Raytown says goodbye to Bud Lathrop, legendary firebrand basketball coach

Friends, family and former players said goodbye to Bud Lathrop Saturday on the court where he became not just the winningest high school basketball coach in Missouri history but a mentor, taskmaster and surrogate father.

Lathrop, who coached at Raytown South for 45 years, died last week at age 82. His Cardinals won 35 conference titles and four state championships.

The school gym was packed for a 2 1/2-hour memorial service where nine speakers paid tribute to a man whose coaching lodestar was fiery Green Bay Packers icon Vince Lombardi.

“He demanded perfection,” said son Lance Lathrop, a 1977 Ray-South grad who also played for him.

Team buses were the venue for some of his most withering oratory. When a bus driver pulled the door open after returning from an ugly loss, Lathrop slammed it shut and spent the next 90 minutes sharing his displeasure with the group.

“That poor bus driver just wanted to get out of the line of fire,” Lance said. “The windows were rattling on that bus.”

Victory protected no one from his wrath. Jevon Crudup, who starred at Missouri after leading Ray-South to the 1990 Class 4A state championship, recalled the bus ride after he torched Grandview for 56 points, 21 rebounds and six blocked shots.

“He cussed me out the whole way home,” Crudup said.

There were just as many stories Saturday about a deeply loyal and supportive mentor who left individual handwritten notes of encouragement in players’ lockers on game days.

“Bud’s legacy wasn’t just winning,” said former Ray-South football coach Vance Morris. “He could see the absolute best in everyone he coached.”

When he wasn’t coaching, he was devoted to Gay, his wife of nearly 60 years, who survives him.

“I only heard Bud talk about two things: Gay and basketball,” Morris said.

Some tributes carried an undercurrent of regret about the way Lathrop’s Raytown coaching career ended, when his authoritarian style became a poor fit for a new generation of image and litigation-conscious school administrators. In January 2003 he was suspended for a week after a reporter from The Star saw him using a wooden paddle on players in practice.

“We took getting paddled as a badge of honor,” said Gene Graham, class of 1976. “We loved it because we loved Bud and we knew he wanted us to get better.”

Lathrop retired in 2006.

Crudup, who returned to Ray-South as junior varsity basketball coach, said he consciously modeled himself after Lathrop. That may have contributed to his dismissal in 2003 after he was recorded using profanity in practice. He sued and eventually won a $300,000 judgment against the Raytown School District.

On Saturday, he sounded as if he had no regrets.

“I always admired coach for being who he was. He didn’t sugarcoat it for everyone.”