By Macerio Clark
The Seattle Medium
Seattle’s Rainier Beach High School is known for their prestigious basketball program, with their most recent championship coming in the 2013-14 season. This year’s Rainier Beach’s football team is looking to make history themselves. Last season, the Rainier Beach football team would be the first in school history to advance to the state championship game. In addition to accomplishing the feat, Rainier Beach head football coach Corey Sampson became the first African American head coach to lead a football team to the state championship game.
Sampson, who cherishes the moment, recalls how the feat eluded his high school football coach, Cecil Sly at Franklin High School.
“Getting to the state championship was huge,” says Sampson. “Growing up Coach Sly was my coach [at Franklin] and we always got to the semifinals, and we always talked about him being the first Black coach to get to the state championship.”
“Even when I first got the job, I said I want to the first Black coach to win a state championship,” continued Sampson. “I was relieved to just get out there and it just felt great… a dream come true.”
Leading a team to the championship wasn’t an easy task for Sampson. In his first year as the Rainier Beach coach in 2015, the Vikings, who finished the season 5-5, lost their las two games and missed making the playoffs by one game. The following season Sampson’s Vikings would improve to an 8-3 record before falling in the first round of the playoffs to Squalicum. Tasting the playoffs for the first time only made the Vikings hungry for more success as they would post a 10-3 record last year and advance to the state championship game for the first time in school history.
With his team’s success, Sampson firmly believes youth in the community look to him and his team as a source of inspiration.
“I’m from the environment,” says Sampson. “They know they can relate to me and I can relate to them. They trust in what I do or what I say and I am known around the community.”
During his four-year tenure at Rainier Beach, Sampson and the Vikings have improved each season. While having such improvements is great, Sampson believes it brings more pressure comes to the job.
“[There’s] pressure to win,” says Sampson. “[Getting] back there to the state championship is the goal. We have the players and pieces to get back there. We don’t expect anything less of getting to the state championship game.”
While Sampson is pleased with his team’s success on the field, his biggest sense of pride is seeing his players graduate from high school and go on to college. Last year, the Vikings football team had 15 seniors go to college on scholarship, which is the most in their team history. Education is a huge role in Sampson’s life as he always tells the kids they must fall back on their education because football can be taken away from them at any given moment.
This year’s Vikings team is flooded with talent on the offensive side of the ball, including five running backs that are in constant rotation. With winning comes sacrificing the time and plays for the team’s success, and, according to Sampson, that is what makes this year’s team special.
“I always tell those guys you have to sacrifice stats for wins if you want to win a state championship,” says Sampson.
Senior quarterback Jihad Abbul-Haqq firmly believes in Sampson’s motto as he agrees with the notion of sacrificing stats to win ball games. Abbul – Haqq was the backup quarterback last season and looks to have a breakout season alongside with senior linebacker Orin Patu, a transfer from Sheldon High School in Portland, Oregon. Abbul – Haqq has bought in to Coach Sampson’s winning mentality and loves what Rainier Beach possesses on the offensive side of the ball.
“We got a lot of good athletes and we know how put them to good use in the open field,” says Abbul-Haqq. “We’re together, we’re about our business, and we’re focused.”
Reflecting on last season, Abbul-Haqq believes the team is on pace to be better than last season’s team and is gearing up for a potential run at this year’s state championship.
“We got there but we didn’t finish it,” says Abbul-Haqq. “But it showed us how to get there and we’re going to finish the job this season.”
Although he wasn’t part of the team last year, Patu finds motivation from his teammates who came up short last season and wants to help propel the Vikings back to the state championship game. Patu also looks to prove the naysayers wrong as he acknowledges that the Vikings don’t get the respect they deserve.
“We will just keep putting in work then it will show itself,” says Patu.
Rainier Beach will face its toughest test this season as they take on Eastside Catholic, one of the top teams in the state, this Thurs., Sept. 20 at Eastside Catholic High School.
