For Mariner, Dexter Griffen was more than a coach

Published 11:25 pm Tuesday, April 28, 2009

How many vital roles can one man fulfill? The unofficial record might belong to Dexter Griffen.

As a longtime teacher and coach at Mariner High School in south Everett, Griffen has helped many in the community. To students and faculty, he is interchangeably known as intense basketball coach, dedicated mentor, unapologetic joker, gentle giant and animated storyteller. He is also a proud family man, the father of four daughters who range in age from 6 to 22.

Josh Olson has seen all facets of Griffen. As a member of Mariner’s varsity boys basketball team from 1999-2003, Olson developed a life-changing connection with Griffen, his head coach.

“He’s just been there for me my whole life,” said Olson. “He has a big impact, and that’s why I’m always keeping in touch with him.”

Serving as a father figure, Griffen taught Olson to reach his potential in basketball and in life. With the coach’s encouragement, Olson applied for and received a grant from the Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation, earned a teaching degree at Washington State University and is now a first-year elementary school physical education teacher in Las Vegas.

When Olson decided to get married, he needed a best man. It was a no-brainer. He called Griffen.

Of all the lessons Olson learned from Griffen, the one that stuck with him had nothing to do with basketball. “He really valued that part of getting a college education and being that person that no one can stop,” said Olson, who did his student teaching with Griffen and coached Mariner’s freshman basketball team during the 2007-08 season.

Griffen’s recent decision to resign from coaching after 11 highlight-filled seasons at Mariner was shocking, Olson said. But Griffen, 43, plans to keep teaching physical education and helping students.

“The school loses a great coach,” Olson said, “but keeps a great teacher.”

“I absolutely love this school,” Griffen said Tuesday in his office at Mariner High. “This is the best school, to me, in the state. The kids that I’ve had in my program over the years have given their blood, sweat and tears — 100 percent over the years — and I could not ask for more.”

Asked why he resigned, Griffen — who had a record of 147-111 and made five state-tournament trips at Mariner — said he needs a break from the year-round prep coaching grind. In the so-called offseason, Griffen was busy scheduling team activities and taking players to tournaments and camps.

“That stuff adds up after 11 years. It really does,” Griffen said. “It’s been a culmination of a lot of years of work … and I’ve just gotten a little tired.”

Griffen didn’t rule out a return to basketball though. He is open to coaching at a junior college, partly because the schedule is less demanding, he said, and more flexible in the summer. He looks forward to watching his 8-year-old daughter Kylee, a 5-foot-2 third-grader, compete in Spokane Hoopfest in late June. In years past he wouldn’t have had time because of coaching commitments.

Griffen — who lives with his wife Alisa and their daughters in Lake Stevens — grew up in Longview and starred in basketball at R.A. Long High. His hoops coach there, Daun Brown, inspired Griffen to pursue a career in coaching and teaching. Griffen, who played basketball at Eastern Washington University and Montana State University, taught and was an assistant coach five years at Rogers High in Spokane before he jumped to Mariner, where he quickly realized he could make a difference.

“This is my way of giving back to kids,” he said, “that I know are in the predicament that I was growing up in high school, coming from a home where we didn’t have a lot of money or resources.”

Before this season senior post Nick Malysheff didn’t have money to buy his $100 team warm-up gear. Griffen stepped in and paid for it out of his own pocket.

In Griffen’s first season at Mariner, he guided the team to a 21-7 record and third place at the Class 3A state tournament, the top finish in program history. But it took a few seasons to craft an atmosphere of winning, unselfish basketball, he said.

“When I first got here it was a culture that was kind of apathetic,” said Griffen. “There was talent here, but it was a bunch of talent that did not know how to work hard or work together.”

He stressed maximum effort, hard-nosed defense and sharing. It caught on. After enduring records of 1-19 and 8-13 in Griffen’s second and third seasons, Mariner won 117 games over his final eight seasons. “I was able to change the culture,” he said, “and we did pretty well after that.”

It culminated in three consecutive state-tournament appearances. This past season Mariner was 20-6, won a share of the Wesco South title, won its first district title since the 1980s and won a game at state for the first time since 1999.

Griffen had an intense, seemingly intimidating persona on the basketball sidelines. But those close to him discovered the multi-faceted coach’s true nature.

Said Malysheff, “Everybody knows he’s a gentle giant.”

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