Longtime St. Pius HS football coach says he’s been ‘removed,’ will stay for now as AD
Rick Byers, athletic director and head football coach at St. Pius X High for the past 25 years, will no longer be coaching football at the school in Kansas City, North, he announced on Twitter.
Byers, 59, said in a statement of sorts posted to the social media site that he had hoped to step down on his own terms — “We were headed that direction,” he said Friday — but was instead relieved of his football duties by the school’s administration this week.
“I had hope to announce my retirement this spring and have my final year to leave this program with a bit of pride and dignity,” he wrote in the Twitter message, “but sometimes, as we know, life is not fair.”
Contacted by telephone by The Star, Byers said he’d wanted to share the news of his pending retirement “like Sev,” a reference to longtime Rockhurst High football coach Tony Severino, who announced his intention to step down ahead of last season, then retired officially at its conclusion.
That didn’t work out for Byers after the Warriors went 3-7 in 2019, so in a series of social media posts Thursday, he simply thanked his family, staff and the many families whose sons he has coached at the school through the years.
“I will remember each and every one of you and the many great moments we shared,” he wrote. “I’ll remember every season, every game, every play, and every interaction.”
Many replies expressing appreciation followed.
Noting that he has been on various football sidelines for nearly 50 years — including a total of 33 in some capacity at St. Pius X — Byers wrote that he hopes to be “back on one soon.”
For now, Byers said he will remain at St. Pius X as athletic director. He elaborated somewhat in Friday’s telephone call, noting that he’s open to coaching elsewhere if the right opportunity presents itself.
“If it works out I stay at St. Pius, that would be great, and if someone’s looking for an old coach, I might do that,” he said.
Byers said he knows who the next head football coach at St. Pius X will be — the search process has been completed, he said — but he didn’t feel right about making that announcement ahead of the administration’s timeline. He referred such questions to school principal Joseph Monachino Jr., but initial efforts to reach Monachino for this story were unsuccessful.
Byers got his start in teaching and coaching at Fort Scott High after graduating from Paola High School and Pittsburg State University, where he played safety for the Gorillas. He coached the freshman team at Fort Scott and was a position coach for the varsity.
It wasn’t long before he was hired by St. Pius X, where he’d spend the next three-plus decades of his career overseeing a lengthy period of prosperity in the program. Byers coached such standouts as Luke Richesson, who after playing for Byers in the 1990s went on to become the NFL’s strength and conditioning coach of the year in 2012, current Drake assistant coach Willie Cashmore (2000) and current Oklahoma State special teams coordinator Patrick Cashmore (2006).
“We’ve never had a lot of Division I kids, but we’ve had some kids go on to do some really great things,” Byers said.
St. Pius X recently opened a new athletic facility and had been upgrading its football stadium, efforts geared toward attracting more students, and student-athletes, to the Catholic prep school campus on 42nd Terrace.
Competing for enrollment is critical for private schools, and success on the football field can play a key role in that equation.
“It’s been a great experience,” Byers said. “It’s just the business, you know. ...
“You always want to leave a place better than you found it, and I think we did that.”
This story was originally published January 17, 2020 at 11:43 AM.