BELLEVUE – Not very often does basketball go on the back burner in the Downs household.
 
But it will on Father's Day.
 
Call it the perfect game plan.
 
Come Sunday, Mike Downs will be a dad – not a coach. Christi, Daniel, Jeff and David will be his children – not his players, as the three sons were, or his biggest fan in the stands, as the daughter was. Instead of a seat on the bench or in front of the television, they'll take seats in the movie theater to watch “Man of Steel.”
 
The five of them won't fill even a full row. But if some of the 300-plus hoops players Mike has mentored as the head boys coach at Bellevue Christian School just happened to show up and join him for the movie, the place would be packed.
 
How appropriate that would be, as Downs – a 'man of steel' in his own way to those players – leaves coaching behind after drawing up the X's and O's at the same school for his entire career.
 
All 32 years of it.
 
“Pretty early on, I read (former Pacific Lutheran football coach) Frosty Westering's book, “Make the Big Time Where You Are.” That title resonated with me,” the 57-year-old Downs said. “There probably aren't a lot of places around that have this kind of situation where I can integrate my faith with what I'm doing on the basketball court.
 
“I've been courted by a lot of (larger) schools, but I never wanted to leave,” he added. “The grass is not always greener on the other side.”
 
Indeed not. Downs' Viking teams made 13 appearances in the Class 1A (small school) Washington state high school tournament, including 10 in a row (2001-10). They won back-to-back state titles in 2005 and 2006, with Jeff playing a big role on both of those teams.
 
Downs, who played four years for Seattle Pacific (1974-77), graduating in '77 with a physical education degree, followed by a master's in education two years later, coached Bellevue Christian to 493 victories.
 
“I know that all the experience I've had and people I've met and people I've built into my life, God is going to use the gift of basketball with me as a ministry somehow, some way,” he said.
 
FAMILY AT THE FOREFRONT
While his teams had so many accomplishments, Downs doesn't cite any of those – not even the consecutive state titles – as the highlight of his career.
 
Without hesitation, he'll say that getting to coach Daniel (2000-03), Jeff (2003-06) and David (2007-10) topped any of those final scores.
 
“That was just a tremendous treat,” Mike said. “All three of them were down in Yakima at the state tournament, and it was so special to be on that court with them.”

Not surprisingly, the feeling is mutual. In fact, while Jeff (2007-11 at SPU) did mention winning state as a junior and senior at Bellevue Christian, it was early in his freshman year when his dad made an impact on him – a subtle one, perhaps, but an impact nevertheless.
                                                                                      
“I kind of had a chip on my shoulder – I didn't want to be the coach's kid who got a free ride,” he said. “There were a couple games where I just played really hard, and saw my dad pleasantly surprised.
 
“Seeing him pretty proud is something that will always stick with me.”
 
David, the youngest of the four offspring, played the point guard role at Bellevue Christian, just as he does now at SPU.
 
As the coach on the floor, such as it were, he had more than a few disagreements with the guy who really was the coach. In David's case, that guy just happened to be Dad.
 
“Maybe it was what he thought was a good shot or what I thought was a good shot, or maybe he was seeing a play that I didn't see,” David said. “I thought I was right; he thought he was right.
 
“Most of the time, he was right.”
 
ONE MAN, TWO ROLES
There's no disagreement on this: The reason it all worked so well for so long is because Mike always has known the difference between being Coach and being Dad.
 
“It was a tough thing to do, especially on the ride home from practice,” he said. “I worked really hard to try to do that. I think the kids have to come to you on their own terms. It's learning when to say anything – let them own it, and come to you.”
 
Jeff recalled getting kicked out of practice a time or two by Coach Mike – then later chuckling about it with Dad Mike.
 
“By the time he got home, he would have a little smirk on his face,” Jeff said. “He wouldn't let practice carry over.”
 
David has especially appreciated the way Mike separates the two roles.
 
“At all of our games (outside of Bellevue Christian's), he would sit on the other side of the gym away from all the parents. He couldn't handle the parent squawking,” he said. “Every once in a while, I would look over at him, and he would wink at me. When he was a parent, he knew it wasn't his job to be squawking at me.”
 
Whether during practice or at home, Daniel, the oldest of the three boys who ultimately went on to play college baseball, said conversations weren't limited to hoops.
 
“I was always able to see how he incorporated life lessons and his faith into his coaching and teaching,” he said. “His No. 1 goal was not winning state or sending players onto college. Those were things he obviously enjoyed doing, but his main focus was to instill principles that his players could carry into jobs and careers and relationships and marriages.
 
“It was always instilled in us that there are more important things than basketball.”
 
THE TIME WAS RIGHT
While Downs surely could have coached longer, some of the joys of the job melted away three years ago when Jan, his wife of 31 years, died of cancer.
 
“She was the consummate coach's wife. We were a team,” he said, adding that telling his players he was stepping down “was a lot harder than I thought.
 
“But I knew it was time.”
 
Downs will continue to teach sixth grade at Bellevue Christian, and will be in the stands next winter when David plays his final season for Seattle Pacific.
 
As for coaching? It's not going away completely. In fact, three days after school is out, Mike will be off to Maui to help put on a clinic – an opportunity, he says, that “just fell into my lap.”
 
“I'm a teacher at heart,” he said. “I love the on-the-court teaching of the game and the relationship I built with the players. But it was becoming harder and harder in some of the other aspects.”
 
Before all that, however, a certain special Sunday is coming up on the calendar. A day to put basketball on the back burner, take in “Man of Steel,” then head off for a barbecue dinner.
 
“That felt like a good Father's Day thing,” Mike said.
 
Call it the perfect game plan.