Kentlake High fastpitch has a motto: Tradition doesn’t graduate.
Nor does that winning tradition change when the team’s long time coach resigns.
Shortly before school started earlier this month Greg Kaas stepped down as head coach of the Kentlake fastpitch program.
“It’s bittersweet,” Kaas said in a phone interview Monday. “I don’t look at it as leaving here. I look at it as a chapter of my life.”
During his career Kaas has coached 34 seasons of fastpitch from seventh grade to varsity. He’s coached at both Cedar Heights and Mattson middle schools as well as Kentwood and Kentlake.
Though it was not an easy decision, Kaas said, he decided it was time to step away.
“I’ve been thinking about this for a year and a half,” he said. “I have high expectations of my kids, the coaches and myself. I felt like I could not put in the time right now and the energy it needed and deserves.”
Kaas met with the players on Sept. 7 to give them the news and described it as “a great meeting.”
He turned in his letter of resignation to Bruce Rick, the Kentlake athletic director, the week before school started with the idea it would allow for plenty of time to fill the position “and it gives the kids a chance to adjust.”
Rick said Kaas’ departure from the program will have a “huge impact.”
“Greg is a great communicator with our student-athletes and he gets the most out of their abilities,” Rick wrote in an email interview. “His record speaks for itself. It’s difficult to lose someone of his caliber, both as a coach and as a person with character.”
Rick wrote that he hopes to have the position filled by the end of the calendar year.
Tom Milligan, head coach of the Tahoma High fastpitch team, had nothing but praise for Kaas, whom he has competed against for seven seasons.
“When I broke in there were a couple teams that were at the top,” Milligan said. “Historically you could see that Kentlake and Sumner were the two top teams. Lance and Greg, they showed you how to do it… they modeled what coaching was at that time when I broken in.”
Kaas started in 2002 and led the team to five South Puget Sound League North Division titles, including three straight from 2006-2008, four district crowns, four league championships and seven state tournament appearances including a fourth place finish in 2007.
He compiled a 218-61 overall record in his 10 seasons coaching the Falcons.
“What he provided his kids was authentic,” Milligan said. “You would roll into Kentlake and you knew what to expect. You knew what was coming. You knew there was a lot of time invested on his part as a coach… whether it was at Cedar Heights or at Kentlake.”
Kaas has also had a number of players go on to play college ball.
He took over when the program’s first coach, Mike Larabee, left for a college coaching job at the end of the 2001 season.
And though he’s leaving, Kaas is confident the Falcons will continue to contend because at Kentlake, tradition doesn’t graduate, which isn’t just about what happens on the field but off it, as well.
