Ron Lepper, Mount Baker High School’s athletic director, head football, wrestling and softball coach, has led almost twice as many sports seasons as years he has been alive.
When Lepper was applying for the athletic director position at Mount Baker in 2017, he had to compile a list of all the seasons he had coached. That’s when it sunk in: He is now in his 100th campaign.
“You don’t think about that stuff,” Lepper said. “But when you start combining all of them together, all of a sudden, it’s like, ‘Holy smokes, that’s a lot of seasons.’”
Lepper, 59, began coaching in 1985 as an assistant football coach at Simon Fraser University. He made stops at Ferndale High School while student teaching and took a five-year detour to California before landing at Mount Baker in 1994, where he has been ever since.
Right away, Lepper was coaching football, wrestling and baseball. The school’s administration, however, felt three sports might have been a bit much. He dropped baseball and began umpiring periodically.
Teaching and coaching wages weren’t nearly as competitive at the time, and Lepper had a wife and four kids at home. Coaching as many sports as possible was his way of making ends meet.
“I mean, if I didn’t coach, we would have qualified for free and reduced lunch during those times,” Lepper said.
The money isn’t what motivated him, though. It was simply a means of providing for his family while doing something he loved.
“That’s not the reason I coach,” Lepper said, “but by doing multiple sports, it allowed my wife to stay home because I don’t think we could have made it with her trying to work and pay for daycare for three or four kids.”
Lepper, aside from a few years off certain sports, has been in the head roles of his current programs since 2004.
In the fall, he’s all about football. In the winter, his only focus is wrestling. The same goes for softball in the spring.
He pulls his coaching philosophy from the coaches who had the most impact on him as a young person. That was mainly tough love, “with an emphasis on the tough,” he said.
On the field or mat, Lepper’s primary goal is to get the best out of his athletes. Off it, he wants them to know he cares.
“If you were to talk to kids I coached 20 years ago, they’d say I’m soft as hell now,” Lepper said. “That’s true, but also you couldn’t be at that same intensity for this long or it would just drive you to the ground.”
Coaching three consecutive high school seasons while also carrying the burden of athletic director duties isn’t without challenges.
If he and the Mountaineers’ football team make a deep run in the playoffs — which has happened numerous times — he has to be on the wrestling mat the following Monday. There isn’t much time to relax or take a deep breath.
“I used to survive on about five hours of sleep for a long time,” Lepper said. “Now I need a little more than that. But I’m honest about that, too.”
In a timely showing of success, Lepper is currently on the longest stretch of state tournament hardware of his career.
Last year, Mount Baker’s boys wrestling team took fourth at state, followed by another fourth-place finish by the softball team. Lepper and the Mountaineers’ football team made it to the state title game last fall before the wrestling team finished second overall.
Lepper said he will keep going until he no longer enjoys it.
“The minute I don’t do that, then that’s not going to be fair to me or the kids,” Lepper said.
Lepper admitted he has pondered on the time he missed with his own kids while coaching others.
Part of helping to stabilize his family dynamic was the mutual decision with his wife, Trish, to not move again once his kids reached middle school.
“I don’t know if I’d change much if I went back, to be honest,” Lepper said. “But I know there’s no way I could do it without my wife’s support, and my family kind of understanding that.”
