42 When Good Coaches Get Fired Because of Parent Interference

"Parents stay mad. If you're an Athletic Director who never played sports, you need to understand that."

In this episode, Coach Rodo tackles a frustrating trend happening in high school sports across the country: when successful, dedicated coaches get fired for all the wrong reasons. Rodo dives deep into the recent firing of the Kalamazoo Central girls' basketball coach, pulling no punches about how administration politics and disgruntled parents can completely tear down a thriving program.

Despite taking a incredibly young roster—with only two seniors and two juniors—and winning a district championship when critics thought they’d only win three games all year, this coach was let go. Rodo breaks down the reality of dealing with athletic directors who don't understand locker room culture, the danger of administration letting parents dictate personnel decisions, and the looming regret players face when a toxic cycle turns a historic program into a coaching carousel.

#CoachRodo #WinningRegardless #HighSchoolSports #CoachingPolitics #KalamazooCentral #GirlsBasketball #AthleticDirector #ParentInterference #PlayerDevelopment #KalamazooCentralGiants #SportsAdministration

(00:00) - The Breaking Point: Why good coaches get fired when they don't deserve it.
(01:30) - Kalamazoo Central Update: Breaking down the shocking firing of the girls' basketball coach.
(03:15) - Defying the Odds: Winning a district title with an underdog roster of underclassmen.
(05:00) - The Administrative Gap: The danger of Athletic Directors who have never played the game.
(07:15) - Accountability vs. Accommodation: How letting parental complaints run a program ruins culture.
(09:30) - Dominating the Rivalry: Looking back at a historic record against Lloyd Norris.
(11:45) - The Inevitable Regret: The hard lessons young athletes learn when entering a new system.
(14:00) - The Coaching Carousel: How administrative weakness sets up the next coach for failure.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Parents getting in the way and getting this dude fired because they didn't like a white boy teaching their black kids, coaching their black kids. You're a A D. You've never played sports. Don't you know parents stay mad? I think he's he's one probably the third most girls in KZ girls basketball in the last 20 years history or what have you. And I think he's only been there for like maybe five or six years. And again, put out a couple D ones. And it's strictly, in my opinion, based on the parents of the kids. Uh, the school that we got around here, it's actually my producer's mom's the principal of the school. Um, they fired the girls' basketball coach Kamazoo Central. And I I I have to believe that it had nothing to do with um him as a coach. Um, because he's been there for a minute and he's won. And I always thought that, you know, as a coach, when they look at your resume, it's what have you done with the talent that you have? And like I look at what he did even just this past year. He took a team that had, I think, two seniors, one, two juniors, and the rest were sophomore and freshmen, and they won the freaking the district. Weren't even supposed to win but three games. And they won the district. I'm talking about a guy who knew how to work with what he had. And he was a gym rat. If them girls wanted to be in the gym, he would open that gym. Worked in the school. He believed in that. He came, he came from an area in Detroit where that's what he grew up with. The gym was always open. And so he did the same types of things. And the reason when I say that, I believe that it was parenting and pressure, and, you know, I don't really know the AD that well. Don't like him. I'll just be honest with you about that. I don't like him too much because of the things that I hear about what he does as far as not making things better for the athletes. That's my only pet. That's my only thing that I have that I don't like about him. Don't know anything about him personally. So, but I always thought, you know, you're supposed to take into consideration the kids that you're coaching. Um, what have you done with this, with these kids? He's gotten D1 scholarships for these some of these girls. Um, they go to a lot of them went on to play junior college basketball. I mean, they played for him. And again, like I said, he comes from an area where the gym was always open. So the guy was always open, had the gym open. He had his girls work out with us because we do the training for the boys' varsity basketball team. He would have his girls in there doing the training. And so him and I would talk because he was looking for an assistant coach, and I had put him in touch with someone over the summer, and he was real excited. He was excited about her possibly being a JV coach and being a varsity coach with him. And then this happened. And again, I say we as parents, we got to get out the fucking way. Because you think you're gonna get something better. I'll guarantee you you're not. What you got is worse. And let me tell you why I say I think it's be it's the parents. It's because I know my area. And our team is a minority team. Black and Hispanic. I don't even think that there was a white girl on the team. I think they were black and Hispanic, and he's a white boy coach. So you can imagine the things that he had to deal with, how he was critiqued much differently than per se, if it was a black coach that was coaching these girls. Um and the thing about it was this job was open before he even got it, and none of these people who complained put in for the job. I think it's a case of parents whose kids are, like I said, they're very young, so it has to be parents who are f who are parents of freshmen and JV or of freshmen and sophomore kids going in complaining about what they thought their kids were and what their kids should have been. And the AD, because as far as I know, I mean the principal may have uh not not even a say, might just give an opinion on what they think. But it ultimately falls on the shoulders of the AD to make the decision and the choice of the coaching. Um I think that the pressure got to this guy, and he felt, I mean, you know, parents threatening to take their girls away. My my my thing, let them. Let him, because again, I believe I thought coaching was based on winning and losing and production. And this guy produced. They won the districts this past year. They won the districts the year before that. The guy wins with the talent that he, and and and don't act like we're putting, and like I said, he he's sent kids to D1 college, he sent girls to um to JUCO's, he sent them to community college. So, so, but, but, but don't act like we're a cesspool of girl basketball talent because we're freaking not. And for the guy's best player on the team to be a freshman, in which he played her, she played every doggone minute, and that tells you how good of a coach he is if his freshman, who you wouldn't have thought, she ended up being the most productive player on the court, strictly because of coaching. And her, well, not strictly because of coaching, but coaching along with her will and her heart, and he knew how to work with that. He never yelled at him, he never disrespected him, he never I'm still I'm I'm still baffled at why he is not the coach based on the history of what he did. You know, um he had a heart, he had a heart issue over the summer, but you know, um the doctors cleared him after he had his surgery and all of that, got a stint put in the doctors cleared him. And he was gonna do two more years and then turn the program over to possibly one of his assistants, but the program was in good hands. And see, now we don't know the hands that it's about to be in. We don't know the choice that they made on this coach. I got a feeling that it's someone, it might be someone whose child is in the program, or they might be an assistant on the on the bench, or it might be someone who's close to one or two of the girls that they believe are the stars on the team to make that decision. Because again, it's it's a decision that doesn't make sense to me and to many other basketball people when you look at what was going on. You know, you this this year I heard a lot of people say when they were playing in the districts, um, one of the games, it was the it was one of the worst girls' basketball games ever, but they won. Sometimes basketball is ugly as hell. Sometimes it looked like them girls don't look like they know what they're doing. And sometimes they don't. But the one thing them girls never did was they didn't quit playing. They played hard. And me, myself, as a coach, I call it organized chaos. Sometimes it's gonna be ugly, especially when you're dealing with most of your girls' first time being on that high school stage, the frickin' districts. They just came from middle school. What do you expect? They ain't been on varsity for three years, and now we should be a well-loiled machine. Because I tell you what, some girls and boys' team that's been on been on varsity for three years still don't look like well-loiled machines. So that's an expectation that we put on the coach that is unacceptable. For the simple fact is, they don't even teach our middle school girls plays. They don't even, they don't even, they don't even coach our middle school girls the way that they expect them to coach these freshmen and these freshmen to play. He's people don't understand. He was starting from scratch and this dude still won. This dude still won and lost his job. You like the young kids say, make it make sense. It doesn't. It makes no sense to me, especially as a coach. Now, if he was abusive, but he's not, because I know the guy is one is a super nice guy. He's a teacher in the school, so that those two things were there. He always opened up the gym. Um, if he cursed at the kids, he didn't curse at the kids. Um he didn't come to games drunk, he didn't go to practices drunk. So when my buddy who told me about it asked him what was the reasoning they gave him, they they they couldn't even give him a reason. You know, a legitimate reason because you again, you can't fire him because of a health issue, because that's discrimination. There's in lawsuit right there. So again, the only conclusion I could come to is the pressure of the parents, and which I think is some bullshit because I come from where our AD would have told the kick parents kick rocks. You want to take your girl to another, your daughter to another school and think she's gonna do better, that's cool. Go on here. Because this man is doing what we're supposed to be doing here at this school, which is teaching these girls to be good people, be better basketball players, be accountable, and he's getting them to college. I'm very, very interested in seeing who this next coach is, what type of production they're gonna get out of it. If they're even in the gym as much as this guy was. Coach Plugett was in the gym religiously, even if there were only two or three girls. He'd be there until those two or three girls was ready to leave. I wonder if this new coach has that kind of dedication. Because here's the thing. This guy didn't have to go home to a family. All he had was basketball. That's the kind of coach that you want. That means he's putting in that work that his own kids aren't pulling away from, his wife isn't pulling away from. Nobody's pulling away from that work that he's putting in in the gym with these girls. He was always there to open up that damn door for them girls. Even the boys. If he was there, the boys could come work out too. But of course, that's another story. They wouldn't show up. Because that's how our area is. They want to be the best, but they don't want to do what it takes to be the best. But back to the girls. Um it was, it was, when I when I heard about it, I I was, again, I was flabbergasted. I was shocked, and I was bewildered because, you know, usually you can you can kind of sort of see when the writing is on the wall, but this guy, we we couldn't see it. Because again, he he was winning. If you look at his record, he he's he's he's he's a winner. I think he's he's won probably the third most girls in KZ girls basketball in the last 20 years history or what have you. And I think he's only been there for like maybe five or six years. And again, put out a couple D1s and you know, some community colleges, some D2s, and so if he was here, if the bar was here, I wonder where it's set now. And the thing about it is you have to have a coach that's coming in now that's able to jump the bar that he already put up. And I don't really see any round, any, any coaches around here on the girls' level that would do that, that could do that. So again, my only thing is parents getting in the way and getting this dude fired because they didn't like a white boy teaching their black kids, coaching their black kids, and it didn't look the way that they wanted it to look. Not understanding your girl don't look the way that we want her to look. But you're mad at the coach. You're complaining to the AD and to the principal about the coach. I'm watching girls, and this is no lie. I'm watching girls who I know that these are some of the parents. I'm watching their freaking daughters come in as freshmen and sophomores and can't even dribble with their freaking left hand. Everything they did was right-handed. And these were the girls that everybody was talking about was sweet. And if you don't get out of here with that noise, you want, you can dribble one-handed, but you sweet. You go to the hole all slow and wonder why it's getting beat up. But in middle school, because you was able to do that to where on a middle school girl, maybe one other girl on the other team could play basketball. The rest of them was just there because they were friends of the other girl. They're all of them were friends, and they wanted to go out. Why do you think the numbers are so low? Girls' basketball numbers are super low. You barely they that's why he had so many freshmen moved up. But but I bet you that's another thing that they try to put on him. That ain't got nothing to do with him. That had nothing to do with the amount of girls that came out had nothing to do with him. The girls aren't good anymore. They don't work on their games anymore. Now, in high school basketball, at least around here, you'll have two girls out of 12 that know the game of basketball. And then those two girls on each team, those two girls have some deficiencies in their games. How do I know? Because I watch them and I watch the way that they train. I can't know, and anybody who knew anything about the kids that I trained, my kids all the way on up will tell you the one thing that my kids could all do from elementary all the way through college is score the ball with both hands, dribble the ball with both hands, pass the ball with both hands. And anybody who knows me and knows anything about my kids will tell you that is absolutely correct. When my son used to go to the cup left-handed, people would say to me, Man, is he right or left-handed? Because that's how much I believed you needed to work on that. And I don't see none of these kids doing that no more. And I definitely don't see it on the girl side. Because, like I said, the girls who I believe, I could be wrong, but the girls who I believe whose parents made the most noise and that the AD listened to the most, whose girls are supposed to be the stars, them girls couldn't even freaking dribble left-handed. We would do wind sprints. They would come in in last. They would come in the middle of the pack or close to the back. And I never understood that because I always thought that, you know, my daughter, she, when she came from high school, from middle school to high school, started as a freshman. Why? Because she went in there when they was running wind sprints. She was right there with the first four and never tired. Running, running, working hard, working hard. Could already dribble left. She came out to be the starting point guard. Already could dribble left and right-handed. Already could score the bucket on both sides of the court. Her deficiency was her youth. Because that's what I made sure it was. She had a jump shot. She was money on the free throw line. Everything that you would want a kid that's possibly got a chance to play varsity to have. I made sure. Did the same thing with my son. Made sure. I did the same thing with boys that all the kids that played for me. Most of the kids that played for me as elementary kids all the way up into high school, most of them started. And most of them was baseball players, were full-time baseball players. They just played basketball when they didn't have baseball tournaments because that's the community that we live in. You know, they mostly baseball players. You know, my son was a baseball and a basketball player. You know, they played basketball on their fun time. My son played basketball and baseball like it was a full-time gig for him. So it was different, but those kids were already athletes, so they already had the work athlete. All we had to do was build upon what they had, and that's what we did. And so I'm wondering if this girl's coach that they're bringing in is gonna be able to bring that same type of thing because I saw Coach Plunkett do that. Pull off the shooting machine. If they had a struggle shooting, he'd pull off that shooting machine again during the summertime when the kids could be out playing and he didn't have to be there. But he chose to be there. He would be, let me tell y'all, he would be there and the kids didn't even show up. And he would say, I always tell myself, I'm gonna wait another 10 minutes, somebody gonna show up. That 10 minutes go by, I'm gonna wait another 10 minutes. That 10 minutes, before I know it, I've been up here an hour and nobody showed up, and then that's when I'll leave. Are you kidding me? We got rid of a coach with that kind of dedication. And again, he's a winner. He's won. He might not have won what people think he should win, but hell, with the team he had, he won the districts. That's a big deal. That's a big deal around here. If you saw that team. Because again, because of numbers, he had more freshmen and sophomores than he had juniors and seniors because of girls' numbers. They aren't there. And that's why I think a big mistake was made. Because there's a whole lot of nuances that takes place in this that I don't think the AD took into account when he made the decision. Now, again, my producer's mom is the principal. So now again, I don't know her role. He might have gone to her and said, this is the move that I wanted to make. And again, administering thing that I know about school administrators is they don't like to step on each other's toes. So yeah, I could see, you know, Miss Bogan saying, hey, if that's the decision that you make, then that that's a that I I'm I'm I I gotta I support your decision because that's her school. And that's what I expect a leader to do. And so therefore, I don't put any of this on her. I put it solely on the A D. Solely on the A D. Because again, you chose to get rid of a man who was producing all because parents were mad. When are you you're an A D. You've never played sports? Don't you know parents stay mad? Don't you know parents stay mad? Now, what do you think is gonna happen this year, as rocky as it's gonna be? What do you think is gonna happen if you don't get the turnout that you expected? W what do you think the Rumblings is gonna be? They're gonna be way worse than they were with Coach Plunkett because at least Coach Plunkett could shut them up with a win or two. Not to saying that this next person. It won't because I'm interested in seeing who it is. If it's my girl Lindsay Brown, then of course, you know, I'm going to support that, but I don't think it's going to be her because I haven't seen Lindsay around here in a while. You know, she was a big-time hooper star here at Kalamazoo Central, went to Western and played. You know, I could see it's got to be somebody that's going to get these girls' attention. You know. And it's got to be somebody who knows what the hell they're doing. Or that program is going to really suffer. Because again, this guy was not supposed to win that district. There were better girls' teams than Kalamazoo Central. He won it. With ugly basketball. With ninth and tenth graders who just came from middle school playing last year, who was just a freshman playing coming from middle school the year before that. And his one senior who helped the sloppiness look a little okay, won the district, and he's gone. Again, I wonder what was said that made the argument strong enough to get rid of a guy who's won, a guy who's produced, and a guy who's loved, a guy who's in the gym, which is what you want. I mean, as a high school hooper, what? The gym door to be open anytime I wanted during the summer. I remember it would be 10 of us, we'd sneak in the school, and they knew we were sneaking in our school, but they would leave, they knew we wouldn't mess up the school. These kids don't even gotta sneak. What? All you gotta do is call a coach and coach and meet you there. Again, even if you're on the boys team, this is the kind of coach that we got rid of. I just don't, I don't understand it. And I don't have to understand it. And it's not for me to understand, but it's from it as a coach, I do get to question it. I do get to wonder, I do get to, you know, um uh uh question it because um it kind of defies everything that you believe as a coach. You know, uh in the in and I'm just very, very interested in knowing um what led to the decision, what was behind it. I wonder if they'll even tell him what was behind the decision. So, you know, in closing, it's gonna be a very interesting girls' basketball season for Kalamazoo Central. Um I'm I'm very anxious to see how it's gonna turn out. I'm very anxious to see when we start summer workouts who's who's there. I want to see who's the coach. I want to see what girls are gonna be there because I know under Coach Plunkett they were there. Uh I wonder if that gym's gonna be open as much as it was under Coach Plunkett. I certainly hope so. I'm not coming in rooting against this new coach. I hope whoever it is has the most, the utmost success and build upon a success that Coach Plunkett started and don't see what he did as a failure, see it as a stepping stone. And if you can bring something to make it better, then you just add to it. But don't erase the whole thing because he did some good things there. He made, he, he made it um uh uh a program. Not that it wasn't before, but you know, they always had a chance to win. And that's that's that uh again, as a coach, that's what you want. And I hope this coach gets these girls up to every game that they walk in, they got a chance to win because they can play basketball any way you want them to, and that's what he had them. If the game called to get sloppy, they played sloppy and they won. If the game called to stay calm, he was able to calm them girls down. I mean, freshmen sophomores. Calm them down. I mean, it's it's I mean, he beat his rival every time. He I think he lost to his rival one time, which is Lloyd Norris, which is pretty damn good. So, again, I um wish this new coach success, especially for these young ladies, so that they don't get defeated and um feel worse about things than they already do. Because I already know there's gonna be some regret. I already know that some of them girls are gonna be upset that they don't have their coach punk it back. Um there's gonna be some, there's gonna be some hard, hard times because they're gonna learn some, they're learning a new system, they're learning a new coach. Um it's going to be a very, very trying time for this new coach. I just hope they can handle it. I hope they um continue to teach these girls, make these girls better, and um hopefully the program will stay, you know, um intact and and and get better and develop. I I just hope that this job doesn't turn into a coach and carousel based on parents being able to affect the decisions made by the administration. And when I say administration, made by the athletic director. So with that being said, thank you for tuning in to another interesting conversation on Coach Rado's podcast, winning regardless. Peace.