Mark Morris HS coach Bill Bakamus retiring after 41 years
LONGVIEW, Wash. (KOIN) — Midway through interviewing a head coach who has spent 41 years in the profession — including 32 at the same school — an obvious question came to mind.
How many young men has Bill Bakamus coached and then ended up coaching their younger sons?
“Ugh, that’s such a bad subject to bring up. Too many,” said Bakamus as he erupted in laughter.
But there will be no more of those scenarios as the man in charge at Mark Morris High School is retiring after this season.
“Carrying on that honor and that torch at this school has been really what I wanted to do. I had other opportunities, but this has just been such a great place,” said Bakamus. “Once I got embedded here and my kids started going to school at Mark Morris, which is so dear to my heart, it was easy to stay. I could probably do this for another 10 years. I have the energy. I have the enthusiasm. But I just didn’t want to go until I was 73. I just felt like 63 years and 41 years in the occupation was enough.”
“It’s kind of weird for the community because he’s been around for years,” said guard Braydon Olson. “I don’t know if people could see Mark Morris with a different coach.”
Bakamus says his favorite thing about this gig has been developing young boys into men. So it shouldn’t be a surprise what his biggest lesson learned in the gig is as well.
“You need to develop relationships. If you can develop good, solid relationships with kids, and they know you really care about them — I might get on ‘em, I might ride ‘em, I might criticize them and coach them hard — but if they really know that you care about them, they’ll perform at their very, very best,” he said.
He is hoping for that to come to fruition one last time.
His Mark Morris teams have placed second at state three times in his tenure but have never grabbed that coveted top spot.
Bakamus said if his team could pull off a state championship “it would mean everything. But it’s more enjoying the days. I’m always in the moment. I don’t get too far ahead of myself. It would be great. I’m not denying that.”
“I’m happy for him, I’m happy for us, and I hope we can go get it done for him,” said Olson.
Mark Morris goes into the 2A State Tournament in Yakima as the #6 seed and will open play Wednesday against #11 seeded Bremerton at 3:45 PM. If they win on Wednesday, they will play #4 seeded Renton on Thursday at 3:45 p.m.
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