Walt Milroy, legendary Ingraham High boys basketball coach, dies at 103

Walt Milroy, the legendary longtime Ingraham High School boys basketball coach whose crowning achievement was a perfect season in 1968-69, died Friday.

He was 103.

Milroy was the winningest boys high school basketball coach in the city’s history (since surpassed) when he quit coaching Ingraham in 1980, with a record of 278-159.

The highlight of his career was the 1968-69 team that finished off a 23-0 season with a 39-38 victory over Hoquiam in the state title game.

The Rams used a full-court press defense that was ahead of its time, creating turnovers and easy baskets.

“I got to experience a magic moment with him, which was a state championship, and I think anyone who was ever 18 years of age knows that that’s the pinnacle of human achievement,” said Gov. Jay Inslee, who played on that championship team. “He was kind of the reason that happened because he pretty much took an average group and developed the full-court press, which was suffocating and allowed us to go 23-0 with not a lot of talent.”

Milroy remembered that season vividly and loved to talk about it, even after turning 100. The season before, Ingraham was 15-6 and missed the state tournament.

But Milroy had high hopes for the 1968-69 season and made a bold statement.

“I said, ‘We’re going all the way, and we’ll be undefeated,’” recalled Milroy, a few years ago. “I felt we had everything we needed. And it was hell, I will tell you.”

Milroy, who was born in North Bend before moving to Seattle shortly after, was the youngest of five children.

He was raised by his mother after his father died suddenly and unexpectedly when Walt was 1.

He was a three-star athlete for Roosevelt High School and was playing baseball, his first love, and JV basketball at the University of Washington when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Milroy joined the Navy, then returned to UW after the war and captained the Husky baseball team in 1946. He landed a teaching job at Seattle’s Queen Anne High School, coaching baseball and sophomore basketball for 12 years.

When Ingraham opened in North Seattle in 1959, Milroy was thrilled because he lived a half-block from the new school. The job of baseball coach was spoken for, but Milroy became the basketball coach.

“I would have taken a job as the janitor,” he said a few years ago.

After retiring from Ingraham in 1980, he worked as an assistant at Lakeside School until 1990. He coached in seven different decades, getting his first job as an American Legion baseball coach in 1938.

Milroy, who also was a well-respected basketball referee, was inducted into the Washington Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1996.

In 2017, Ingraham honored Milroy by naming its basketball court after him.

Inslee, like many of Milroy’s players over the years, remained close with his coach. Inslee spent time with Milroy on Monday, and listened to some of the stories that Milroy has enjoyed telling for decade.

“He was sharper than a tack,” Inslee said Friday morning. “It was so exciting just to listen to him, and he epitomized something very special in sports, which is crystallizing a moment,” Inslee said. “He would share moments that were just as fresh as they were in 1946 when he came back from the Navy.”

One of those moments was when legendary pitcher Bob Feller, whom Milroy played baseball with on a service team during the war, had Milroy sit next to him on the bench when Feller was pitching against fellow legend Satchel Paige during a barnstorming tour in 1946.

“I got to sit there on the bench and watch two of the greatest of all time,” Milroy said in 2019.

Milroy was asked during Inslee’s visit Monday if he had any advice for Corbin Carroll, the Arizona Diamondback All-Star from Lakewood School ahead of Tuesday’s All-Star Game in Seattle.

“He said, ‘Don’t have to face Bob Feller,’” Inslee said.

Said Inslee of Milroy: “He was the multi-century figure of athletics, certainly in my life and for many generations throughout Seattle.”

Inslee said he learned the value of working together as a team under Milroy, and said he utilizes that as governor.

Milroy took a turn for the worse after injuring his hip in a fall a couple of days ago.

Milroy was married to Virginia for 68 years before her death in 2015. He is survived by children Marsha Milroy and Laurie Hardman.

“I can’t imagine ever having a better father,” said Marsha Milroy, who said her father helped her get her dream job of working at a newspaper (the Seattle Post-Intelligencer) because he was college friends of legendary journalist Emmett Watson.

Memorial information was not yet available.