Longtime coach and administrator John Griffin dies after cancer battle

Longtime basketball coach, teacher and school administrator John Griffin died on Saturday after battling prostate cancer. He was 64.

Griffin was an assistant coach on the Camas girls basketball team, which won the program’s first state championship when it captured the Class 4A title in March.

Camas honored Griffin’s fight against cancer as part of its senior night festivities on Feb. 4. The school held a “Blue Out” night to raise awareness of the disease and recognized the coach during halftime of that night’s boys basketball game.

Griffin’s impact on students goes well beyond Camas. In 1995, he coached the Mountain View girls basketball team to a second-place finish at the state tournament.

A history teacher by trade, Griffin served as athletic director and assistant principal at Fort Vancouver High School from 2001 to 2012. After serving as dean of students at Heritage High, he joined King’s Way Christian Schools as its principal in 2014 before taking on the role of superintendent in 2016.

In all, Griffin worked as a teacher, coach and administrator in local schools for more than 35 years. He influenced the lives of thousands of students and started a mentorship program while at Fort Vancouver.

A celebration of life will take place Saturday, Sept. 28 at 1 p.m. in the Hudson’s Bay High School gymnasium. Griffin was a 1978 graduate of Hudson’s Bay.