‘Bleed blue’: Gonzaga Prep’s Dave McKenna steps down after 16 years as head football coach, 34 total in the program

There have been just five head coaches in the 95-year history of the high school football program at Gonzaga Prep. That exclusive fraternity will grow by one in the near future.

The man who has held that position to much success for the past 16 years, Dave McKenna, has decided to step down. He isn’t retiring completely – he will stay on at the place he has called “home” since his freshman year of high school as dean of students and golf coach.

But he said at school on Friday “it was time” to step away from coaching football.

“It’s been 16 years,” McKenna said with a long pause. “It’s time we get some new energy in the head coaching job. … I wanted to step down on my terms but leave the program in a good space. I think it’s in a great space.”

McKenna retires from football as the winningest active coach in the Greater Spokane League with a career record of 136-37, second only to the legendary Don Anderson on G-Prep’s list of head football coaching wins. Anderson won 195 games over 23 seasons from 1973-1996.

Under McKenna, the Bullpups won eight league titles and the State 4A championship in 2015. He was named GSL Coach of the Year six times and state coach of the year following the state title season.

Nearly 1,000 players have suited up for G-Prep in his tenure. He sent dozens of student-athletes into the college ranks and several played in the NFL.

McKenna led this year’s squad, with 11 new starters on offense, to a 10-2 overall record – 8-0 in league – and a state quarterfinal. The competitive juices are still there, he said, but a combination of factors contributed to his decision.

“It’s a lot of things. Mainly family. And time,” he said. “Sometimes even when you’re with family, football’s on your mind. I’ve got things to do, whether it’s order equipment, get equipment, answer emails, talk to coaches – there’s always something going on. It’s hard to just devote that time to your family. At least it is for me.”

He attributed much of his success to his wife, April.

“I couldn’t have done this without her,” he said. “People don’t realize how much coaches’ wives have to do, especially when we started we had young children. I can’t call it a ‘sacrifice,’ really – we understood what we were getting into. But her strength has led to any success I’ve had.”

McKenna’s four children are adults – his three sons all played football for him – and he’s now a first-time grandfather and doesn’t want to miss out on a thing.

“He makes me so happy,” McKenna said of his grandson Mac. “I love being around him.”

McKenna came to G-Prep during fall 1984 as a freshman. His father graduated from G-Prep in 1953 and his grandfather before that in 1929. McKenna is one of 12 children – 10 of whom went to G-Prep.

“I love Gonzaga Prep. I bleed blue,” he said. “I do. Sometimes to a fault.”

He was the backup quarterback on the 1986 championship team under Anderson. After college, he returned to the school in 1990 as a volunteer assistant to Anderson. McKenna remained as an assistant during Dave Carson’s 10-year stint, then was hired as head coach in 2008 after Carson retired.

All told, he has been at the school for 34 years – and counting.

“I haven’t left. And I’ve fulfilled many different roles in those 34 years, and it’s been a great joy,” McKenna said. “I look for many more here. I really do, just in different roles. But Prep is special … it’s not a job. It truly is a thrill to come to work every day, and I love the people I work with.”

McKenna appreciates the support he’s received through the years from administrators and teachers at the school.

“They give us that support knowing the coaches are going to hold those kids accountable.”

McKenna went out of his way to praise athletic director Paul Manfred.

“The best athletic director on the face of the earth – I really believe that,” he said. “He’s a great friend who would be totally brutally honest with me, which I think in turn helped me become a better coach. I know it did.”

Every year presents new challenges for a coach. McKenna understood with last year’s heavy graduation rate that he would be breaking in a lot of new, and mostly young, starters this season.

“I knew going into this season, the wins and losses might be different. Not that we wouldn’t win, but it would be done differently,” he said. “There were a lot of unanswered questions, in June and through camp. I knew we had ‘guys’ and we’d seen them play, but we just hadn’t seen them tested in those kinds of games.”

A road trip to California the second week of the season, which resulted in the team’s only regular-season loss, was the catalyst for the rest of the season.

“At halftime, we had a little talk and after halftime our season changed,” McKenna said. “And I really believe that. It wasn’t necessarily the words I said, it was the actions of kids received from those and then they went out and delivered. … They realized the coaching staff had a higher belief in them than they had in themselves. And when they realized that, they raised the bar for themselves.”

McKenna and his coaching staff have challenged his players to win, not just in football but in life.

“One thing that I always wanted to get across to our kids is, ‘Forget the scoreboard.’ Whether you’re winning or losing, it does not matter. The scoreboard takes care of itself with all the preparation you put into it.”

One of the things that stand out about McKenna’s program is what he calls, “two platoon,” in which they start 22 players without any two-way athletes.

“Not many places do that, and we’ve done it for 16 years under my tenure and that’s unheard of, I think.”

McKenna said he has no regrets, but laments some of the players through the years he wasn’t able to reach. He said that number is small, but he remembers each one of them clearly.

“That always hurt me,” he said. “I took it very personally when kids would transfer away from Prep. And for whatever reason – everyone has their reasons – and I never wanted to judge those reasons. But it hurt because I couldn’t reach them anymore because they were gone. Some that left I still reached, because we still talk. So, that was good, too.”

Though he will remain in the building and is welcome to being a resource for the new coaching staff, he trusts the process and judgment of those responsible for the new hire – even if the new guy wants to ditch G-Prep’s traditional triple-option running offense for a passing offense.

“Be willing to die on whatever hill that it is you want to die on,” he said jokingly. “If you look at offenses across the country, from what Gonzaga Prep does to the full spread … they both can win. There’s a lot of things that go into that that can make them winners. And that’s what coaching does and what the players do to buy into it. Our kids will win here. They will.”

McKenna will remain G-Prep’s biggest supporter.

“I have all the faith that our administration is going to hire a great coach,” he said. “I’ll be around. But I’ll keep my distance because I know that the coach has to have their way of doing things as well, and I fully respect that. But I love these kids. I will be cheering them on in all their games and then I’ll be razzing them in the hallway.”

McKenna hadn’t thought about being one of just five head coaches in the program’s history before someone brought it up to him last week.

“One of five is pretty cool – it’s amazing, to be honest. I am humbled by that,” he said. “I’m somewhat in awe of myself for doing it. I don’t take it for granted. But there are also greater things out there and I was just blessed to be a coach in an incredible program to lead young men and some women to develop as great people and serve with and through others. And I got to do that through the game of football.”