FHS boys hockey coach Brad Ryan resigns

By BRENDAN BURNETT-KURIE

bburnett-kurie@faribault.com

Faribault High School boys hockey coach Brad Ryan has resigned four days after more than 20 parents approached the Faribault School Board on Monday with accusations of bullying and intimidation; allegations Ryan and his assistant coaches vehemently deny. Ryan had coached the Falcons for four seasons.

Ryan retains his position as a full-time physical education teacher.

Faribault School District Superintendent Todd Sesker confirmed the resignation, which occurred on Friday morning.

"We talked to him about resigning but ultimately it was his decision," Sesker said.

Sesker said he was first notified of concerns in November and the school launched an investigation that concluded in early January.

"We didn't find anything that was concrete," Sesker said. "Coming to a good conclusion for everybody was our ultimate goal. I don't know if that has happened or not. We tried to communicate with everyone involved and make sure that everyone was heard through this whole process. It may not have ended up the way anyone wanted it to. We just keep working in a positive way toward what we thought was best."

"What (the accusers) are saying isn't true," Ryan said when reached on Friday night. "I have a pretty doggone good career and a past track record of 25 years. I have a special relationship with the game of hockey."

Several of his supporters declined to speak on the record when reached on Friday, but said the accusations against Ryan were unfounded and do not represent the coach they know. Assistant coaches Chris Storey and Mike Swanson were outspoken in their defense of Ryan.

"I think the kids are good kids and I think Brad is getting a bad rap on a lot of things," Storey said.

"I have so much respect for him in three-and-a-half years (working with him)," Swanson said. "There's nothing that would change the respect for him as a coach."

Ryan was a former goalie for FHS, graduated in 1983, and as a coach led Faribault to its first Big 9 Championship in program history in 2010. He was also named Big 9 Coach of the Year and Section 1A Coach of the Year following the 2009-10 school year. Previously he spent two years as head coach at Orono, bringing his team to state both seasons.

"In this game of hockey there are parents upset when they don't get to play JV or letter or you punish them," Ryan said. "That's the true story."

"I've been around hockey with the team for seven years and I've been working with Faribault athletics for 20," Swanson said. "I've never seen anything that would make me think that Brad was an incompetent coach or harmful for any kids. I've been around a lot of coaches and I've seen a lot worse things than he's ever done."

On Monday, a group of more than 20 FHS parents and a few players approached the Faribault School Board to voice their concerns and ask for Ryan's removal as coach. Board chair Jason Engbrecht declined to allow the parents to speak during the meeting, citing state law forbidding board discussion of personnel issues. Instead, the parents met in small groups - some as large as nine - with individual board members.

While in those groups, multiple parents accused Ryan of bullying, intimidating and verbally abusing their children. One instance, which was recounted by two parents and one player, came from a game in Dodge Center a couple of years ago when the varsity and JV teams were tossing tape balls between locker rooms. Ryan, who had asked the players to quietly prepare mentally for the game, came in.

"He screamed and yelled at them, then went over to the JV locker room and started throwing equipment and kicking my kids' equipment and singled out my kid and (another player) and was physically and verbally intimidating them and putting them down and swearing," recounted Eric Sorenson of the experience of his sons, Josh and Stephen, who both played two years under Ryan.

"That scenario did go down," Storey said. "He was upset with them for doing that. But I know that he didn't single anybody out and didn't say ‘It's you.' It was the whole group of kids. You're trying to prepare for a game and you have kids throwing tape balls at each other and he addressed them as a group."

In another instance, Stephen Sorenson recounted in a written statement his father provided the Daily News, and which Stephen Sorenson confirmed by phone: "Brad has another bout of rage during (a) Rochester-Mayo game. He starts swearing and throwing my water bottles around (the) locker room. He then dumps Josh's stuff out of his bag and rips it in half in front of the entire team during his temper tantrum."

Other parents interviewed, but who declined to speak on the record, said that Ryan's behavior in the locker room was being misrepresented and was not out of line from other hockey coaches. Storey agreed.

"Honestly, the guy doesn't swear," Storey said. "I just really don't believe that you can say that Brad Ryan swears at people."

"I feel terrible about this whole situation and the direction it is going," Ryan said. "It is not true."

When he was hired, Ryan was the seventh FHS boys hockey coach in 14 years, leading Swanson to ask, "Do you have a coaching problem or a parent entitlement problem?"

But in Athletic Director Ken Hubert's nine years as AD he has had four head coaches; one died while he was coach. He said that their leaving was "nothing like this, not with me ... not to this level."

At the board meeting, some upset parents were asking for Ryan's removal, even though their own kids had finished their senior season because, as Jana Viscomi put it, "This shouldn't be passed on to the next group of kids. This has been going on for four years."

"This is my third son that has been going through this," said Missy Plante, whose son was on the JV team. "My first two kids never said anything to me. They knew there were things going on but didn't say anything because they didn't want ... retributions."

"What really got me this year," Plante continued, "was I had to sit my son down and drag information out of him because the wedge was driven so deep between my son and me as a parent. He didn't want to say anything to me because he was afraid something was going to happen to him and his playing time and being on the team. That is wrong when that right is taken away from a parent and they can't talk to their kid."

Eric Sorenson said that after one game several JV players came up to him and asked for a ride home.

"They begged me to give them a ride home so they wouldn't have to ride on the team bus with coach Ryan because they were scared of what he was going to do," Sorenson said. "He was physically abusive even though he didn't actually hit them. He would take his finger an inch from their face and be screaming and yelling at them and berating them in front of the rest of the team."

"I don't think you can say he gets in people's faces and points his finger," Storey said. "I haven't seen it."

"I have never seen him put a finger in anyone's face," Swanson agreed. "I've seen him swear very minimally. I guarantee these kids have had coaches swear more than (Ryan) has."

Late in the season, between 10 and 12 parents met with Hubert and Sesker, after which the two administrators attended several games, with Hubert on the bench during one.

"That was a choice we had," Sesker said. "It was something the parents wanted. It was a voluntary thing we agreed to."

Before he came to Faribault, Ryan had served as an assistant coach at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Colorado College (where he served as head coach of the JV program and varsity goalie coach) and the Twin City Vulcans of the USHL. He was an assistant at Chaska, Edina and Minnetonka before taking over the Orono program.

"I got a wonderful letter of reference from (Orono athletic director Steve Fredie)," Ryan said.

But when contacted this week, multiple Orono participants recounted a meeting they say more than 40 parents attended with Orono Principal Dave Benson about Ryan's behavior in the locker room. When asked about the meeting by the Daily News, Ryan called the report false.

"It was a terrible experience," said Mike McLure, whose son played for Ryan for two years in Orono and served as captain before going on to play college hockey. "Brad really has a control issue. He has a temper issue. He literally threw things at people, the players."

McLure said he felt Ryan would not be able to get another head coaching job after Orono.

"I was shocked that he was able to coach anywhere," McLure said. "It's that old thing, nobody can say anything so it keeps going."

Hubert said he spoke with Fedie before he hired Ryan.

"That's something I had not heard," Hubert said. "I spent a good deal of time on the phone with their AD. He shared a good deal of information with me and what he told me is if he had the chance to hire him back he would have."

Moving forward, Hubert said he will advertise the job, but with budget cuts limiting the number of opening teaching positions, it could be difficult.

"We don't know what will happen with teaching positions," he said. "If we don't have much for teaching positions that limits the pool of candidates. You don't have to be a teacher to be a coach, but not having that limits the pool of candidates."

Hubert also shot down rumors the hockey program might be eliminated.

"At this point we need to look forward to the future of boys hockey in Faribault," Hubert said.