Ingraham Ad Leaving `Best Job In Building'

Bruce Clute, Ingraham High School athletic director and activities coordinator since 1964, is retiring from what he calls "the best job in the building."

"It's a positive, upbeat job," said Clute, 62, an outspoken critic of some past and present school-district policies.

"You get to work with the kids who are involved in the school, and you get to participate in the things that really make school fun."

He has enjoyed accompanying the Ingraham band on its annual trip to Victoria, B.C., for the Victoria Day parade. And he said, "We've put on some great assemblies."

The school's Bicentennial assembly was so good it "went on the road" and was performed at various sites throughout the state.

In athletics, Clute has seen a lot of changes at Ingraham, mainly watching the school go from a state champion in various sports to a lower-division finisher in the Metro League.

Clute was around for most of the glory years of late football coach Tony Gasparovich, who compiled a 109-37-3 record from 1960-76. Gasparovich was succeeded by longtime assistant John Zeger, whose nine-year record of 45-24 included two Metro titles and a 14-8 loss to Snohomish in the 1978 Kingbowl.

The Rams under Coach Ron Sidenquist won the Class AAA championship in 1988 by shutting out Kentwood 21-0.

In basketball, the Rams won the 1969 state tournament under Coach Walt Milroy.

Ingraham won the state track title in 1965 with 36 points - 28 by Eric Klein and eight by Gordon Reed.

The Rams also won state volleyball titles in 1973 and '74 with Coach Carol Garinger and the boys golf title in 1972 under Glen Evanger.

Clute coached the Ingraham softball team for seven years and helped as an assistant through the 1994 season. He made headlines last year when he decried the switch from slowpitch to fastpitch. He said what was once a sport that appealed to everyone was in danger of becoming a pastime for only private schools, whose pitchers sharpen their skills in summer leagues.

"When we were playing slowpitch, we could teach girls the game," he said. "They weren't facing a 65-mile-an-hour pitcher."

Clute said busing, which started in the late 1970s, hurt Ingraham because it stopped being a community school.

"The argument I made then has nothing to do with race or ethnicity," he said. "It was a matter of community. When you take away a community base, you essentially have no school base."

Athletes were bused out of the Ingraham area, and many of the students bused in found athletics inconvenient because they spent so much time on buses.

Clute said the number of students involved in athletics dropped from 600-700 in pre-busing days to fewer than 300 now.

Busing is ending in the Seattle School District, but Clute said, "We aren't going to regain the community stature we once had." For one thing, he said, a lot of families that would have been loyal Ingraham households have moved to the suburbs.

Clute also said the school district should have "put more focus on the teaching staff and kept coaches in the building" to maintain high standards in academic and athletic programs.

"They should have made the athletic programs part of the educational process rather than making them orphans," he said. "We've had to rely on out-of-building coaches, and regardless of how good they are, they don't have the influence of coaches who teach in the building. When Gasparovich and Milroy were here, they were as much counselors to the kids as coaches. They helped them and also kept them in line."

Clute said in the past 10 years the school district "has made this school a recipient of many of the dropouts and expulsions from other schools." But, Clute said, "I still believe this to be the safest school in the district. . . . We have very good and dedicated security people here, and our administration steps in on those problems we have very quickly."

For example, in late October, a small group of Ingraham students painted graffiti at Ballard High School's interim site, the old Lincoln High building in Wallingford. Ingraham's football game against the Beavers and other homecoming activities were canceled.

Unfortunately, it was the winless Rams' last good chance to win. As expected, they lost to powerhouse O'Dea in the season finale.

Although he misses the old days, Clute said he didn't retire early "because the job was still fun. I got to work with good kids. The current student council, for example, is one of the best groups I've worked with in the past six to eight years."

Clute's replacement is Traci Huffer, 35, who taught physical education and coached tennis at Ingraham before her promotion.