13-time Coach of the Year ends 27-year run in Richland

There will be more fishing.

The golf clubs, sitting pretty much idle for the past 12 years, will be swung again.

Heck, the old coach may go back out and bird hunt again.

Earl Streufert, still on a family vacation, told the Herald on Friday that he felt he was ready to retire as the head coach of the Richland High School boys’ basketball team.

“It was just time,” said Streufert. “It’s time for someone else to do it. Thirty-eight years is a lot of time.”

It just so happened that in Streufert’s final year, his Bombers ended up winning the Class 4A state basketball championship, going 28-0 in the process.

But that, he insists, was coincidental.

“I mean, these guys were a special group,” he said.

But he’d been thinking about it for a while.

His wife was already retired, and he errors from teaching at the high school a few years ago.

He had spent much of this season babysitting his grandson before going to practice or to games.

So after the Bombers won the state title on March 7, beating Gonzaga Prep 63-49, the rumors were already out there that he was calling it quits.

But when asked after the game, Streufert said he wanted to mull it over for a few weeks before making the call.

He waited four weeks before handing his resignation letter to Richland athletic director Adrian Ochoa on April 3.

Streufert leaves an impressive resume:

• A coaching record of 490 wins against 189 losses

• He spent 38 years on the sidelines in high school basketball — 11 years as an assistant to Jim Thacker at Walla Walla (where the Blue Devils won a state title in 1999), and 27 years as head coach for the Bombers.

• His Richland teams won 12 league titles, four regional crowns, made 13 state tournament appearances, and earned eight state trophies.

• Besides this year’s state championship team, Streufert’s Bombers placed second at state twice (2014 and 2024); finished fourth twice (2019 and 2025); was fifth in 2018, sixth in 2017, and eighth in 2008.

• He was named Coach of the Year 13 times in the Mid-Columbia Conference or Big Nine Conference; and he was named 4A Washington State Coach of the Year.

For Streufert and his long-time assistant coach Bruce Robertson (who is also stepping down), the memories will last a lifetime.

“Bruce and I were texting back and forth thinking about some of our highlights: Beating a tough Wasatch, Utah, team. Beating Beamer in 2014 to play for the title,” said Streufert. “Steven Beo scoring 45 points against Mead at regionals. In 2009, beating Gonzaga Prep at Gonzaga Prep at district.”

Then there was the time a few years ago when Richland had to play at Ferris of Spokane in the district tournament. The game was delayed 30 minutes while Ferris officials tried to get the long line of Bombers fans into the gym.

“We told them that we travel well,” said Streufert.

He wasn’t lying.

The Bomber Faithful kept filling the Tacoma Dome stands last month each day of the state tournament, the crowd getting bigger with each contest.

By Saturday night’s final, the media covering the tournament were awestruck with the size of the Richland crowd.

But the thing that always sticks in Streufert’s mind was just walking out onto the Dawald Gym floor on game day and seeing a packed court.

“Some people would get their blankets in the stands at 2 p.m. to reserve their spots,” Streufert recalled.

Streufert’s team always held a youth clinic each season.

When he started, it was run by the city, and it was attended by 40 to 50 kids.

“Then one year, we took it over, and we expanded it,” said Streufert. “We had 350 kids at those clinics.”

He praised the many friends of the program, which included Dave Weikum — a Kennewick High grad who has spent decades traveling with the team to videotape not just games but practices.

“There was Joe and Peggy Frank, (Dick) Cartmell, and so many, many more,” said Streufert. “Everyone was so supportive at Richland. Not one time in Richland did anybody ever say to me, ‘No, we can’t do that.’”

So, when Streufert wanted to travel to Utah to play some tough non-league games to start a season, the school made it happen.

“It was just a great place to coach,” he said. “But it’s just time.”

Streufert said the Richland head coaching job can be all-consuming. Usually after the season ends, he starts thinking about the summer program.

“It’s going to be an interesting transition,” said Streufert. “I look forward to having a summer off for the first time since I was 14.”

Jeff Morrow is former sports editor of the Tri-City Herald.