HERE’S A DIFFICULT proposition.
Try to find the football coach of the year on the North Olympic Peninsula
It’s not that there’s a dearth of candidates. Rather, there’s so many that it’s hard to single out just one.
I suppose it all depends upon how one defines coach of the year.
Does a coach’s team need to exceed expectations in order to be considered? Can a coach win for getting his team to play up to the high standards set for them?
Well, the Peninsula has more than a few candidates that have done at least one or both this season.
Perhaps that’s why the area posted its first above .500 winning percentage (44-35) of the decade, as well as its highest win total.
That was despite the fact Quilcene didn’t even field a varsity team and Port Angeles went winless.
Here’s a quick rundown of the candidates (in no particular order):
• Tim Rooney (Crescent) — The Loggers had fallen a long way from their state championship days of 1996.
In fact, they hadn’t even been in a B-8 postseason game since then before last season, as a once-proud program went south under a myriad of coaches.
Now, four years into his tenure, Rooney has taken the Loggers to back-to-back preliminary state playoff games.
His team finished 7-4 this fall, with record-breaking running back Dylen Heaward rushing for 2,183 yards and 36 touchdowns, and appears ready to compete for years to come.
• Shawn Meacham (Chimacum) — Chimacum had gone 5-25 in the three seasons following the 2005 state playoff team, including two straight 1-9 seasons in 2007-08.
Then Meacham, a middle school coach for 10 years, came in and installed more adaptive offenses and defenses to the Cowboys’ playbook in his first year as coach.
The result: Chimacum transformed into a competitive program that was no longer an easy out on the 1A Nisqually League schedule.
He had Chimacum in the postseason hunt all the way up to the second-to-last week of the regular year as his Cowboys finished 5-5.
That matches the win total from the 2005 team and is the program’s first .500 record in recent memory.
• Brian O’Hara (Port Townsend) — In his second year, O’Hara guided Port Townsend to victories over two ranked teams and a 7-4 record with a roster of just 33 players.
That doesn’t even include a pair of dramatic mini-playoff victories over Orting and Vashon Island to get the Class 1A Nisqually League’s No. 2 playoff seed.
And they did it in all phases of the game, with the special teams, defense and offense all having their moments throughout the year.
Try finding a single prognosticator that thought that would happen.
• Tony McCaulley (Neah Bay) — The Red Devils have barely even been challenged on their way to a PCL North Division title and an 11-0 record.
Only perennial PCL power Lummi came within single digits of Neah Bay in McCaulley’s second year as coach.
After Friday night’s 50-0 dismantling of King’s Way Christian, the Red Devils need only beat Lake Quinault to reach the 1B state semifinals for the first time in four years.
Given the way the second-ranked Red Devils have been playing, a first-ever state title doesn’t seem out of the question either.
• Erik Wiker (Sequim) — This award could easily go to Wiker every year. That being said, he may just be turning in his magnum opus this fall.
The Wolves (9-1) earned their fifth league title and sixth postseason appearance in Wiker’s sixth year at the helm.
And they did it in a way no other Sequim team has done: with a wide open offense that chucks the ball all over the field.
A good coach always adapts their system to the talent on the field, and that’s something Wiker appears to have done this year.
Now they are on the brink of getting their first state playoff win in school history.
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Matt Schubert is the outdoors and sports columnist for the Peninsula Daily News. His column regularly appears on Thursdays and Fridays. He can be reached at matt.schubert@peninsuladailynews.com.