For 26 years under head coach John Schubert, electricity sizzled through West Valley High School soccer in the Yakima Valley. At the helm of both the girls’ and boys’ programs from 1991 to 2017, Schubert guided his teams to nearly three decades of culture-building, trophy-hoisting success.

Before he hung up the clipboard, Schubert and the Rams had accumulated five State Titles, six second-place trophies, and seven other top-four finishes — alongside 548 combined high school soccer victories. Across 31 collective seasons of boys’ and girls’ soccer, his squads fell short of the State Tournament bracket just four times.

Most of his colleagues — from athletic directors and assistant coaches to former players — remember Schubert more distinctly for his impact off the pitch. The legendary head coach was known to lend books on leadership to his team captains, discussing each of them at length, “chapter by chapter.”

Schubert inspired student-athletes to be their best selves on the soccer field, in the classroom, and within their communities. Revered as a “life coach” by his players, he taught that camaraderie and sisterhood really mattered, using success in soccer as a parable for success in life after high school.

To this day, Schubert’s former students can still recall his influence. Before she was captain of the 2006 Notre Dame Women’s Soccer Team, Annie (Schefter) Knudson was the focal point of Schubert-designed set pieces at West Valley High School. “He cared,” Knudson wrote of her former coach. “Plain and simple.”

Since his retirement from coaching in 2017, Schubert has continued to serve as senior pastor at Sun Valley Church, where he remains an avid West Valley High School soccer fan. It is with great honor that the WIAA inducts Coach John Schubert into its Hall of Fame.