2024 Spring High School Sports Preview: Ferris coach Robin Crain the player helped lay the foundation for local soccer

Mead High School didn’t have a soccer program in the mid-1970s. In fact, the only high school team playing in the Spokane area was St. George’s.

At the time, the only organized soccer here was being played by a men’s club league that featured a team called the Spokane Spokes, a group composed of mostly European players.

The Spokes played against each other, St. George’s fledgling club and Gonzaga’s newly formed program.

Meanwhile back at Mead, Robin Crain – the current coach of Ferris’ soccer team – joined some buddies to help form the first soccer club for the Panthers, even though they weren’t originally recognized by the state as a team.

That is when Crain met his first and lifetime mentor: Dick Cullen.

Crain needed someone to coach, and Cullen stepped up and said he would love to take charge. Cullen will be inducted into the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association Hall of Fame in May after more than 30 years with Mead as a coach and athletic director.

A few years later, Lewis and Clark/Ferris, Shadle Park and Coeur d’Alene were added to the list of high schools that offered teams.

Crain, who was more of a basketball and baseball athlete, said he gravitated toward soccer after playing pickup games with the men’s teams.

“I just fell in love with it,” Crain said.

After a stint playing for Western Washington – where he earned his bachelor’s in education – Crain taught and coached at St. George’s.

It was there he came across another mentor, this time Errol Schmidt.

Schmidt was a middle school math teacher and an athletic coach for 35 years. The school named their newly built athletic facility after him in 2005, and he passed away in 2014.

“He was another individual that I think kind of paved the way for me and helped me understand all kinds of aspects of coaching,” Crain said.

Crain coached everything at St. George’s, and he spent five years as a varsity basketball coach.

While at the private school, Crain was contacted by Cullen to be his assistant soccer coach at Whitworth, alongside a former rival, Gary Lehnhart. Originally opponents in the early 1980s – Crain at Western and Lehnhart at Whitworth – the two bonded on Cullen’s Whitworth staff.

For years after Lehnhart moved to Alaska, the two would battle it out when the Juneau-Douglas Bears traveled to Spokane to play Mead and Ferris in exhibition games at the now-demolished Joe Albi Stadium.

The tradition hasn’t happened post-pandemic, but their friendship remains as strong as the day they coached the same players.

“Gary was the other one that kind of inspired me as we grew together in our coaching repertoire,” Crain said. “We constantly bounce ideas off of each other.”

Now, in 2024, Crain is entering his 28th year as head coach of the Saxons boys’ soccer team after 10 years with North Central.

Crain and his teams have totaled many wins and personal achievements over the years, but the accolades weren’t the first thing that came to mind for Crain when asked about his coaching career – it was the players and the impacts he hoped he made on their lives.

Those confirmations don’t usually happen while they play under him, but as players return to catch up or to play in the alumni game, the true impacts are felt.

“You don’t always know,” he said. “I have no idea how kids feel about me during the season. And then when they come back later, and they say, ‘Coach, this was the greatest thing ever.’ ”

One of his senior outside backs, Ian Sison, said that when he moved to Spokane six years ago, Crain’s name – and the respect that follows it – was one of the first he heard of.

Sison, a four-year player on varsity, has spent his high school career under Crain, absorbing the knowledge of one of Spokane’s most well-known soccer figures.

“Crain is definitely the most respected coach I’ve played for,” Sison said. “I’ve had him as a teacher personally and I know that he’s kind of just like a community figure overall. Basically, anyone is a person away from knowing him in Spokane.”

On the field, Crain and his Saxons don’t want to repeat last season’s lack of postseason play.

They went 9-6 overall and 4-5 in league play and finished fifth in the 4A/3A Greater Spokane League.

But with 12 seniors on his roster this season – and many of them four-year players – the Saxons will have the edge in experience every time they step on the field.

Sison is one of those players and he, along with senior Andrew Oliver, will be key at making sure the ball stays away from the Ferris net as the leaders of the defense.

Even though Crain was a forward during his playing career, he now emphasizes defense as a coach.

“I know what it’s like, if I’m defended, with some really good defenders,” he said. “It’s really hard and frustrating.”

As far as scoring goes, Ferris should have more goal-scoring threats than they have had the past few seasons. Seniors Orion Munter, Henry Finkle and Carter Merritt are three forwards on the roster who will be expected to score.

And scoring is what this senior-laden team will need to do if they want to win, and the expectation is to win.

“Nothing beats winning, right?” Crain said. “And that’s why I’m still doing it. Because I’m really competitive. And I love to win. And we’re able to do that here.”

Crain has compiled a 327-131-7 record with Ferris, accumulating a state title and eight league titles in the ultra-competitive GSL.

He was the Washington State Coach of the Year in 1998.

After 40-plus years of coaching, he has shown no signs of slowing down nor has he really thought about hanging up his whistle or putting down his dry erase markers. But when he does retire, it will be both from the pitch and his science classroom concurrently.

“When I retire, who knows when that’ll be, but it’s on the horizon,” he said.

No definitive answer was given, showing how much he still enjoys being on the field with his players, scrimmaging with them and being active.

“Crain’s been around as long as time, basically,” Sison said with a chuckle. “It’ll definitely be a massive moment there (when he retires).

“It will be one of those things that people talk about for a while when it happens.”