Kentwood’s Radford planned the year to perfection | COACH OF THE YEAR

Editor’s Note: The Reporter is highlighting its Coach of the Year in today’s edition. Tomorrow, the Reporter will highlight the dozen other coaches who were in the running for the honor.

Planning is an art form to Aaron Radford.

A blueprint for higher achievement. A roadmap to achieving a goal.

Properly implemented and with enough effort, success will follow. To Radford it all makes perfect sense, whether it be in his math class at Kentwood High or on the soccer field, where he coaches the school’s boys and girls teams.

The big payoff for Radford isn’t necessarily winning, either. Instead, like discovering the answer to an equation that has taken hours to solve, it’s about seeing it all come together on the field.

And this school year, there wasn’t a single coach in the Kent Valley whose plans came together better than Radford’s. Last fall, Radford guided Kentwood’s girls soccer team to a 18-3-1 overall record, a mark which included the program’s first-ever Class 4A state championship. The Kentwood coach nearly duplicated that feat in the spring, leading the boys team to a 17-2-3 overall record and a third-place trophy at the state tournament, which tied for the best finish in program history.

For Radford, it was all about having a plan from the beginning.

“My plan every single year is to come in and play 22 games. Before the year, I put together my plan, my training schedule, and prepare to play a 22-game schedule, which means that we’re in the Final Four every year,” said Radford, noting that he puts the same plan into effect for both genders.

Radford’s plan enjoyed unparalleled success this year.

Today, Radford can add one more feather to his cap as he has been named the Kent Reporter’s Coach of the Year.

A meticulous sort with a passion for soccer, one would be hard-pressed to find a person in any profession who puts in more time than Radford.

And he makes his expectations clear from the first day, too.

“He’s straightforward, and tells us what we need to do to get there,” said Mykala Benjamin, a forward. “He knew we could win it all. He had a vision of what we could do. We had goals, and we accomplished all of them.”

That “vision” was all part of Radford’s plan – and he takes no shortcuts.

“The dedication he puts in to high school soccer is incredible,” goalkeeper Courtney Johnson said. “He’s out scouting every night, watching game film, going to college practices to pick up new things.

“He brought that all to our team, and I think it helped us a lot.”

Yet, Radford’s determination to set up his teams for success did, at times, take a toll. That was especially true at home, where he is dad to two young daughters. Between juggling a team in the fall and another in the spring along with teaching full time at Kentwood, there were many days when Radford didn’t make it home for dinner.

“It’s hard. It is very hard to balance the job side with school, coaching and the family,” said Radford, who is 103-18-16 in seven years with the girls, and 56-32-17 in six years with the boys. “There are times during the season when I will see (my girls) on Sunday night, and because of the (game) schedule, they will be in bed every time I get home, so I won’t see them again until Saturday morning.

“It’s extremely hard to balance everything.”

There were times, however, when the entire family joined Radford on the field, like when the girls team knocked off Tahoma, 1-0 in a shootout, for the Class 4A title last November. Watching the girls celebrate in a heap at midfield is a memory Radford will cherish forever.

“I wanted to be on the dogpile as much as anybody, but it was their moment,” he said. “It was their joy, and watching them celebrate … it’s something I will never forget.”

Shortly after the season, Radford was recognized as the National Soccer Coaches Association of America Washington State Coach of the Year.

Radford’s remarkable run, however, hardly ended there.

In fact, only Phase I of Radford’s master plan was complete in the fall. Phase II didn’t take place until the spring, when he guided the boys to a third-place finish at the state tournament. While the girls team was expected to be among the state’s elite, the boys were not.

In fact, when the season kicked off in March, the Conquerors were tabbed as a “contender” for the South Puget Sound League North Division title, but making a deep run into state was an altogether different challenge. A challenge that, after last year’s fifth-place finish in league, few thought possible.

Radford, however, believed.

That belief began as a vision three years ago, when Radford mapped out a blueprint to success for this year’s Kentwood team. It was focused on going with young players in lieu of veterans. A tough decision at the time, Radford knew the move would pay dividends.

“I looked at who we had coming back and who we had coming up and thought that when these guys were sophomores and juniors, we could have an impact,” Radford explained. “I usually don’t change a bunch of stuff one year to the next, but as (soccer) players develop and get more mature, they become better thinkers and hear some of the things that we talk about year after year.”

The impact of that plan was felt immediately this spring, when the Conquerors stunned league favorite Jefferson by a 2-1 margin in the season opener.

As the season progressed, Radford’s Conquerors continued to stun and surprise – so much so, in fact, that by season’s end, it wasn’t much of a surprise when Kentwood grabbed that third-place trophy from the state tournament on May 28 after blanking Stadium, 2-0.

Now, however, it’s a matter of Radford finding a way to get both the boys and the girls to repeat.

Neither team graduated many players, which could add additional pressure to the coach.

“I think both the boys and the girls are going to have their own special challenges next season,” Radford admitted.

And, when the time comes, Radford will map out a plan to meet those “special challenges.”

That is, of course, if he hasn’t mapped one out already.