LIVINGSTON LEGACY: Father and son reflect on family’s 3 decades of involvement in Valley soccer.

WASILLA — The Wasilla Warriors boys’ soccer team made its 2016 home debut Thursday.

But there was something different.

Something missing.

For the first time since 1999, Blake Livingston was not the head coach of the Warriors.

After 16 seasons at the helm of Wasilla boys’ soccer, Livingston opted to take a step away from the high school game following the 2015 season. It marked the end of a stellar run in which Livingston transformed a struggling program into a Northern Lights Conference power. Livingston led the Warriors to four NLC championships, nine state tournament berths and a 163-77-36 overall record. Two of his squads earned the team sportsmanship award at the state tournament, and Livingston was named NLC Coach of the Year multiple times.

Add the first two years of his coaching career at his alma mater, Palmer High, and Livingston boasts 177 career wins.

The 1991 graduate of Palmer High School is also part of a Valley soccer family legacy. Livingston’s father Rich was the head coach of the Palmer High boys program for the seven seasons prior to Blake Livingston’s two-year stint as coach at PHS in 1998 and 1999. With Blake’s four-year playing career added to Blake and Rich Livingston’s combined 25 years of coaching in the Valley, until this season, there had been at least one Livingston involved with Valley high school soccer for nearly three decades.

It was time

Just as Wasilla’s season debut without Blake Livingston Thursday was different for the Warriors, the spring has been very different for Blake. Soccer has been deeply ingrained in him since one of his elementary teachers, Pat Gore, introduced him to the game. Since, soccer has taken Blake from newcomer to standout high school talent, to college player, to one of the most respected high school soccer head coaches the Valley has known.

This is the first spring in more than 18 years that he has not led a team.

“The last two weeks, now that games are here, it has felt a little strange not going to practice, not hanging out with the guys getting ready for games,” Blake said recently.

But as weird as it might feel now, Blake said he knew when it was time.

“Part of it, I’ve got two young boys. I wanted more opportunity with family. At the same time, I thought to myself, I don’t know what it’s like to not have soccer a part of my life,” Blake said.

He was at a crossroad. His journey as a player and a coach spanned more than 30 years. But he is also traveling another path with his wife and their 5- and 6-year-old sons.

“There was a game where I remember thinking, I wonder what my guys are doing,” Blake said of his boys.

The beginning

Rich Livingston played a prominent role in the evolution of boys’ soccer in the Palmer area. He coached the Valley’s first high school soccer state champions, guiding the Palmer boys to the 1995 state crown. Before that, he coached the first boys comp team in the area.

But his introduction to the game was different. Rather than the children following the parent, it was the opposite in the Livingston home. With the help of an elementary teacher, Pat Gore, Rich’s sons, Blake and Brad, found soccer, and he started coaching his boys.

“I was a baseball person,” Rich said with a laugh by phone from his home in Arizona recently.

Rich started coaching soccer when Blake was 10. Young brother Brad, another former Palmer High standout, followed. Before they knew it, soccer had become more than just a summer sport. As the boys got older, Rich started coaching a winter league team and brought his players into Anchorage for games.

“We were super successful,” Rich said.

As soccer began to draw interest in the Palmer area in the 1980s, there was a push to add a high school team. Rich said a number of local people deserve credit, and former Chugiak head coach Ed Blahous was among the Anchorage area coaches instrumental in providing Palmer with the opportunity to find competition.

Rich took over the Palmer High program in 1992, the year after Blake graduated. In his seven years as head coach, Rich guided the Moose to a pair of state title games, including the championship in 1995.

“That was so exciting for the school and the kids, and the parents and myself,” Rich said of Palmer’s win in the title match. “It’s one of those things that will stand out in my mind as long as I’m alive.”

Blake, the player

Blake Livingston, a standout defensive center midfielder, started every game during each of his four years at Palmer High. Known for winning balls, mixing it up and distribution, Blake was a record-setting playmaker, earning season-high and career-best marks for assists. Many of those assists set up goals scored by one his closest friends, former Moose soccer standout and current longtime head coach of the Colony boys soccer program, Jeremy Johnson.

“I loved my teammates and also the opportunity to play with my younger brother for two years,” Blake said.

Blake was also the varsity placekicker on the Moose varsity football team for four years. He lists former Moose football coaches Lebron McPhail and Randy Magner as mentors, instrumental both on the field and off.

Blake, the coach

After graduating from Palmer High in 1991, Livingston made the move to Southern Oregon University. He was a multisport standout in high school, but the transition to college came with adversity.

“It was humbling to go to a small college and come to realization that the guy ahead of me was just better. I needed a plan B,” Blake said.

Sports, soccer in particular, had always been central in his life.

“Sports gave me an identity and a sense of belonging,” Blake said.

While in Oregon, Blake was able to forge through and found two other passions. Blake started coaching a youth U10 team and really enjoyed it. He also found solace in an academic subject.

“I ended up taking a literature class in college and loved it,” Blake said. “I had no idea what would come out of pursing an English degree, but decided to see it through.”

That set up Blake’s future career as a teacher.

Blake may have had a revelation during his playing career, but that helped realize other strengths. It also helped form a person who would be honored in both coaching and teaching. In addition to the awards he won as a coach, Blake was named the Mat-Su School District BP Teacher of the Year in 2015.

There are many reasons why coaching and teaching just seemed to fit, Blake said.

“When I started coaching I realized that it was more than just knowing the game. I also had a knack for forging relationships, getting my players to embrace the team concept, and the willingness to leave everything on the field,” Blake said. “I love it, and it was a huge variable for my decision to become a teacher.”

Following his father

Rich and Blake Livingston had different backgrounds at the beginning of their respective coaching careers. Rich was a baseball man, but Blake had about a dozen years as a player under his belt before he jumped into the coaching ranks. Despite that difference, both approached the job in a similar fashion.

“It wasn’t that I knew so much about soccer. I had all of those good kids. I understood kids. I could help them out, and be positive,” Rich said.

Blake had the knowledge of the game, and combined that with what he learned from his father.

“It was pretty special to follow in his footsteps,” Blake said. “I take a lot of pride in that, try to emulate (what he did).”

Throughout his own coaching career, Blake maintained a signature approach.

“Blue collar. That mentality, we’re going to work harder than anyone else,” Blake said.

That was seen, not only with his team’s effort on the field, but the work off. Blake was creative with his team workouts, which ranged from circuit training to flipping oversized tires.

Building a program

Rich Livingston was fairly candid when asked about Wasilla programs while he was a head coach at Palmer.

“Wasilla was not a soccer school. You look at Wasilla when I was coaching. I’d tell the kids, if they scored a goal with their strong foot, they’re coming out of the game. That’s how bad Wasilla was,” Rich said. “To see what he did with that program is mind-boggling.”

Blake took the reigns of the program in 1999. The Warriors finished 6-8-1 that season. It was the only season Wasilla finished with a losing record in Blake’s 16 years as head coach. In 2003, Wasilla qualified for the state tournament for the first time in school history. The Warriors finished 11-5-2 overall, and placed third in the state tournament.

In all, Wasilla qualified for state nine times. The Warriors won four NLC titles, and played in six straight league championship games from 2008-14.

Blake’s players flourished during his tenure, and beyond. Four of his former standouts — Loren Smith (2003), Jordan Ingalls (2007), Paul Sliwa (2011) and Kyler Perry (2013) — earned NLC Player of the Year honors, and more than 20 went on to play soccer at the college level.

Values such as character and work ethic have always ranked supreme, but preserving relationships was also very important.

He listed peers such as Allen Chadwick, Joe Rucker and Raul Davila, praising them for their contributions to Warrior soccer. He said he always had an open door policy for former players.

“Once a Warrior, always a Warrior,” he said.

Livingston and Johnson

Blake Livingston and Jeremy Johnson grew up together with the game of soccer. Together they helped lead the Palmer boys team for three seasons — Blake is a year older — and they’ve spent the bulk of their adult lives coaching against each other.

They share an unbreakable bond that’s survived the 80-minute tests each time Blake’s Warriors faced Johnson’s Knights during the past 16 years.

“We’re both ultimately competitive, but really good friends,” Johnson said.

Earlier this season, Blake stopped by one of Colony’s practices.

“It was awesome, fun to have him out there and hot have to hide anything,” Johnson said.

When it came to Colony and Wasilla game plans, that talk has been off limits. But throughout their coaching careers, Johnson said the first call after any other match was to Blake.

Blake’s final regular season match against Colony came on Colony’s senior night last spring. In addition to honoring his own seniors, Johnson also honored his longtime friend and coaching rival, Blake Livingston, and penned a letter to Blake for the ceremony.

‘More of a hiatus’

Blake Livingston, who now teaches at Mat-Su Career and Technical High School, has taken a step away from the high school game. But after his resignation last spring, it didn’t take long before he found himself in a temporary gig.

“I was out of the game less than a month last summer and I was coaching my son’s team,” Blake said.

He ended up filling for three weeks.

But will he take over a program once again?

At this point, only time can tell.

“It’s more of a hiatus,” Blake said. “Soccer is definitely in my blood. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay away from the game.”

Regardless of whether there’s a Livingston on the sidelines again at the high school level, those deeply enrooted in Valley soccer see Livingston among the names of families that have helped soccer flourish in the community.

And as Rich looks back on Blake’s career, there’s nothing but pride.

“Probably as proud as a dad could possibly be,” Rich said. “Just to see how successful he was. Not necessarily the win, loss column, but in terms of how he helped a lot of kids become young men, be leading a successful life, becoming good citizens. That’s the biggest thing Blake had going for him,” Rich said.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.