With 151 wins — and counting — at Skyview, Steve Kizer is proud to say that all of his wins as a head coach have come at one school

Paul Valencia
ClarkCountyToday.com

The energy remains.

The positive vibe he exudes is contagious.

Even at 66 years of age, he has a youthful soul, and he still connects with the younger generation.

“I haven’t missed a season since 1973. I haven’t missed a practice since 1973. I never took a year off, never took a fall off, never took a day off,” Skyview football coach Steve Kizer said. “I”m not bragging. I just feel fortunate that I was able to do that. I feel really fortunate that I was healthy enough to do that.”

His time as head coach, though, is coming to an end. While it was not a big secret, Kizer made it official with his team earlier this week, telling the Storm that this would be his final season. 

He was an eighth-grader in Seattle in 1973 when he first started playing football. Then came high school, college, and immediately after college days as an athlete, he got into coaching.

In 2003, he accepted the job of a lifetime, hired at Skyview High School as a teacher and a coach. In 2004, he became the head coach of the Storm.

“This is pretty special,” Kizer said of Skyview. “The people … they’ve been great. The kids at Skyview are awesome. We have the greatest kids at Skyview. Not just the football players, the student body. They are special. I’m proud of what we’ve done here, and I want it to continue to be successful.”

Kizer’s teams have won 151 games — and counting — in his 21 seasons as the head coach.  The Storm have won five league championships, reached the state semifinals three times, and played in the state championship game once.

He also gets to proudly claim that his 151 high school wins as a head coach have come at one place.

You see, for the first half of his coaching career, he was an assistant coach in college football, with stops at Western Washington, Walla Walla Community College, and Eastern Washington University. He was still climbing the coaching ladder in that chaotic world when a life-changing moment hit him like a blind-side blitz.

Karla and Steve Kizer welcomed their son Luke on a Friday in 1999. By that Monday, Steve was on the road, back on the recruiting trail.

“I loved it,” he said of college football, “but you’re gone a lot. It never stops. We gotta win, or we get fired.”

Leaving Karla and Luke behind that day led Kizer to another path. He wanted to remain in football, but he wanted more stability. Teaching and coaching at the high school level would do the trick. So he started making inquiries.

He actually had several opportunities, interviewing for myriad positions around the Northwest. He still recalls telling one friend: “If I can get the Skyview job, that’s the one I want.”

He got the job, but with a catch. He did teach a college course when he was a college coach, but he was new to full-time teaching at a high school. So that first year, Vancouver Public Schools gave him the chance at teaching but asked that he share the head coaching duties. That was the 2003 football season.

By the middle of that season, Kizer was more of an assistant coach, just with a better title. That first year, he said, does not really count for him as being a head coach. In fact, he was so frustrated with that role that he was planning on moving on from Skyview. The school administration would make a decision soon after that 2003 season: Kizer would become THE head coach.

“Co-head coaches doesn’t work,” Kizer said.

Jumping into the 2004 season, Kizer had a goal.

“I was hoping to stay here at least until Luke graduated,” Kizer said.

Luke is now 23 years old, so yes, Steve Kizer accomplished his goal.

But it sure did not feel like that was going to be the case. Not at the beginning.

The 2004 squad went 3-7. The 2005 squad went 3-7.

Always the competitor, Kizer still gets fired up about 2005.

“It could have been 7-3. We lost four of those games on the last play of the game. We competed against everybody,” Kizer said. “We were a way better 3-7.”

Then the special 2006 season. There was an 11-game win streak, a league championship, a trip to the state quarterfinals. And, of course, the inspiring story of the Foote family. Skyview football player Trey Foote died of cancer that season, but Trey and Trey’s family inspired not just Skyview, but the entire nation with their fight.

The day after Trey’s death, his father Jim gave the pre-game talk to the Storm.

“It was unbelievable,” Kizer said. “We’re not losing tonight.”

That night, the Storm won their first league title in program history.

(Sadly, the Storm dealt with another tragedy this season. This interview with Kizer was conducted a day before the death of junior William “Liam” Sloan. The Storm played two days after Sloan’s death, with the blessing of Liam’s family.)

In 2009, the Storm made it to the semifinals for the first time, 

Great teams, great accomplishments, but again, Kizer’s competitive nature gets the best of him. In the 2006 quarterfinals, the Storm had the game won with a defensive stop, but a head slap penalty gave Oak Harbor another chance. In 2009, the Storm lost by five, and that included a pick-six from Ferris just before halftime.

“I’m over it. I’m over it,” Kizer said in a terrible effort to convince himself that he was, indeed, over it. 

Then, he concedes: “I still have this bad taste in my mouth.”

In 2011, the Storm made it all the way to the state championship game, falling to Skyline.

The Storm have now recorded 18 consecutive winning regular seasons and, at 4-2 this season, appear on the way to making it 19 in a row. Skyview has only missed qualifying for the postseason once since 2005.

“People told me, ‘You’re not going to win here. The kids are soft. You’ll hate the parents.’ When I go on vacation, I go with the parents,” Kizer said. “They’re my favorite people in the world, parents of the kids who played here at Skyview.”

Kizer said he was also at the right place at the right time.

“With the society we have now, I might not have made it to ‘06,” Kizer said of his first two seasons. “Three-and-seven and three-and-seven, and now people are gone. I’m glad they had the patience for us to turn the ship around.”

Kizer said one of the biggest keys to success for Skyview has been its incredible run of assistant coaches through the years. It was crucial that most of his coaches were in the building, on staff at Skyview.

He also gave a shout-out to opposing coaches in the area. He said that while they were rivals and certainly wanted to defeat each other in the fall, he learned a lot from Cale Piland (former Evergreen and Union coach) and the late John O’Rourke of Columbia River, to name a couple, in the offseason.  

One hundred fifty one wins and counting later … Kizer is preparing for the final stretch of his final season with the Storm.

“It didn’t look like I was ever going to get 100 wins when you only win three a year. I wasn’t going to live long enough,” he says with a laugh.

He has not tried to figure out just how many wins, total, he has been a part of in his entire football career as a player, assistant coach in college, and then as coach at Skyview. But he still remembers one of the most important lessons he learned from football, from the very first day he played as an eighth-grader.

“My coach said you can’t miss practice,” Kizer recalled. “I said, ‘OK.’ Then my high school coach said you can’t be sick during the season. I said, ‘OK.’”

Kizer took that to heart. 

When the Seattle Seahawks entered the NFL as an expansion team in the 1970s, Kizer landed a job as a visiting team clubhouse attendant. He was in the locker during pre-game and at halftime, listening to Hall of Fame coaches such as John Madden and Don Shula. Kizer knew back then that football would be his calling.

Kizer then proved that one does not have to be a coach in the NFL or the upper college ranks in order to make an impact.

“He is almost synonymous with Skyview,” said Julian Williams, an associate principal and athletic director at Skyview who played at Eastern Washington when Kizer was a coach there. “He is one of the main forces that put Skyview on the map.”

Skyview was not known for its athletic excellence when Kizer arrived. 

“He changed the perception, first of the football program, and then of the athletic program,” Williams said.

He taught young people that there was a process to success and there was no easy way to win.

“He changed the excitement around the school,” Williams said. “Everybody started winning. Everybody started catching that fever.”

Kizer is not exactly sure what he will be doing next football season. He said one day he might come back and help out the staff, but not next year. He said it is very important for a former coach to stay away, at least for one season. 

His wife Karla runs the Urban Spa Salon in Vancouver.

“I’ll go down there and sweep the floors or whatever,” Kizer said.

Kizer intentionally waited to tell the entire team of his plans to retire until this week as Skyview prepares for its three-game league schedule. Skyview takes on Union on Friday in the first 4A Greater St. Helens League matchup of the season.

“What a great senior class we have right here. This is the perfect group to go out with,” Kizer said.

The coach does have his opinion on who should take over the program, but he understands that it would be inappropriate for him to say so publicly. The school will open the position. 

Kizer also has a message for the younger players in the program.

“We’re going to keep this thing going for you underclassmen,” Kizer said. “I’ll do whatever I can to make sure there is a good coach replacing me because I care what happens afterward.”

Steve Kizer has cared about football all of his life.

Skyview High School is grateful that Kizer found his way to Vancouver, to care for its football family.