Legendary K.C. area coach takes hit in changed world

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Everybody who has ever been within 15 blocks of his aura knows him as "Bud."

The Bud Lathrop Ledger: 41 seasons, 876 victories, four state titles.

There is no need to add a last name when Bud Lathrop, 66, strides into a gym, a living room or, for that matter, the Final Four. The Raytown (Mo.) South High School basketball coach has been going to them for years. It was the high point of his social calendar.

Major-college coaches gravitated toward him in hotel lobbies. They had to. He fed them players for years.

After more than 800 victories and almost 70 years on the planet, his piercing voice still rises above the collected din of a packed gym. But they silenced one of the great high school basketball coaches in the country this week.

The school district in the Kansas City suburb suspended Lathrop for what he says was verbal abuse. But the fact that he was observed using a wooden paddle on players during practice recently certainly contributed to the suspension -- five days and one game. It will end Saturday.

Lathrop fielded every interview request and spoke to every well-wisher this week because he knew how it all sounded. His intermittent use of a wooden paddle, Lathrop admitted, dates back to the 1960s; he's now in his 41st season.

"The main thing I wanted to get out to people is we're not standing here killing the kids," Lathrop said.

No, far from it. Only 20 or so high school coaches in history can stand in his shadow -- four decades, 876 victories, four state titles. In this town there are a handful of indigenous sports icons -- Buck O'Neill, Tom Watson, George Brett, Len Dawson and Bud.

But you put the words "paddle," "kids," "discipline" and "high school" in the same sentence these days, and Lathrop becomes a national story for another reason. The black-and-white of it suggests he hits kids, berates them.

That's how the country operates these days. It's right or it's wrong. Evil or good. Good guy or bad guy.

Well, like most stories, there are layers, explanations, background. This story doesn't have a convenient conclusion. It leaves you scratching your head. Mostly it's hard to form an opinion.

Those of us who covered Lathrop in the 1980s knew about the paddling. His players were part of it and apparently didn't speak out. Certainly a large part of Raytown, which got a lot of its identity from Lathrop's basketball teams, knew about it.

So why now, in the first month of the fourth year of the 21st century, does it become an issue? Why is Lathrop suspended in his 67th year when, by all accounts, he has mellowed?

Because what most people didn't give a second thought to 20 years ago is now considered horrific by the PC police.

Bob Knight psychologically gutted his players (and worse) for almost 30 years and finally got fired because he didn't win enough. Comedian Bill Mahr killed his own ABC show, ironically titled Politically Incorrect , with one ill-timed comment. He criticized the government in the wake of Sept. 11.

Maybe, in the end, it's all about timing. There's no way to be sure, because school district officials are refusing to comment.

"To me, swatting them is what we did in the '60s," Lathrop said this week. "(Now it's) a little love tap on a guy's butt you couldn't even feel probably."

Ultimately, you've got to ask yourself if the paddling itself is wrong. Those of us who have scars on our hands from nuns slapping us with rulers are in that group. So are those who were made to run all those laps and take all that humiliation from high school and college coaches.

In a shock-the-monkey type motivational ploy, Raytown South players were hit on the rear each time they missed a free throw in practice. Former Raytown South players told the Kansas City Star that the paddlings sometimes left red marks on their behinds.

And until Monday, it wasn't an issue. Then the school and the school district reached a conclusion that it wasn't OK anymore. Corporal punishment, they called it, against district policy. But even that finding is up for debate.

"It was a comedy," said Bob Dernier, a former major-leaguer with the Phillies and Cubs who played basketball for Lathrop in the 1970s. "You could have your best player on the line in practice on Thursday. Then when it came down to true crunch time, those types of little games in the game in practice, I believe were very helpful. It wasn't done in any kind of malicious way.

"I don't know if you're an old Caddyshack guy. You remember the old scene when Danny Noonan was putting?"

Yeah. It became the Webster's definition for distraction. Noonan!

A day after Lathrop was suspended, a two-hour morning radio show turned into a love-fest for the old ball coach. Support was overwhelming. Former players called in their praise. He was being accused of hitting players, but one host called Lathrop's radio support "110 percent."

Dernier said: "I would get asked this simple question: 'Who was influential when you were an amateur player?' I think they were looking for me to say a baseball guy. I would always bring up Bud. He taught me two things as a coach and village father -- discipline and work ethic."

Dernier was not alone. It went on and on this week. The outrage was not over the coaching techniques but over the suspension.

But suddenly it is 2003 in Raytown, and black-and-white is in. Conspiracy theorists say some disgruntled parent or player dropped dime on Lathrop. Hey, it has happened before. A parent complained about paddling 20 years ago, although Lathrop wasn't suspended.

So who is more to blame here? Raytown officials who had to know this was going on, or Lathrop? Is this just another way of silently edging an old guy out the door?

If that's the case, then Lathrop and his legacy will not go quietly. His team is ranked among the best in the city. One of his players, Tyrone Young, is considered among the best in the state. Knight's coaching prowess is overshadowed by him being a dysfunctional human being. Lathrop sweeps the people's choice award in both categories.

"In the old days, did I have to worry about a kid's ride home?" Lathrop said. "Today, these kids don't have ... it's a split home or a grandma. I've become more of a dad to these guys than I was 30 years ago."

Predictably, the Cardinals lost without their coach on Tuesday. Assistants took over, and Raytown South looked rudderless in a 21-point loss.

"When they made me miss the game, that really affected the kids," Lathrop said. "I know I don't score any points, but sometimes I hope I'm worth 10."

It is a career that has torn at his soul before.

A decade ago, standout Chris Lindley was bound for Kansas and the Jayhawks when he lost a foot to a passing train while playing near railroad tracks. Former player Jevon Crudup helped lead Missouri to an undefeated Big Eight record in 1994. Crudup recently returned to coach the Raytown South sophomore team and has been reportedly fired for the same thing that got Lathrop suspended -- verbal abuse.

Dernier is exasperated by it all. He refuses to believe his coach is abusive. It's the world that has gone soft, he says.

"I played 10 years in the big leagues, and there wasn't any one more fun than when I played in Raytown as a kid," Dernier said. "Maybe a little bit of it was old school discipline. I remember a little league coach made me cry because I couldn't run the option the way he wanted me to run it.

"It taught us you can be a little soft but within that game there was a certain edge you had to put on ... I think Bud is kind of conveying that whole idea."

Lathrop was contrite this week. He compared his position to that of an Army private. The school district is the general. He will change. He will have to. The only thing he loves more than coaching is his wife, Gay.

But before this week, Lathrop's life was not unlike that of Bear Bryant who, it turned out, needed to be a coach to live. Now?

"I'm really asking myself," he said, "Do I really want to push myself until I die?"