In another change to the Nocona athletics staff, boys basketball coach Bret Botard announced through his Twitter account on Tuesday he had taken the same position at Quinlan Ford, located east of Dallas.
The move was made more for family reasons, as stated in his tweet.
“While this move puts my wife and I within 30 minutes of many family, friends and our grandchildren, we are very sad to leave Nocona,” Botard said.
Botard went out of his way to thank the people of Nocona, the staff he worked with and especially, his players.
“Lastly, to my players,” Botard said. “I love you. You are a special group of young men. You did everything that was asked of you by me and the rest of the coaching staff. Along the way, you made some history here in Nocona. You accomplished things here that hadn’t been accomplished in over 30 years. Realize that you were the driving force behind this.”
Botard had an extremely successful three-year tenure at Nocona, posting a 73-29 record with three playoff appearances, including reaching the regional semifinals in 2017. The past two seasons saw the Indians compete in a tough district that featured state ranked and tough Holliday and Bowie. A couple of his former players expressed some of the impact he had on their team.
“Coach Botard wasn’t just a coach to our team, he was like our other dad,” recently graduated Jeremy James said. “There were days when none of us were in a good mood, but when we walked into the gym he brought an energy to us that always made us laugh and have a good time. Another great thing about coach was that he believed in us when absolutely no one else did. Overall, Coach Botard was an amazing man and will be missed at Nocona.”
“One thing about him is that he always expected our best effort,” recently graduated McCasland said. “If he knew we weren’t giving it, he made sure we did. He loved every one of us like his own and as hard as he was on us, it was always out of love.”
In his wake, Football Coach/Athletic Director Brad Keck now has to go through the process of hiring a new boys basketball coach for next year. With the search happening during the summer rather than the spring, Nocona will be under the pressure to hire someone sooner rather than later.
“Its kind of wide open right now,” Keck said. “We don’t really have a timeline or a person in mind. I posted the job and taking resumes right now. With it being summer now, there is a little bit of a since of urgency to get something done. We just want to find the right fit for our kids and the right fit for our town, while also doing it pretty quickly.”

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.