Morris Says Goodbye Basketball -- Bothell Coach Exits On High Note With 16-Win Season

As much as he knew it was coming - he had planned it, after all - Bothell's Bob Morris didn't really see the end of his 17-year term as the Cougars boys basketball coach until the fourth-quarter buzzer sounded in the Lake Washington High School gym last Friday night.

"It was a sudden thing," said Morris, 51, who announced his retirement from teaching and coaching in December. "Even though you know you're in a loser-out game, once it happens it really is a shock."

The underdog Cougars trailed seventh-ranked Inglemoor by only a point entering the fourth quarter but were beaten 63-49 by the Vikings and eliminated from the playoffs.

"I didn't get a chance to dwell on things," said Morris, who also coaches Bothell's softball team, which began turnouts this week. "It's probably going to continue for a little while to be thought of, off and on.

"But I'll come down to earth one of these days."

Morris, who also coached at since-closed Queen Anne High, led the Cougars to a 165-203 record. Bothell went to two state tournaments under Morris, finishing fifth with a 23-6 record in 1981.

This season's 16-win total was his third-highest as a high school coach.

"It was a successful year," he said. "This team probably came as close to reaching its potential as any team I've ever coached."

Sowards bids farewell

-- Morris' last basketball game with the Cougars was also the last by his star pupil, Ryan Sowards.

The senior guard, who led the state's Class AAA players in scoring this season, is Bothell's all-time leading scorer. He averaged 17 points per game as a sophomore, 25 as a junior and 27 this season.

"He's obviously a good kid to go out with," Morris said.

This season Sowards shot 52 percent from the field, 85 percent from the free-throw line and made more than 40 percent of his three-point field-goal attempts - his favorite shot.

Sowards, who has not committed to a college, is being recruited by Liberty University (Va.), Pepperdine, Santa Clara, Gonzaga, Puget Sound, Seattle Pacific, Western and others.

Morris believes big NCAA Division I colleges that overlook Sowards, including those in the Pac-10 Conference, are making a mistake.

"I think he could play at any one of those big schools," Morris said. "He's such a dedicated kid, too. And he's going to get better when he gets stronger."

Happy berth-day

-- The Inglemoor boys basketball team clinched the first state-tournament berth in the school's 27-year history on Coach Greg Lowell's birthday.

The seventh-ranked Vikings (18-6) beat Bothell in a loser-out game Friday night, then earned the state berth by beating Mariner 57-44 in the Wes-King bi-district quarterfinals Saturday, the day Lowell turned 29.

Inglemoor plays Everett (15-8) in the bi-district semifinals Friday night at 7:30 at Lake Washington High School.

Back from back pain -- One of the major discomforts of Chuck Tarbox's retirement from coaching football at Juanita High School was continual back pain caused by a herniating disc.

"I was able to hide it pretty well my final season at Juanita," said Tarbox, who returned from a one-year retirement two weeks ago when he accepted the head coaching job at Eastside Catholic High School in Bellevue. "It was debilitating. I left school in May and didn't finish."

After undergoing surgery three times to repair the same disc, Tarbox, 54, said he's ready to resume the travails of coaching.

"This one has taken pretty good . . . knock on wood," he said.

"The problem with me - it took me two surgeries to find it out - when I was feeling bad for a certain time and then suddenly pain free, I wanted to get up and do things. And I did them too soon. This time I actually listened to my doctor."

Tarbox, who led Juanita to three straight Kingbowl appearances in the mid-1980s, has a five-year plan for the Crusaders.

"Think I want to excite those O'Dea guys?" Tarbox said when asked how long it would take for Eastside to make the state final. "We'll get them there. . . . I told them five years in the interview.

"I have a plan. There's no question about it.

"No. 1, we'll be competitive. No. 2, we know the challenge in front of us. We know who's on top, the O'Dea Irish."

O'Dea won the Class AA state championship last fall.

Tarbox, who led Juanita to eight consecutive state-playoff appearances, replaced Ed Crafton, who resigned last fall as the school's football coach and athletic director. Tarbox assumes both jobs and also will teach physical education or math.

By the numbers

-- 8: Number of games the Bothell boys basketball team lost this season in 24 games.

-- 5: Number of games the Bothell boys basketball team lost this season to teams ranked among this week's top seven in the Class AAA poll. Bothell also won three games against top-10 opponents.

-- 1.25: Average point margin of defeat for Juanita's boys basketball team in its four losses this season. The Rebels have lost by one (to Bothell), two (to then-top-ranked Mercer Island), one (to then-fourth-ranked Redmond) and one (to Everett).

-- 3: Difference in years between Inglemoor boys coach Greg Lowell's age (29) and number of years the school went without a boys state basketball-tournament entry (26).

Notes -- Redmond's Erin Rogers, a 5-foot-8 1/2 setter, has signed a letter-of-intent to play volleyball for Central Washington University. Rogers, the Mustangs' captain and most valuable player last fall, is a three-time all-KingCo selection. "I'm very happy and really excited about my decision," said Rogers, who plans to enter Central's school of education. "When I visited last year, I just fell in love with it. I think it's a great school. And the coach is great. So's the team. I feel like I really fit in with them." Rogers plays year-round for the Seattle Juniors Volleyball Club.

-- Mercer Island graduate Grant Tracy, a 6-6 junior forward at the University of Portland, averages 15 points and five rebounds a game for the Pilots. One of Tracy's high-school teammates, 6-7 forward Eric Brady, averages six points and five rebounds for Gonzaga University.

-- Redmond graduate Jeff Dick (6-2 sophomore) and Interlake grad Harold Doyal (6-8 freshman) each average 11.3 points as starters for the Western Washington University men's basketball team.