Prep Notebook | Former Edmonds coach dies at 96

Rich Rowe, who touched thousands of lives as a teacher and football and baseball coach at Edmonds High School from 1946 until the early 1970s, died last Saturday at his home in Kamuela, Hawaii. He was 96.

Rowe began coaching in 1939 at Montesano, then coached at Elma and Chehalis before arriving at Edmonds in 1946.

When Rowe retired, he said he didn't know how many games he had won or lost and said he really didn't care. He said the main purpose of high-school sports was to develop character, not to see how many games a coach could win during a career.

He let his quarterbacks call their own plays, figuring, as he put it once, "the game was for the boys to play." He disliked what he called "the puppet effect" in sports where "the boy cannot make a move without a coach first pulling a string."

Rowe believed games should be fun, but he also was a disciplinarian who ran tight, well-organized practices and stressed fundamentals.

Rowe was inducted into the state football coaches hall of fame in 1978.

4A football title game

in works for KingCo

The KingCo Conference will have a 4A football championship game next fall.

Under the conference's new alignment for the 2008 season, the winners of the two six-team Class 4A divisions will play a championship game in the ninth week of the season.

Depending on how many berths the conference receives for the state playoffs, the second- and possibly even third-place teams could also play in Week 9 to determine seeding.

Mount Rainier

seeks football coach

Mount Rainier is looking for a football coach, and athletic director Darren Rawie believes the remodeled Des Moines school has a lot of selling points.

"With the facilities we have and the enrollment we have, this is a job that's ripe for the picking," he said.

Mike Kuklenski recently resigned as coach after back-to-back 1-9 seasons.

Mount Rainier is among the larger Class 3A schools in the state and now has a "state of the art" weight room, Rawie pointed out.

"We're aggressively going to recruit some of the top-notch [coaching] talent in the area," he said.

A teaching position may accompany the coaching position. Rawie said applicants should send resumes to him and to the Highline School District human-resources department.

Beamer coach's

"interim" tag removed

Gem Abe is officially the head football coach at Beamer High School in Federal Way.

Abe was hired as interim coach last year after Dick Zatkovich unexpectedly resigned last February. Jerry Peterson, Beamer athletic director, said the "interim" tag has been removed.

The Titans started the 2007 season 2-0 before finishing 2-8.

Coaches inducted into

track and field hall

Three coaches were inducted into the Washington State Track and Field Coaches Association Hall of Fame last weekend.

They were Jim Kennett (Mount Rainier, Kentridge, Kentwood high schools), Jerry Russell (Franklin Pierce, Lincoln), Greg Lewis (Hanford, Goldendale) and Dan Blackmer (King's).

Also honored at the track coaches' annual convention was Dawn Geiser of Skyline as female coach of the year and Kevin Eager of Gig Harbor as male coach of the year.

Bob Sund was named official of the year and Craig Smith of The Seattle Times was recognized as a "contributor" to the sport.

Note

• Class 4A state champion Andrea Nelson, a sophomore from Spokane's Shadle Park High School, has been named Gatorade girls cross-country runner of the year for Washington.

Times staff reporters Sandy Ringer and

Tom Wyrwich and freelancer Zach Landres-Schnur contributed to this report.