In 1981, a young Steve Kizer got his start coaching football by overseeing defensive backs at Western Washington University for $1,000.
With his college playing career having just ended and a bachelor’s degree from Western in hand, the unexpected job offer to coach small-college football came with unexpected challenges: the Vikings’ first winless campaign in a half-century.
“I tried to coach,” Kizer said, reflecting on his two-year tenure in Bellingham. The next season, WWU went 1-8.
“We were awful.”
Losing didn’t last long for Kizer, but coaching football has.
Kizer, 65, decided prior to the 2024 high school football season this will be his final one as Skyview’s head coach after 21 years. It will end a 44-year run coaching football — first at the collegiate level from 1981-2002 and at Skyview since 2003. On staff as an assistant his first year, Kizer became the Storm’s head coach a year later.
Entering this season, Kizer said he believed it is the right time to retire as Skyview’s head coach whenever the 2024 season comes to a close.
“It’s time to give the assistant coaches a chance to move up,” the coach said, “and someone else to take over.”
For all his coaching expertise prior to Vancouver, it wasn’t until Kizer took over at Skyview in 2004 that he became a first-time head coach in his early 40s.
After defensive assistant-coaching stints at Western Washington, Walla Walla Community College and Eastern Washington University, he chose to model his own program from college coaches he worked under and men he calls his role models. Kizer said a common trait between Mike Kramer, Mike Levens, Gary Knect and John Voleck — formerly head coaches at Walla Walla and Eastern Washington — was building a family-first atmosphere around football.
That’s one of the reasons why Kizer is proud to make that a focal point of his program’s success.
“My assistant coaches have been incredible here,” Kizer said, “and their wives are even better. … I think you have to have that, or you’ll never last.”
What worked in college has worked at Skyview. From practice plans and weight lifting to off-season schedules, Kizer runs Skyview like a college program. One unique aspect: varsity coaches at Skyview also coach the junior varsity games because Kizer believes sub-varsity players deserve varsity coaching, too.
“I wanted to do what we did there,” he said, “because it worked.”
Under Kizer, Skyview has reached the postseason 18 times, posted 11 seasons of eight or more victories, tallied three semifinal appearances and reached the Class 4A state title game in 2011.
But the season that crosses Kizer’s mind first is 2006. That year, the program lost safety Trey Foote after a two-year battle with bone cancer. The day after Foote’s death, his father, Jim, gave the team a motivational pre-game speech before Skyview topped Battle Ground at District Stadium to clinch the first of six league titles under Kizer’s watch. That 11-win season remains the most single-season victories in program history.
In fact, Kizer spoke with the Foote family following Skyview’s most recent tragedy: the sudden passing of junior right tackle William “Liam” Sloan, who died in his sleep from natural causes Oct. 10. Two days later, Skyview chose to play its scheduled non-league contest against Richland. The Storm won, 21-14.
“We needed to play,” Kizer said. “That was one of the best things that could’ve happened is to play.”
One week after the teenager’s death, Kizer said he, his coaching staff and players continue to cope, but gain strength every day.
Football helps. So does the family atmosphere Kizer and his staff create. The coach hopes that pulls the team closer as they continue to push forward together. He pointed to senior defensive end Riah Tua’s leadership through the hardest of times.
“We’re lucky we do have that,” he said. “If anything, I’m hoping the family atmosphere pulls us together tighter. It sure seems like it has after something like this happens.”
Now 65 years young, Kizer is as active of a head coach as you’ll find. In addition to head-coaching duties and teaching physical education at Skyview, he also coaches linebackers as a position coach. At a recent practice, Kizer played linebacker during individual drills with the running backs.
That’s not a surprise to senior middle linebacker Kaden Hamlin.
“He loves football,” Hamlin said, “and I think he’s just willing to do whatever it takes for us to win and be successful.”
Hamlin has grown up around Kizer and Skyview football on and off the field since his father is associate head coach and former longtime offensive coordinator Matt Hamlin. Kaden Hamlin said playing for Kizer is special, but what makes the man known as “Kize” is one of a kind.
“Kize is just Kize,” Hamlin said. “There’s really no way to explain it. … He’s always fired up. He brings energy every single day and he loves being out here everyday.”
Former Camas coach Jon Eagle, now leading Oregon 6A West Linn, is 12-2 in 14 meetings against Kizer. That includes his West Linn team’s 45-0 win over Skyview at Kiggins Bowl on Sept. 27. Eleven of those wins came when Eagle led Camas from 2008 through the spring COVID season of 2021.
Eagle might own the head-to-head record, but few teams gave the coach more sleepless nights over the years than Skyview and facing a coach he called “first-class.”
“In my mind, Steve Kizer made everybody in Southwest Washington a better coach,” Eagle said. “As an offensive guy, Skyview’s defense kept me up at night — not just that week, all year round. And that’s the truth.
“I can still see their defense in my dreams.”
As luck would have it, years before Eagle and Kizer applied to be at Skyview in 2003, the two first met in 1980 as college students from different schools. As Eagle tells it, they sat “in the trunk of a car with our legs hanging out” at a mutual friend’s bachelor party in Tacoma.
That following year in 1981, is when Kizer became first-time coach in Bellingham for $1,000, unsure if coaching football would last as a career.
Next fall, he plans to travel to watch ex-Skyview players now on college football rosters. It will be the first time he’ll miss a practice or a season since 1974. But not before coaching in what he hopes is another memorable, final season as Skyview’s head coach. That continues Friday when Skyview (4-2) faces Union (1-4) at 7 p.m. at McKenzie Stadium to open 4A Greater St. Helens League play.
“I feel fortunate that I can tell that story,” he said.
