the assistant coach, was there for the announcement on Friday."It made me really upset to know that parents get involved and this stuff has to happen," she said.Ratchford said when parents take the sport too far, it takes away from the experience."Pre-game, we sit by them and we can hear the stuff they say, like them not having confidence in the game we're going to play," said Ratchford. "That brings down the team."Troy Butters, father of two younger players, echoed that thought. His sixth- and eighth-grade daughters were devastated by the news of Conrad leaving."When they heard about it, they were both in tears and they didn't really want to play basketball, because he's always coached them," Butters explained. "He's always been more than coach, almost a second father to them."Kelsey Ratchford hopes the void left by five resignations will change some attitudes for the better."I think the parents need to understand that it's just a sport, and that Conrad is teaching us more than just basketball. He's teaching us life lessons to work hard," she said.We reached out to Independence school administrators, but they declined to comment, citing the situation as a personnel matter.Coach Conrad declined to comment on camera, but he did say that he plans to coach somewhere again next season.