PORT ANGELES — Another one bites the dust.
Port Angeles High School will be looking for yet another football coach this spring after Dick Abrams stepped down Wednesday.
Abrams lasted just one season with the Roughriders, resigning after his wife, a physical education teacher in Stanwood, couldn’t find employment in the area.
“We just decided that I need to be around home,” said Abrams, who will take a psychologist job with the Monroe School District.
“It’s very difficult to leave. I saw so much improvement from our kids in the offseason.
“I’m thinking things are going to happen with them. The regret on my part is that I don’t get to be a part of that.”
District athletic director Jeff Clark said administrators hope to have candidates ready to interview by the last week in May.
A hiring decision could come soon thereafter.
“We have an outstanding group of football players and coaches preparing for next year’s season,” Clark said. “They’re working hard in the weight room, and planning for spring ball and summer football camp.
“We’re going to find a new coach that can hit the ground running in order to make this transition as smooth as possible. I remain optimistic that next season will see improvement in the program.”
Abrams’ departure is the same old story for a struggling Rider program coming off its worst decade in school history (29-67).
That inglorious 10-year run that ended with last year’s 0-10 campaign under Abrams, who had a little more than 40 athletes turn out for the varsity squad.
Whoever replaces Abrams will be the school’s seventh head coach since 2000 season (see box on Page B3), and third in the last three years.
“We have had a lot of turnover in coaching position, and we’re probably suffering a little bit from turnover fatigue at this point,” Clark said.
“My preference at this point would be [to make it] a priority to try and find somebody where we had reasonable assurances that they are going to be here for a while.
“You can never 100 percent guarantee that, but in the interview process I think that will be one of the things that will be a point of emphasis.
“We need some continuity.”
Prior to the turn of the millennium, Port Angeles had just two head coaches for 27 years.
Curt Bagby coached the Riders for 19 of those seasons, stepping down in 1992 with a 87-93 record. Mark Greenleaf coached the next eight seasons before stepping away in 2000.
Not a single coach has lasted longer than three seasons since.
And that, in the eyes of many, is the biggest reason Port Angeles has struggled to win consistently on the football field.
“If people ask me why we have struggled, it would be coaching continuity,” former Port Angeles athletic director Frank Prince said during a phone interview last November.
“My greatest sympathies go to the kids who are trying and playing. Those are the ones I feel most badly for, they are the ones that are working hard every day.
“I want them to have success. They’ve earned it. They work hard.”
