For the past decade Eastlake Wolves girls soccer head coach Chuck Krieble has paced the touchlines at a plethora of KingCo League soccer games.
Krieble, who recently celebrated his 60th birthday, revealed to his players at the Wolves’ end of the season team meeting Oct. 29 that he would not be returning to the Wolves as the head coach for the 2015 season. Krieble said he decided in late September that he would officially resign his coaching position at the conclusion of the 2014 season. Krieble’s team won a state title in 2007 and had eight winning seasons in 10 years.
“It was just time for me to move on. I think it’s the right time and it just feels right. The program is in a good place and has a well-established booster club. I’m grateful for the experience of coaching these players over the years. It’s just time to invest my energy in other things,” Krieble said. “I will have my hands full with other commitments.”
Krieble said he couldn’t have attained the success he did at Eastlake without the support of the community.
“The parents did a ton of work behind the scenes to help the program which allowed me to focus on the X’s and O’s,” he said. “The program just continued to grow and grow in a large part because of their efforts. We had a youth summer camp a couple of years ago and 110 kids showed up. This community is unique and is such a great place to coach.”
Krieble said there’s a wide range of memories over the past 10 years he will look back on fondly when reminiscing about his time at Eastlake.
“Winning the state championship was cool. I don’t think my feet touched ground for a month. That experience was unparalleled,” he said.
Some of Krieble’s most memorable seasons weren’t about the state playoffs or sterling overall records.
“We had some teams who were named to the WIAA (Washington Interscholastic Athletics Association) all-academic team with cumulative GPA’s of 3.7 and 3.8. This year’s team won the (KingCo) Sportsmanship Award. One of the things we always talked about is values and competing the right way,” he said. “We always wanted to play with respect and class. It’s an absolute privilege to play in the KingCo 4A. You knew every Tuesday and Thursday night you were going to have a quality opponent.”
Shaun Scott: 425-453-5045; sscott@bellevuereporter.com
