Barton, Southeast grad, will lead Lady Raiders softball

Published 8:25 am Friday, January 27, 2012

Kelley Barton is taking the reins of Southeast Whitfield softball.

The 2005 Southeast graduate, who played basketball and softball for the Lady Raiders, has been hired by school officials as the softball team’s head coach after serving as an assistant the past six seasons. She has also previously served as a girls basketball assistant at Southeast.

Jeff McDonald, the head coach for Lady Raiders softball the past two seasons, recently stepped down to “take it easy,” Southeast athletic director Scott Ramsey said.

“Jeff is ready for retirement,” Ramsey said. “He had some health issues, and he has just a little over two years now before he can retire. He just kind of wants to take it easy these last few years.”

McDonald coached Southeast girls basketball for the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons, but stepped down because of heart trouble, with Elizabeth Crane taking over as head basketball coach at that time. Crane also added softball to her coaching duties in 2009, but stepped down from that post after just one season, and McDonald returned to coaching via the diamond, saying he was healthier after making dietary changes and losing weight.

Ramsey is appreciative of McDonald’s time and energy put toward the softball program and said he “stepped in when we needed him.” McDonald echoed Ramsey’s comments and said he is confident that Barton, a certified health and P.E. teacher at Eastbrook Middle, is the right choice.

“I’ve coached with her for 10 years now. I’m really comfortable with her taking over,” McDonald said. “I’ve got two years left until retirement, and I don’t want altercations with a parent or another coach or anything like that to jeopardize my retirement. Last season I had an altercation with a parent. I wouldn’t want that to cause problems with me retiring.”

Barton was a community coach for Southeast while attending school in pursuit of her degree in health and P.E. She said she’s “blessed” to coach her alma mater’s softball team and called it “a dream come true.”

“We’re just working hard in the offseason,” Barton said. “We’re doing conditioning right now.”

Ramsey said school officials did not publicly post the job opening and immediately felt an internal candidate was a good fit.

“We did it now as opposed to the end of the year so she can get on scheduling tournaments now and begin individual workouts (with players),” Ramsey said, noting he and principal Karey Williams were involved in making the hire.

Barton takes charge of a team that went 3-10 overall and 3-8 in Region 7-3A last season. The Lady Raiders, who finished the regular season 10th in the 12-team region and went 0-2 at the league tournament, last made the state playoffs in 2005 — but Barton is looking forward to the future.

“I’ve got a lot of girls coming from the feeder schools and other good girls coming back from last season,” Barton said. “I just hope to build a strong program.”

Barton will be the program’s sixth coach in 10 seasons. Craig Brock was the coach for two seasons before Crane, and Heather Randolph was the coach for three years prior to Brock.

Randolph, who took over after serving one season as an assistant under Steve Chattin, resigned in 2006 after several softball players’ parents met with Ramsey and Alan Long, then the principal of Southeast. At the time, Ramsey told The Daily Citizen that the complaints were not from a majority of softball parents and that he and Long supported Randolph remaining as coach.

However, Randolph resigned a little more than two weeks after the meetings and later told The Daily Citizen, “You’re looking out for the best of the team, so you’re not going to keep every parent happy because they’re looking at one child.”