Kentwood's Tom Ingles puts the fun in fundamentals

COVINGTON — Lots of laughs, tons of techniques, a wealth of wins.

Tom Ingles brings plenty to the table as a high-school football coach. He's a magnetic man who draws the best out of those around him at Kentwood.

"When you have a head coach with the personality and heart for football like Tom does, you feel guilty if you're not working hard," said former assistant Ralph Galloway, who has coached with Ingles on and off for the past 13 years. "You want to work as hard as he is. He's an exemplary example."

Ingles coaches with passion and pizzazz, propelling the Conquerors into the Class 4A title game for the third time in the past four years. Kentwood (12-1), the defending champion, plays Capital (10-2) of Olympia on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Tacoma Dome.

Ingles is not just a whiz with X's and O's. He stresses a family atmosphere in the program, complete with pregame meals and postgame pizza parties, and knows how to put the fun in fundamentals.

"He coaches us with positives," senior center Drew Edwards said. "Every once in a while, you get yelled at — you know, it's football. But he never gets down on us. Mr. (Kurt) Phelps was telling us that if we go play at the next level, we'll see how good we have it here with Mr. Ingles. And he is one of the funniest guys I know."

Film sessions are more like comedy hour, with Ingles at his stand-up best. No misstep goes unnoticed.

"If I fall over — I'm not a very graceful person, I fall like a big tea kettle," said the 6-foot-2, 250-pound Edwards, "and he (Ingles) likes to rewind it three or four times and make his little comments."

And Ingles is master at making the most of the talent he has. In his 13 years at Kentwood, Ingles has never had a losing season, continuing the legacy begun by Dave Lutes when the school opened in 1981. The Conquerors are 104-37 under Ingles, 25-2 over the past two seasons, and won the school's first state football title last year.

"Kids want to play for him," Kentridge Coach Marty Osborn said. "He really extracts every ounce from them."

Ingles was the immediate choice to take over the Kentwood program when Lutes left to become Kent Schools athletic director in 1990.

"I told them (administrators) I thought the best coach in the state was Tom Ingles," Lutes said.

At the time, Ingles was head coach at Liberty of Issaquah, where he had built an 86-46 record over 13 seasons that included a 13-0 run to the 3A state title in 1988.

Lutes still considers Ingles among the coaching greats. With a career record of 190-83, he now ranks 17th on the state's all-time career coaching list, seventh among active coaches.

"There are a lot of great coaches in the state, but Tom is certainly in the top 1 or 2 percent," Lutes said. "We (Lutes and his staff) built a great foundation for Kentwood, but Tom has really built the house, or maybe I should say mansion."

Someday, the mansion will need a new head master. Ingles retired from teaching after 30 years last June, but returned to teach at Kentwood under the state's retire-rehire program. Lutes happily renewed his coaching contract. But the teaching contract remains year-to-year, and Ingles won't know until later this month whether the Kent School District will again rehire him for 2003-04. He has indicated he would not return to coach at Kentwood if he was not teaching there, because he commutes daily from DuPont, which is south of Tacoma.

Ingles does want to teach and coach somewhere.

"I'm having as much fun as I did in 1972," said Ingles, 53, reflecting on the start of his coaching career. "We'll see how it goes, but I'm sure I'll still be hanging around coaching somewhere. I'm still relatively young from the standpoint of coaching. ... I'm not ready to roll up the lounge chair and sit back and watch life. I've got a few more good years left in me."

And, undoubtedly, a lot more wins.

Sandy Ringer: sringer@seattletimes.com.