Coaches spotlight: Bellevue's Goncharoff an unparalleled motivator

BELLEVUE — He'd heard of the promising young coach with the sparkling record and the easy rapport, but Bill Heglar needed some evidence.

Heglar, then a first-year coach at Bellevue, had been told Butch Goncharoff was loved by players, respected by the community and came with a recommendation from one of the city's foremost football authorities, former Wolverines coach Dwaine Hatch.

But when it came to the X's and O's, well, that was another matter.

"I didn't know how much he knew about football," said Heglar, now coach at Seattle Prep.

So he proposed to start Goncharoff, a veteran of the youth ranks, at the freshman level. But the young coach politely pressed for a role on the varsity staff.

"I didn't really know quite what to think about that," Heglar said. "I was coaching running backs and linebackers, so I said, 'You can be with me.' ... Basically, it was a way for me to find out what he knew."

Goncharoff, it turned out, knew plenty.

"After two days," Heglar said, "I thought, 'I'd better get the hell out of his way and let him coach.' "

Tomorrow, seven years after joining the Bellevue staff and three seasons after assuming control of the program, Goncharoff leads the Wolverines (11-1) against Lynden (10-2) for the Class 3A state title.

The game, a rematch of last year's championship contest won by Bellevue 42-15, will start at 7:30 p.m. at the Tacoma Dome.

"There's something about (Butch)," said assistant coach Joe Razore, a 1998 Bellevue graduate. "He has a way of motivating people that is unparalleled in my life experience."

In three seasons under Goncharoff, the Wolverines are 30-4, including a perfect 7-0 in the state playoffs. They have won 26 of their past 27 games and this season have outscored their opponents by an average of 32 points.

Folks who have followed Goncharoff's career say his recent success is simply a higher-profile continuation of a winning pattern he established years ago.

Return to his days of coaching youth football, they'll say, and take a look at his methods.

See how he instilled discipline and stressed attention to detail. See how his teams were consistently among the toughest and best prepared. See how he exuded that same, quiet confidence on the sideline, refusing to punt even when faced with fourth-and-forever.

And finally, take a look at the record.

In more than a decade with the Junior Wolverines program, Goncharoff went 104-4-1.

"He was the best," said assistant coach Les Dicks. "He was really a good coach. ... It was pretty amazing (to watch)."

Goncharoff, 38, has been classified in recent years as something of a wing-T wizard, though he says he knew nothing of the offense when he came to Bellevue in 1995.

That first year, he met Neil Buckmaster, a longtime assistant to Hatch, who had stayed on under Heglar. And it was Buckmaster, Goncharoff said, who really schooled him in the fundamentals of the wing-T offense.

"He was always really curious," said Buckmaster, now the freshman coach at Bellevue. "And he bought into it just like we did."

Seven years later, Goncharoff has made the offense his own and his team a perennial contender.

He'd prefer to deflect the credit somewhere else, to his players, perhaps, or to his assistants.

"This just isn't me," he said before reluctantly giving an interview this week in the Bellevue weight room.

He'll later say he doesn't even collect trophies or awards or for that matter, newspaper stories. The one exception is the framed account of last year's state-title game given him by the team at the end-of-the-season banquet. He says it remains the only reminder of last year's magical season that is displayed in his home.

What Goncharoff holds on to are the letters.

The ones he gets from former players, thanking him for the hours he invested in their future. These are the items he keeps, tucked away in a shoebox, because in the end, he says, relationships mean more than any statistic or score.

"If people know you care about them," Goncharoff says, "they're going to play for you to no end."

Many say this is Goncharoff's real strength, his ability to build relationships with players.

During the offseason, for instance, it's not uncommon to find him lifting weights with the team (several people say he has the biggest arms on the squad). He frequently helps his players put together highlight tapes to send to college coaches. He makes phone calls, too, and writes letters on their behalf. He has been known to help players find jobs, sometimes even hiring them to work at the print shop he owns and operates in Bellevue.

"I don't think his success comes from his knowledge of football and X's and O's," said assistant Wes Warren, a 1998 Bellevue graduate. "I think it's because of the relationships he builds in the offseason. Once he becomes one of your friends, you just want to work hard for him."

Goncharoff, a 1982 graduate of Bellevue's Interlake High School, talks about Bellevue football being a family, and Warren is a classic example. A second-team All-KingCo 3A linebacker his senior year, Warren mulled over the possibility of playing football at a small college somewhere, but opted to attend Washington.

The decision all but ended his football career.

That spring, for graduation, Warren said Goncharoff gave him H.G. Bissinger's book, "Friday Night Lights," a real-life story of big-time, high-school football in Texas.

Inside, the coach had scribbled a message.

Something about giving coaching a try, especially if Warren was going to be staying in town.

Five years later, Warren is coaching Bellevue's offensive line. Before that day, he said he hadn't thought of coaching at all. Now, he says he can't think of anything else.

"He certainly is the kind of coach I'd want my kids to play for," Buckmaster said. "I think he is the epitome of what a coach should be."