Published: November 25, 2009 12:02 am      

East’s Karrs is coach of the year

Tom Karrs’ contributions to Greenbrier East High School’s boys soccer program haven’t been forgotten.

Karrs, who coached the Spartan girls this season, has been honored as the 2009 West Virginia boys coach of the year by the National Federation of High School Coaches Association.

The award actually covers the 2008 season.

“Any time you get an award for your school, it’s a good thing,” Karrs said. “It was nice.”

Karrs coached the East boys six years, compiling a 56-48-6 record while competing in the tough Mountain State Athletic Conference.

Beyond the record, however, Karrs and assistant coach Don Wise turned the Spartans into a program that could compete with the best teams in the state.

“You want the kids to have fun and get exercise, but you want to be competitive,” Karrs said. “Our teams were more competitive than they’d ever been.”

When the girls coaching job at East became open last summer, Karrs decided to take the position. His daughter Maggie was a sophomore defender for the team.

He left confident the boys program would be in good hands with Wise.

“If I’m the coach of the year, then Don should be the assistant coach of the year,” Karrs said. “We really co-coached.”

The Spartans girls had a five-game winning streak and earned draws against Woodrow Wilson and No. 3 Winfield along the way to a 11-7-3 campaign.

“We had a nice record and we could play a good match,” Karrs said. “But we were young and not real consistent.

“At any given time we could have six or seven ninth- and 10th-graders on the field.”

He expects bigger and better things in the future.

“We’re losing five seniors, but we should have at least 30 players out next year,” Karrs said. “We’re going to toughen up our schedule to make it challenging.”

— E-mail:

dstillwell@register-herald.com