Mike Bush spent a little more than a year in Kent where he attended and graduated from Kent-Meridian High School.

“(Kent) was a place I came back to when I had days off in college,” he said in an email. “It was a place where I met life long friends. (And) it’s a place I call home and a place I want to give back to.”

Bush is returning to Kent to head the Kentwood Conquerors’ football team come fall.

He has already spent the last six months at Kentwood, he said, but his coaching duties don’t officially begin until June 1.

Bush said he has been coaching a number of different sports since 2004.

He added, “(In a way) I have been coaching in some form all my life, coaching my little cousins growing up and my peers.”

And he even spent time coaching outside of the United States while he spent time in Luxembourg, he said.

His most recent coaching position was coaching the wide receivers at Bothell High School.

Even though Bush has been coaching for the past 11 years, this is the first time he will be a head coach at the high school level.

However, he isn’t new to being head coach.

He was head coach of the boys basketball team and track team at Kirkland Middle School.

Bush himself is a two-sport athlete.

He attended Washington State University where he played on both the football team in the fall and the basketball team in the winter.

When asked what it was like to play two sports at the collegiate level, Bush said it was great.

“I look back and I say, wow I did that,” he said.

When it came to playing both, he said he took it one sport at a time and focused on staying healthy.

When asked if he still plays any sports, Bush joked “I try not to play, my knees swell up just reading the question.”

He said he never had a favorite sport while he was playing or coaching. He added, whatever season it was determined his favorite.

But that has changed.

“I have a favorite now, it’s Kentwood football,” he said.

Bush doesn’t believe he picked between coaching football or coaching basketball.

“I don’t think I chose to coach football over another sport, it really chose me,” he said.

He added that the atmosphere at Kentwood is full of tradition and “there is no better place than the Kent community to call home.”

When making the transition to coaching, Bush credits his past coaches who “instilled a set of core values that I live by daily.”

He said, his goal is to pass along those core values to the student athletes he comes into contact with.

“I believe I can make a positive impact in our community and school through coaching,” Bush said.

The idea behind hiring Bush as the Conks’ head coach was to bring “fresh eyes and bring a renewed enthusiasm into the program,” Kentwood Athletic Director Jo Anne Daughtry said.

She added “ultimately, we chose to go in a different direction” by hiring Bush.

Bush said his goal with the football team is to show the surrounding area “what it means to be a Conk and say you went to Kentwood.”

When Bush starts to put together next year’s football team he said he will look for toughness in players and those who are students of the game.

As a team, he will be looking for “togetherness and a willing to sacrifice for the greater good,” he said.

Bush is not currently teaching at Kentwood but said he is working on finishing his schooling so he can teach alongside coaching.

“My main goal is to let the state see what Kentwood is and always has been one if not the top all around school in the state,” he said.