Bellevue School District recommends firing coach Butch Goncharoff

Friday morning, the Bellevue School District told the Bellevue High School assistant head football coach in a letter that he would not be renewed to come back next season.

This comes after earlier this week, a letter stated the district’s intention to fire Butch Goncharoff, the head football coach who led Bellevue High to 11 state championships between 2002 and 2014.

An investigation was conducted after allegations that the team violated rules and falsified addresses for athletes so they could play for the powerhouse program. But notification to the two top coaches about ending their employment is related only to the issue of receiving payment for summer camps.

The district alleged the coaches broke rules regarding conflict of interest by profiting from their roles with the Bellevue High School football team.

Pat Jones told KIRO 7 on Friday that the booster club had explicitly gotten permission for running these summer camps years ago. A new rule came into place in 2014, after which the head coach said he stopped accepting payment.

Still, Jones said the policy doesn’t make sense.

"You don't pay us in the summer. We're not employees of yours in the summer. Yet, you're telling me that I can't take some of my friends that I coach with in the fall, and they can't work for me in the summer. I don't agree with that," Jones said.
 
Jones said he was sitting in on an interview last week for a new girls' basketball coach.
 
"That particular coach last week asked in the interview process, a very good question, that I would ask, too. What can I do in Washington state, in the Bellevue school district, in the summer as far as camps and clinics?" Jones said.
 
An email confirms that the athletic director informed that candidate that a coach could form a company to run those camps or run them through the booster club.
 
Jones said both the message to that candidate and the practice of many coaches in the district seem to be at odds with the reason for letting them go.
 
"It's not just about Butch. There's many, many coaches of all types of sports that do hitting lessons or pitching lessons or tennis lessons or basketball training," he said.
 
In April, a lengthy report on alleged rules violations was released to KIRO 7 Tuesday through a public disclosure request filed with the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association. Follow this link to read the Bellevue report.

Coaches also directed athletes to attend the Academic Institute, a small program at a Bellevue office park where boosters paid for athletes’ tuition, the report stated. It also states Bellevue coaches coordinated tuition payments for athletes.

The fact finding report examined five specific allegations as requested by the Bellevue School District in August 2015.

The recent fact finding concluded that there was not sufficient information to support the fifth allegation that athletes received subsidized housing to gain eligibility.

The report also details additional areas of concern that arose during the course of the fact finding, according to the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association.

Some Bellevue parents objected to the report, saying it was biased and racially motivated.

“To be clear, we believe that we did not violate any WIAA regulations,” an April statement from the Bellevue Football Club, sent by public relations strategist Annie Alley, said.

Mike Colbrese, WIAA executive director, acknowledged the Bellevue parent complaint then but said in an investigation document that the investigators have “impeccable reputations,” and the WIAA staff “have no doubt that they handled the interviews and investigation process professionally and respectfully without prejudice or racial bias.”

The recent independent investigation was requested by the Bellevue School District after the Seattle Times published several stories about the program in 2015, including one that found 17 Bellevue players attended the Academic Institute. Among those players, The Times reported, was Myles Jack, who is projected to be a top NFL draft pick later this month.

There have been questions about Bellevue violating WIAA rules for more than a decade, along with concerns that the WIAA was not doing enough to proactively address those allegations. However, high school coaches who had issues with the program and the WIAA enforcement rarely made those comments publicly.

Bellevue High lost 48-42 to Eastside Catholic in the Class 3A state championship last December.

In 2006, Seattle Times reporter Michael Ko revealed that Goncharoff was paid at least $55,000 by a school booster club. That was not a WIAA violation, but it was significantly higher than Goncharoff's $5,600 district stipend at the time.

Mike Baker and Josh Liebeskind, reporters for The Seattle Times, spearheaded the newspaper's investigation into the allegations against the Bellevue program. Read their coverage here.

On Friday, April 29, Scott Powers and Russell White, serving as principal and assistant principal of Bellevue High School, respectively, announced upcoming moves.

Powers accepted the position of principal at Sammamish High School. White accepted the position as principal at Chinook. It is unknown whether or not the staffing changes are related to the recent WIAA investigation.

Cox Media Group