Warrensburg booster club booted, demoted its 3 Black officers. Now they want answers | Opinion
Shawnacy Johnson Sr. of Warrensburg sure got a raw deal. So did O.J. Rhone and Jonnie Davis. Small-town politics were their undoing, I suppose.
Johnson is a former treasurer of the Warrensburg Athletic Booster Club. He was removed from the parent-led volunteer group for speaking out against racism, he claims. Why anyone would be shunned for calling out discriminatory behavior is beyond me.
In June, Johnson was kicked off the club’s board of directors by a 4-3 vote. In the same meeting last summer, the club’s other two Black members, Rhone and Davis, were demoted from their positions of president and secretary, respectively.
Why was Johnson shown the door and others stripped of their assignments? Did the booster club’s bank account come up short? No. Earlier this year, the group had just over $90,000, according to minutes from a January meeting. Was Johnson accused of anything nefarious regarding the club’s finances? Not even close. And booster club member Matt Sergent pressed Johnson hard about expenditures, according to the minutes I read.
“Retaliation,” Johnson, a retired Air Force veteran and pastor at Bibleway Community Church in Jefferson City, told me during a recent telephone interview.
Last spring, The Star Editorial Board wrote about the questionable firing of former Warrensburg girls basketball coach Melvin Myers. In the unsigned editorial, Johnson was quoted on what he believed led to Myers being let go. In just two seasons at the helm, Myers, the first Black basketball coach in school history, led the team from second-to-last place in its conference to first.
Voted off board for comments in social media?
Despite two winning seasons, Myers’ contract as girls basketball coach was not renewed for what was described as a lack of player development, according to Johnson. He doubted the lack of players’ growth was the real reason.
“Let’s just call it what it is,” Johnson said then. “Racism.” Because of that statement, Johnson faced increased scrutiny for months after and was eventually voted off the booster club, he said.
Neither Sergent nor current booster club president Jay Meldrem returned messages seeking comment. I also reached out to board members Troy Claunch, Jenn Reasbeck and Jeff Florida but none replied to my email. Former member Jeremy Gilpin voted to remove Johnson from the board. Gilpin didn’t reply to my inquiry either.
In meeting minutes I read, Sergent claimed Johnson was removed because of disparaging remarks he made on social media about a player on the boys basketball team.
“Matt Sergent stated that Shawnacy was voted off because he talked negatively about a student on social media,” the minutes read.
Johnson, 47, denies he spoke ill of a student.
“I spoke out and put a target on my back,” he said.
On X, the social media network formerly known as Twitter, I read the comments that led to Johnson’s dismissal. What he wrote was hardly critical of the unidentified student-athlete. Johnson did question the hiring of new girls basketball coach Ernie Haag, a former assistant coach on the boys team.
Last May, Johnson wrote on X: “So the school/school district fires a coach who took the girls’ basketball program from last place in dist to 1st place 2 yr in a row in favor of a JV basketball coach who couldn’t win a single game this season. Well, I’m sure I know why! Go look up a picture of coach Myers.”
In a separate post that allegedly led to Johnson’s dismissal, he wrote: “Haag didn’t develop a single player! As the season progressed, the team dynamics did not. In fact, he consistently relied on a player who was not only the tallest person on the floor but the tallest person in the building and yet often didn’t/couldn’t score a single pt or rbd.”
Whether the comment was factual or not, I don’t believe Johnson’s post was meant to put down a student-athlete. Apparently the powers that be in Warrensburg did.
“It’s clearly retribution for me speaking out against them for getting rid of a Black coach,” he said.
Johnson’s dismissal did raise a valid point that the Warrensburg booster club must address: Under the group’s bylaws, there is no mechanism to appeal such a decision. Without due process, the motive for voting off Johnson must be questioned.
The club must change its bylaws to allow members an opportunity to challenge questionable personnel decisions.
Ousted president a former Royals draft pick
O.J. Rhone, one of the board members who was demoted, is a former 1993 draft pick of the Kansas City Royals. Back then, he was a two-sport athlete at the University of Central Missouri and a former teammate of mine on the UCM football team. After his playing days ended, Rhone founded the Youth Excited About Sports program in Warrensburg. He’s been on the booster club since 2016. Years later, he became its first Black president. With Johnson as treasurer and Jonnie Davis as secretary, the booster club had its most diverse in program history, Rhone said.
With Johnson gone and a new president and secretary in place, that is no longer the case. Rhone, 52, thinks speaking out in support of Myers led to discontent within the group. Rhone was Myers’ assistant girls basketball coach, working for free — but he was the only one on Myers’ former staff not invited back this past season.
As proof the booster club was profitable and its leaders were handling business, Rhone pointed to a comment former school district activities director Keith Chapman made in June before retiring.
A statement attributed to Chapman in minutes from a June 2023 meeting reads: “Keith states this is the best booster club in the history of the booster club.” Attempts to reach Chapman for comment were unsuccessful.
The Warrensburg School District’s student population is 77% white, according to state education officials. The district is not without its issues, according to Davis, the former booster club secretary and a former special education teacher at Warrensburg High School. For years, she complained to administrators that concerns about Black students’ safety and well-being were being ignored. Not much was ever done about those complaints, according to Davis.
Davis, 52, told me she still doesn’t know why she and the other Black booster club members were demoted in a contentious meeting last summer.
“I don’t know what it was,” she said. “It’s just an ugly — I can’t even describe it. It was just ugly.”
It’s not lost on me that four minorities in positions of power or influence were either fired or demoted from their respective positions with little to no answers as to why. None of these individuals, including deposed coach Melvin Myers, has been accused of a crime, mistreating a student or the misappropriation of funds.
And Warrensburg officials have remained silent, choosing to ignore questions about why these decisions were made. That should sound an alarm for the Warrensburg community. The district is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights for potentially violating the civil rights of Black student-athletes.
Where there is smoke, could there be fire?
“We did everything the way it was supposed to be done,” Rhone said. Absent any evidence to suggest otherwise, I would have to agree.
Conflict of interest with Missouri House candidate?
Another pressing issue the Warrensburg booster club must consider is a potential conflict of interest with Sergent’s role with the club. Sergent is president of the Warrensburg School District Board of Education, a powerful position that cannot be ignored, according to Drew Englund, general counsel of Parent Booster USA, a nonprofit organization that offers guidance to booster clubs throughout the country. Sergent is also a candidate for Missouri’s 54th House District, another potential conflict.
The booster club’s bylaws on political activities state: “No substantial part of the activities of the organization shall be the carrying on of propaganda or otherwise attempting to influence legislation and the organization shall not participate in or intervene in (including the publishing or distribution of statements) any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office.”
When Sergent is out campaigning, it’s fair to ask if he is representing himself as a candidate for office, the school board president or an influential member of the Warrensburg booster club.
The club has no conflict-of-interest policy, according to its bylaws. The absence of one is not the norm, according to Englund. Enacting such a policy would be in line with some of the best practices used by other well-ran booster clubs.
“School board members or school district employees should not be on booster clubs,” Englund said. “They have a fiduciary interest with both entities. This could create a conflict.”
It was Sergent who made the motion last June to have Johnson removed. Members voted along racial lines to oust the pastor, and demote Rhone and Davis, according to minutes from the meeting.
Johnson, Rhone and Davis all believe they are owed a public apology. The trio also wants the booster club to institute a robust conflict-of-interest policy and an appeals process for members stripped of their assignments.
The requests sound reasonable to me. But the Warrensburg booster club doesn’t seem to operate with such rationale.
