Cascade head coach Steve Turner talks with his team after they won against Scappoose during the OSAA 4A state championship game, Saturday, November 28, 2015, at Hillsboro Stadium in Hillsboro, Ore. Cascade won the game 37-28.
Steve Turner didn’t intend it this way, but he’s still going out a winner.
He coached Cascade High School’s football team to the OSAA Class 4A state championship this fall in his fourth year as the school’s coach.
But after 30 or so years of coaching and 40 of being involved in football, Turner met with Cascade’s players Friday and told them he was retiring.
“Winning didn’t really have anything to do with it,” Turner said. “It is a great way to go out, but that didn’t have anything to do with my decision.
“For years and years and years I always expected the best out of our kids. I asked them to give me 100 percent. I can’t give them 100 percent anymore. It’s not fair for the kids to have a coach who’s not going to give them 100 percent. I can’t coach the way I have in the past. That was the main reason.”
Cascade football team wins 4A state title with win over Scappoose
A graduate of Willamette, Turner’s first coaching position was an assistant coaching job at Cascade in 1978, and he spent six years as an assistant under coaches Len Federico and Karl Elliott – including help win the school’s first state championship in 1980.
After stops at Rainier, North Medford, Crook County and Mountain View – which he coached to the 5A state championship in 2011 – it was appropriate that Turner finished his coaching career back at Cascade.
“You talk about full circle, I started here and I finished here,” Turner said. “I always promised Leonard Federico if I ever could come back I would. There was a lot of emotion out here, a lot of emotional ties. It was the right thing to do to come back and it’s the right time to step away.”
In Turner’s four years at Cascade, his teams went 37-9, reached the state playoff four times, the state semifinals two times and won the school’s second state championship this fall.
Turner will continue teaching at Cascade until the end of the school year.
Under Steve Turner’s guidance, Cascade gets back on top
Turner said he and wife, Mary, intend to move to Eugene, where she volunteers as a meet official at Hayward Field.
He said he wants to spend time traveling – mostly going to sporting events – and enjoy his second retirement from teaching.
“I want to see what it’s like to not coach,” Turner said. “I’ve had several offers already. I’m not going to. I want to see what it’s like. When I quit coaching wrestling and baseball, I wanted to see what it was like.
“Like I told our players the other day, 1966 was the last time I wasn’t on a football team. We’ll see how that works.”
bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com, (503) 399-6701 or Twitter.com/bpoehler