West all-star team head coach Mark Stewart, from Meadowdale High, is a ‘high-class guy’

Published 10:28 pm Friday, June 25, 2010

EVERETT — It’s easy to see why Mark Stewart commands respect on the football field.

First, he’s a large man. That grabs teenagers’ attention.

Plus, Stewart has walked the walk. A first-team All-American outside linebacker at the University of Washington, where he played from 1979-1982, Stewart was selected by the Minnesota Vikings in the fifth round of the NFL draft. The California native played two seasons with the Vikings and part of a season in the Canadian Football League.

But Stewart, now a coach, rarely brings up his impressive athletic achievements.

“If you ask him about it he’ll tell you,” said Nasser Kyobe, a 2009 Meadowdale High School graduate who played for Stewart, “but he doesn’t bring it up on his own.”

Instead, Stewart — the West team’s head coach for today’s Class 3A/4A East-West All-Star Football Game — devotes his time to making others better.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever been around a better football mind,” said Troy Parker, Stewart’s longtime friend and an assistant football coach at Meadowdale. “He was a great defensive player, but as a coach what he really has a passion for is offensive-line play.”

An East-West assistant coach twice before, this is Stewart’s debut as head coach in the annual game that features many of the state’s best Class of 2010 high school gridiron standouts. Following the game, which kicks off at 1 p.m., Stewart will continue preparing for his 11th season at Meadowdale.

Football has been a rare constant in life for Stewart, who endured a shocking amount of tragedy. He dealt with the death of his mom, dad, step-dad and two brothers during a span of 18 years that started his second year in college.

Stewart said his mom died of complications related to alcoholism. About three months before she died she flew to Seattle and watched Stewart, then a redshirt freshman, come off the bench and play well for the Huskies.

By age 25 Stewart also lost his step-dad, who was Stewart’s primary father figure, and his biological dad, who Stewart said was manic-depressive and committed suicide. Later, Stewart’s older brother died of a drug overdose and his younger brother died of cancer.

Each time he lost a loved one, Stewart pressed on.

“What else are you going to do?” said Stewart.

Stewart’s love of sports, especially coaching, gave him something positive to hold onto. It helped him bond with his son, Marlon Stewart, a Mercer Island High grad who is the video coordinator for the University of California Berkeley men’s basketball team and aspires to become a coach.

As Meadowdale’s football coach, Mark Stewart values every day, every practice, every interaction.

“Football is something that myself, personally, and people that I’m around and friends and the community kind of rally around,” he said.

Meadowdale’s football team was winless in 1999, the season before Stewart was hired. He turned it into one of the state’s most consistent winners. His teams made the state playoffs five times between 2002 and 2009, including 3A quarterfinal trips in 2007 and last year. Before Stewart took over at Meadowdale, the program had just three state appearances in its history.

Tireless preparation — something he learned about as a player at Washington — has helped Stewart succeed in coaching.

“You always felt like when you played for (legendary UW coach Don James and his assistants) you were prepared,” said Stewart, who was inducted into the Husky Hall of Fame in 2008, “and knew what was going on and had a good game plan.”

Parker, the Meadowdale football assistant, and Stewart met in the late 1980s when they were first-year teachers at Renton High, where Stewart accepted his first head coaching job. Even then, Stewart was always focused under pressure, a trait his teams have had.

“He is unflappable,” Parker said of Stewart, who teaches physical education at Meadowdale and lives in Everett. “He is one of the calmest people I have ever been around. The more stressful the situation, the calmer he is.”

Stewart teaches great practice habits and knows how to motivate each player, regardless of their background, said recent Meadowdale graduate Connor Hamlett, an Oregon State University recruit.

“He’ a high-class guy,” Hamlett said, “and he’s taught me everything I’ve learned.”

Before coming to Meadowdale, Stewart had several fairly brief head coaching stints (including stops at Garfield, Highline and two separate runs at Renton) as well as assistant jobs at Mercer Island and Sammamish. He also spent a year and a half at Western Washington University, serving as a defensive line/strength coach and recruiter.

But, in terms of coaching, nothing clicked for Stewart quite like it has at Meadowdale. He praised the school’s supportive community, staff and district administrators.

“We’ve got good kids. It’s hard not to stay here,” Stewart said.

Former Edmonds School District athletic director Terri McMahan and Parker, Stewart’s close friend, who by that time coached and taught at Meadowdale, urged Stewart to take the Meadowdale job and rebuild the Mavericks’ struggling football program. He did that.

Along the way, Stewart developed powerful relationships that helped him move on from his painful past.

“Coaching high school kids has provided him with something to care about at times when it wouldn’t have been difficult to easily give up,” Parker said. “It’s the great gift of the game.”

“Maybe,” added Parker, “high school football and high school teaching — given the adversity Mark’s faced — is just what he needed.”

Mike Cane: mcane@heraldnet.com. Check out the prep sports blog Double Team at cmg-northwest2.go-vip.net/heraldnet/doubleteam.