He’s accused of choking and shoving a student — and still coaching in Missouri?
In Missouri, high school athletes are barred from competition if they have a pending criminal charge or court case against them. Student-athletes must remain sidelined until their case makes its way through the legal system, according to guidelines set by the Missouri State High School Activities Association.
Students must also self-report any criminal allegations to their school or they are ineligible to compete for 365 days.
The same does not apply to coaches. Adults — namely coaches, teachers and administrators — are entrusted with the safety and security of children. A double standard on discipline is completely unfair, and needs to be rectified.
Less than a month after Odessa High School’s football team captured its first state championship in 25 years, administrators at the school about 40 miles east of Kansas City are fielding calls about an assistant coach charged with assaulting a student at the coach’s former school.
The inquiries are for a good reason. Odessa assistant coach Miles Hochard will go on trial in January following a June altercation with a Liberty North High School student, television station KCTV-5 reported.
Hochard is a former coach at Liberty North. He resigned from the school in July. By August, he had been hired in Odessa.
In November, Odessa topped Cassville for the Missouri Class 3 state title, the second in school history. Those accomplishments have been overshadowed to a certain degree by news that Hochard allegedly choked and pushed a 17-year-old Liberty North student off a chair and onto the floor in the school’s training room.
The June 10 incident was referred to the Liberty Police Department, which cited Hochard for assault. Hochard did not work for the Liberty Public Schools after June 11, according to a district statement.
Neither MSHSAA nor the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has jurisdiction over who a school district hires or fires. A district must decide whether to employ a teacher while criminal charges are pending.
So the obvious question is: What did Odessa know about allegations that Hochard assaulted a student, and when did they know it? And why was Hochard allowed to coach with a serious accusation hanging over his head?
The public likely will have to wait until January to find out. Several messages from The Star seeking comment from Hochard, school principal Brian Briscoe, activities director Mat Vleisides and Odessa Superintendent Joe Oetinger were not returned.
Head coach Mark Thomas referred questions to Oetinger and Briscoe.
In a statement to KCTV-5, Oetinger said Hochard passed background and reference checks. The assault charge against Hochard is being reviewed, the district wrote.
The case illustrates an issue that must be resolved at the state and local levels. State education officials say it is perfectly OK for a school such as Odessa to employ a teacher or coach with pending criminal charges. Conversely, a student is not allowed to play until their case is adjudicated.
There is something fundamentally flawed about a system that bans a student-athlete from competition for a year just for the student failing to inform school officials of a criminal case, let alone missing action until the case itself is concluded. No such rules apply for coaches and teachers. And that is criminal in its own right.