Thursday, May 19, 2011

Dave Larson of Highline named NBUA 2011 High School Varsity Coach of the Year

John Philbeck and Fritz Timm of NBUA present Dave Larson with the NBUA 2011 Coach of the Year.

by John Philbeck
NBUA Board of Directors

The first ever Northwest Baseball Umpires Association High School Varsity Coach of the Year nomination and selection was completed last week. The result was incredibly close and exceptionally good. There were eight deserving nominations and every candidate was right in the middle of the voting. In fact, when the polls were closed at midnight last Tuesday the voting resulted in every candidate finishing either win, place or show!
 
Coming in one vote ahead of the four that tied for second was Dave Larson of Highline High School. The other three candidates all tied for third. In total we had thirty-five votes cast by our members. Since these coaches are primarily seen by our A Tier and College List members all but two of the votes came from this segment of our association. There are 72 college and A Tier members which means we had a 46 percent turnout in the voting. Thank you all for your participation. The 39 that abstained, just know that your vote could have completely altered the final outcome.
 
Once the final votes were tabulated and the result confirmed we prepared and mailed letters of congratulations to the athletic director of each of the coaches nominated. These letters informed the schools of the criteria we used for the nominations of their coach and expressed our sincere gratitude that we are blessed with so many and such outstanding leaders in our schools.
 
Highline High School Athletic Director Mary Segle was contacted by phone and informed of Dave’s selection. Ms. Segle graciously made arrangements for us to attend the school assembly that Friday at noon so that we could honor Coach Larson in front of the entire student body. We prepared a framed certificate and Fritz Timm met me at the school Friday just before noon.
 
We met with Ms. Segle who did an excellent job of requiring Coach Larson to attend the assembly because “he had to be there for his seniors”. As the assembly began Fritz and I stood back in an alcove but, despite our lurking in the shadows, Coach Larson looked directly at us when he walked into the gym. The funny thing was that, even though he noticed these strangers, there was absolutely no moment of recognition. We were completely out of context as we didn’t have our caps or any gear.
We were handed the microphone and we announced that we were from the Northwest Baseball Umpires Association. This brought forth a loud cheer from the students, which was very confusing. After again stating that we were UMPIRES a few of the students began to get into the right spirit and we enjoyed a far more familiar and comfortable welcome.
 
After the boos and hissing subsided we explained why we were at Highline and announced that their coach, Dave Larson, had been selected as our High School Varsity Coach of the Year. We had Coach Larson come out onto the floor with us, we handed him the certificate and the student body really displayed their pride and honored their coach with a standing ovation that lasted a couple of minutes.
 
Coach Larson was very surprised and extremely gracious. He was, as one would expect, a perfect choice for the first ever recipient of our High School Varsity Coach of the Year!