The Salem High School athletic department will certainly have a new look in the 2022-23 school year, as the school currently has four head coaching vacancies.
Having resigned their Salem teaching/coaching duties at the conclusion of the current school year are softball head coach Phil Karr, girls basketball head coach Jake Reardon, boys basketball head coach Bryan Carty and one other coach who is still waiting on the contract to be approved at their new job before making the official announcement.
Karr announced he was retiring as softball coach and Salem Athletic Director before the school year began. Shortly after the girls basketball season ended Reardon announced his resignation to take the girls basketball head coach position at Stover High School.
And more recently Carty has resigned to become assistant principal at Cuba High School.
A 2004 Salem High graduate, Carty served as boys basketball head coach at his alma mater for the past three seasons. In his first season as Tiger head coach Salem made it to the Class 4 District 9 Tournament championship game. It’s been rebuilding efforts the last two seasons for the squad.
Carty’s three-season head coaching record is 20-57. In all, he has been a coach and teacher at Salem for five years. He teaches high school biology this school year.
“It’s easily the toughest decision of my life,” Carty said of leaving Salem. “It took me about three weeks to decide I was ready. I know the last two years in basketball was rough. But I think we turned the corner and that’s all I could talk about at the end of the season. Then Cuba offered the job and I had some soul-searching to do.”
However, being a school administrator was his ultimate goal. Carty is to finish his masters degree in education leadership in two weeks from Northwest Missouri State.
“Eventually that was the plan,” Carty said of getting into administration. “I was waiting for the right opportunity. I’m tied to the area because of my farm, so I’m not going to move. But Cuba is not a far drive.”
