Woodburn Independent Online

A proper send-off for 'Pops'

Pete Popoff receives a storybook ending to long-time coaching career in St. Paul

• By: Garrett Rudolph  
• Published: 12/15/2009 10:45:04 AM

Photo By: Garrett RudolphPete Popoff
Pete Popoff shares a moment with St. Paul senior Jay Riggleman (left) after the Bucks defeated Imbler in the Class 1A state championship game. In addition to winning the state title in his final season as the team’s defensive coordinator, Popoff was recently selected for induction into the Oregon Athletic Directors Association Hall of Fame.

ST. PAUL — Pete Popoff couldn’t dream of a more perfect way to end his coaching career.
 
Twenty-five years after guiding the St. Paul football team to its first state championship, the man known affectionately as “Pops” shared in the celebration of another championship for the Buckaroos, as they put the finishing touch on a perfect season with a 38-34 win over Imbler in the Class 1A state title game on Dec. 5.
 
The victory was an exclamation point on nearly four decades of coaching football for Popoff, who first joined the St. Paul coaching staff in 1981 and was a part of all five of the school’s state championships on the gridiron.
 
“It doesn’t get any better than that,” said Popoff. “It’s a great way to write the last chapter of my book.”
 
An avid family man, golfer and traveler, Popoff announced this would be his last season as the Bucks’ defensive coordinator, a post he has held for three years now. He jokes that he will end his coaching career the same way it began — with an undefeated season. This year’s 13-0 record for St. Paul is a bookend to a career that began with a 6-0 record at Redmond Junior High School in 1973.
 
The following season — just his second year out of college — Popoff took on his first head coaching job at the varsity level, with Monroe High School.
 
By 1981, when Popoff made the jump to St. Paul High School, the Bucks were in the midst of a six-year stretch without making it to the state playoffs.
 
“We had been horrible,” said current Bucks head coach Tony Smith, who was a senior quarterback in the fall of 1981.
 
The small school was still playing 11-man Class A football at the time, and coming off a two-win season the year before in the North Valley League. However, in his first year at the helm, Popoff changed the culture of St. Paul football.
 
“He gets you to believe in yourself and your own ability, as far as you being able to be successful as an individual,” said Smith. “I think that’s a big piece of it.”
 
St. Paul began 1981 in much the same way as it had ended 1980 — losing.
 
The Bucks dropped their season opener, and, Smith said, to this day, he still has a vivid memory of that loss and the conversation he had with Popoff in its aftermath.
 
“I can remember after the game, walking up to him in the locker room and apologizing to him,” said Smith. “And he said, ‘If you did your best, you don’t have anything to apologize for,’ and that just kind of always stuck with me, because that really was, and still is, everything he talks about — ‘You do your best.’”
 
After losing the first game of the season, the Bucks reeled off 10 straight wins before eventually being cut down in the semifinals by eventual state champion St. Mary’s.
 
The following year, St. Paul moved down to the B-8 classification, and Popoff, who had been commuting to St. Paul from Eugene on a weekly basis, left the school to take a job at Elmira.
 
“I went to Elmira the next year because it was close to home,” he said. “But I hated Elmira.”
 
Just one year later, he was back in Buckaroo blue, leading the team to the 8-man semifinals in 1983, and the school’s first state title in 1984, with a 50-28 win over Cove in the championship game.
 
Over the next 25 years, St. Paul would become one of the most successful football programs in the state, and Smith said that legacy could truly be traced back to the fall of 1981, and the arrival of Popoff.
 
“I think that’s where it kind of just took off,” Smith said.
 
Beginning in 1984, the Bucks would play in three of the next four state title games, and a total of 10 championship games over the years — more than any other 8-man team in the state. The Bucks won back-to-back state championships in 1991 and 1992, a stretch that included a 40-game winning streak.
 
Popoff left the school in 1994, to become the head football coach, athletic director and social studies teacher at Jewell, but even during his time away, he was still a part of the St. Paul football program, helping Jay Phillips from the booth, as he coached the team to state title games in 1999 and 2001, and won the championship in 2002.
 
“Coaching at St. Paul was always fun,” said Popoff. “The only reason I left St. Paul was because of money; otherwise, I would have stayed at St. Paul up until this day. I love the St. Paul community, the kids, the parents. I don’t think there’s anything negative I can say about St. Paul.”
 
Popoff said Jewell “had all the money in the world up there and I thought I should have some before I left education,” and he stayed there for 11 years. After retiring from education, he returned to St. Paul and coached the eighth-grade football team for one year, before rejoining the high school as an assistant coach.
 
In all his years of coaching, the one thing that stands out about Popoff is the personal relationships he’s developed with his players and fellow coaches.
 
“In my generation, coaches and players went their separate ways,” he said. “I’ve always been close with my players and that’s the only way I can do it.”
 
While Smith said there wasn’t a lot of talk about Popoff’s impending retirement leading up to this year’s state championship game, he said it was certainly something the Bucks mentioned during the week — a feeling of “let’s win this one for Pops.”
 
Smith said the relationship Popoff has with his players is what enables him to be so demanding on the field.
 
“It’s interesting, because he can be absolutely brutal with any kid out there, and they all love him. It’s just an amazing thing.”
 
“If you’ve played for me, or been on a coaching staff that I’ve been a part of, you’ve made a friend for life, and these kids know that,” said Popoff.

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