One of the most prolific basketball players in KCI Conference history will now become one of the league’s coaches.
The North Platte School District selected Erick Roe to be the news boys basketball coach, replacing Tim Sutton, who resigned following the season.
The West Platte graduate was a standout basketball and football player for the Bluejays and later played at Central Methodist in Fayette, Mo. After the past six years in the business world, Roe is now going to be on the sidelines.
“To be honest, I had thought about it,” Roe said of coaching at a rival school in the KCI. “I’m excited for the opportunity to coach basketball with kids in the area and give back to the Dearborn community the best as we can.”
Roe met with North Platte superintendent Karl Matt and his hiring was approved at a recent special session. In that same meeting, the school district hired Shelby Baker as a first-grade teacher and approved a foundation repair bid at Camden Point Elementary for $71,663.
Roe left West Platte in 2007 as the all-time leading scorer in basketball, passing Paul Miller’s mark. He also holds the school record still for 3-pointers with nine in a game. His scoring record was challenged by his younger brother, Adam, but he came up shy. Adam is about to start his senior year at Army, where he plays basketball.
On the gridiron, he had two of the top 10 all-time single-game receiving marks — 259 and 268 yards — at the time of his graduation. He was all career receiving yards record holder in the state and tied for the career lead in touchdowns as well. He is currently No. 3 all-time in the MSHSAA record books, being passed by a pair of Springfield Hillcrest receivers, including former Missouri player Dorial Green-Beckham.
Roe played basketball and football at Central Methodist, earning all-Heart of America Athletic Conference honors in 2012 for his punting skills. The former all-stater will also be an assistant football coach for the Panthers.
Roe has been around in coaching recently, helping with the Pacers, a summer traveling basketball team in Kansas City, while also coaching a group of seventh and eighth graders basketball travel team from Weston.
He will serve as a paraprofessional in the junior high/high school at North Platte.
The 2008 West Platte graduate played basketball at MCC-Penn Valley out of high school and then played at CMU from 2011-2014.
Roe was a business administration major at CMU and is 18 credit hours shy of a teaching degree. He worked at Sherwin-Williams stores in St. Louis, Kansas City and Tucson since graduation.
The new head coach for the Panthers got a chance to work with some of his players the second week of July, with 30 kids showing up.