Bellevue Christian track and field coach Larry Royce may be the most humble person in sports.

When asked about the key to the success of his two-time defending 1A state champ girls track and field team, Royce raves about the other members of his coaching staff. He deflects praise like a goalie deflects shots in a World Cup final-giving credit to everyone but himself in the process.

He tells me that many of the individual state champions at BCS have been ones he spends little time coaching. But the real insight into who Larry Royce is as a coach, individual and co-worker comes as it does with most: how he deals with success.

In January, Royce was named one of 21 National Coaches of the Year by the National Federation of State High School Associations, which came after being named Washington State track and field Coach of the Year by the Washington State Track and Field Coaches Association.

Everyone thanks those around them when they accept an award-saying they would split it up and share it with their assistants if they could. Larry Royce went a step further.

Before ever heading to Everett for the Washington State awards ceremony, Royce had plaques made for all of his assistant coaches that read “Washington State Co-Head Coach of the Year”.

He took the plaques to the banquet and waited until after he returned to his table from the podium. Then he pulled out a package for each of his assistant coaches and instructed them to open them. “It was pretty cool,” said Sonja Bennett, who coaches the throwers for the track and field team and has been at BCS for all of her 33 years as an educator.

Ed Sloan, the head coach for the boys team, has worked with Royce for 14 years and said he would never expect the recognition to change his friend in even the smallest way. “I wouldn’t expect it to go to his head and it didn’t,” Sloan said. “It went to the effort of making plaques for all of us.”

The story of Noel Dahlman

Not all of Royce’s student-athletes come to him ready-made champions.

Case in point: Noel Dahlman.

Not in the mold of a world-class track athlete, Dahlman came to Royce during her freshman year at Bellevue Christian with a promise: she was going to win the league championship in the hurdles by the time her career at BCS was finished. Initially, Royce thought it was valuable and exciting that Dahlman had created a goal for herself, but little more. “I kind of laughed and said “That’s great Noel,” Royce said, admitting that at the time he could not have foreseen Dahlman’s goal actually coming to fruition.

Four years of hard work and small improvements later, Noel Dahlman became the league champion in the hurdles for Royce and the Vikings. “She [Dahlman] worked her hind-end off to get to her goal and she made it,” Royce said. “That was extremely rewarding.”

Dahlman represents a myriad of student-athletes Royce, Bennett and Sloan have worked with throughout the years who have been shown the payoff to hard work first hand.

Both Sloan and Royce shared moments from last weekend’s Bellevue High School Invitational as evidence. “Almost every kid ran a personal best time,” Sloan said. Royce talked about one of his female sprinters, who earned a personal best in the 100 meters despite finishing outside the top 10 in the race. “She didn’t win, but when they told her the time, I watched her and she was bouncing all over the place and it was obvious to me that she had got her best time,” Royce said. “She got the goal she was looking for and she came running back and gave me a big hug and was so excited.”

It’s those kind of moments that keep the longtime friends coming back to BCS year after year.

Papa Royce

Parochial schools across the country talk about the value of consistency in their faculty and the importance of providing a family atmosphere, where students feel comfortable interacting with their teachers on a personal level. Bellevue Christian has it in spades.

Both Royce and Sloan noted that one of the reasons for the success is the mood around the coaching staff, created largely by the friendships and respect between coaches. “We get along really well as a staff and I think kids sense that,” said Royce. “There’s no tension, it’s a welcoming environment and it makes kids say, “I want to be a part of that.”

Two of those who have become an integral part are junior Bree Oldham and senior MacKenzie Altig. “I feel that he is sort of a father figure,” Altig said. “He has the personality of a dad.”

And just like a father, Royce knows what is best for his girls.

When Oldham was a freshman and Altig a sophomore, the pair said they would routinely try to escape the rigors of the 4 x 400 relay, a physically draining race that only added to an already stiff workload on the track. Every day, they would make a feeble attempt at getting the old coach to relent and every day, they were turned away with a smile.

A year later, their coach’s foresight paid off when Altig and Oldham were members of the school-record breaking girls 4 x 400 relay team. “Even when we didn’t believe in ourselves, he believed in us,” said Oldham. She also noted that girls on the team will sometimes refer to their coach as “Papa Royce” in a nod to the coach’s ability to create that sense of comfort and safety with his student-athletes. “It’s like a family relationship,” Oldham said.

Sloan reflected on his first memory of Royce, which came over a decade ago when he was hired to coach cross country at the school. “When I was hired here to coach cross country, I didn’t know if that meant I would coach track,” Sloan said. “I went to Larry and said I was interested in coaching track and his response was “Anyone that coaches cross country is going to be my distance coach,” and that’s how it started.”

Fourteen years later, the two are always on the same page, sharing an unspoken connection that allows them to divide responsibilities and conquer any issue that comes their way. The relationship has grown away from the track as well, with Sloan becoming the wood shop instructor at the junior high school on campus, a position Royce holds with the senior high school.

In addition to the lessons he has learned from Royce on the track, Sloan said he has been equally affected as a person. “Larry will never say no and he’s the kind of guy that will give you whatever he’s got in his pocket,” said Sloan. “He truly is somebody that is not selfish at all and he’s instilled that in me.”

More than a winning attitude

There is no doubt that the sentiments of Royce, Sloan, Bennett and others around the program are a breath of fresh air. The coaches genuinely care about one another and their student-athletes and dedicate themselves fully-hosting and coordinating events, facilitating trips across the state for meets and doing everything they can to make the experience of Bellevue Christian track a memorable one.

But they also win. A lot.

Since 1973, the Vikings have won five 1A girls team track and field championships, including each of the past two. Bellevue Christian is also home to 30 individual state champions, with Altig (triple jump) and Oldham (300 meter intermediate hurdles) being the most recent.

Again, Royce is quick to point out those around the program, other than himself of course, who provide the instruction and coaching to help BCS keep churning out titles. “There are kids I don’t really ever even work with and they go out and win a state title and I’ve got nothing to do with that,” Royce said. “We’ve got a terrific staff: Sonja Bennett has been with me since 1980. Ed [Sloan] has been here fourteen years, Kris [DeJonge] works with our hurdlers, which is where our strength is.”

DeJonge, whose competed in her prep days for Royce as Kris Douma prior to her marriage to current BCS athletic director Mark DeJonge, won state titles in 1992 and 1993 and said Royce has helped her both as an athlete and a coach. Having student-athletes return to the program is something Royce takes to heart and is perhaps the most rewarding element of his job. “The thing that is really satisfying is that kids have said “this was a meaningful experience for me and I want to contribute as an adult.”

With coaches like Royce and the rest of the BCS staff, how could they stay away