March Sadness

Raytown South High School basketball coach Bud Lathrop faces his team. His game plan covers the dry-erase board behind him, a series of now-useless scribbles.

It's a couple of hours before midnight on Friday, February 25. As they slump across rows of orange chairs, Lathrop's players can hear muffled cheers from the adjacent locker room. Sophomore George Goode fidgets with his cell phone. Junior Roderick Pearson, eyes watering, plugs a pair of thick diamond studs back into his ear lobes. Senior Paul Hawkins pulls his red jersey over his face and curls into a ball on the floor, crying.

Lathrop's coaching technique has earned him a double-edged reputation. After nearly a half-century of court time, he reached a milestone 900 wins in January 2004. But most people in town know him as the coach who got in trouble for using a wooden paddle on players who missed free throws during practice. That strategy -- results through physical punishment -- has tainted Lathrop's achievements and made him a celebrity in the sports-hungry metro; he's been a favorite subject of Kansas City Star sportswriters and a frequent guest on sports-talk radio.

This past December, Lathrop announced that he would retire from the Raytown South program after school administrators slapped him with a three-week suspension for cussing at his players. But he returned a few weeks later, saying he'd like to finish the year. Maybe even coach another. He wanted to be known as a winner, not a quitter.

During practice, Lathrop manhandles his players, pushing them into defensive formations like he's moving life-size chess pieces. He shouts at them nose-to-nose. His pep talks lean toward condescension: No one gets to wee-wee down their leg. Follow me and you'll be all right.Tonight, after his Cardinals fell behind 9-15 in the first quarter, he called timeout and yelled at the team to just shut up. The crowd laughed nervously. Then he elbowed sophomore guard Karl Parker in the chest so hard that people in the third-row bleachers could hear the pop.

Join the Cardinals and you learn one fact first: Your coach is the winningest in Missouri high school basketball history. He'll drill this into you all season. Other constant reminders: He's been coaching for 46 years, 44 of those at Raytown South. He closed out last season with a record of 911-291. He's produced 22 All-State athletes, more than all the other teams in his conference combined. He's earned 33 of the last 39 conference championships, 22 district titles, 4 state championships (1970, '72, '77 and '90) and sent 190 kids to college with full-ride basketball scholarships.

The gymnasium pays homage to Lathrop's legacy. Its hallways are lined with team photos, trophy cases and a 3-foot-by-5-foot photo of his 1990 state championship team. The names of his All-Staters hang on flag-sized banners from the rafters. In the stairwell from the locker room to the court, each step has been painted with a year he won the conference championship. In a ceremony usually reserved for retired heroes, the gym was renamed to honor him in 1995.

At games, the stands fill with characters from different eras of Lathrop's reign. Tonight, some students are dressed like the campus legend, clad in slacks and red-and-white polo shirts. A trio of now-middle-aged men from Blue Springs has been coming since the '80s, convinced that Kansas City pro teams were perennial losers and looking to cheer instead for a winner. Some nights there are other high school coaches, such as Steve Koesterer of Bishop Miege, who says Lathrop's games are coaching clinics. Sometimes there's former University of Missouri-Columbia coach Norm Stewart, who considers Lathrop a friend. And recruiters from pro-sponsored summer leagues and Big 12 powerhouses, such as Oklahoma and Kansas.

Tonight is the district championship against top-seeded Lee's Summit North, one of the last teams to stall Ray-South's drive to the state championship. The Cardinals' season has followed a Hoosiers-like script: After losing key players to academic ineligibility, the short-stature team played sound fundamentals, sparking a five-game winning streak to clinch the conference title and then sniping a larger, more physical team (Raytown Peculiar) to make it to the finals.

To prepare for tonight, Lathrop spent more than four hours in his basement studying game film. He had tried to learn every detail about his opponents, down to which players were right- or left-handed. His attack strategy would draw defenders away from the key to give his men an open runway toward the basket. To disarm Lee's Summit North's shooters, he had choreographed a defense -- one that collapsed instantly.

On the last night of possibly his last season, Lathrop looks tired. He limps when he walks, his face is craggy, his gray hair patchy, his eyes bloodshot. Among the kids surrounding him, some have tattoos, some wear headbands cocked on the backs of their heads, and some rap freestyle in the locker room.

Lathrop is a legendary disciplinarian. Tonight his kids didn't follow his instructions, and they lost. This was not the storybook ending he'd returned to live out.

Just about everyone has questionsabout whether the old man is still fit to lead this next generation.

In mid-December, Lathrop boxed up his office, pulling down the framed, sepia-toned pictures of former players and packing the few books on his desk, including memoirs by Gen. George S. Patton. He took the memorabilia home to his bunkerlike basement (another shrine festooned with news clippings and photos). He sat in his red-leather chair to contemplate his future.