For Weber State's Rahe, basketball brought him love and family. Now, Italy awaits & More News Here

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OGDEN — Randy Rahe’s 16-year profession at Weber State wrapped up Monday when he introduced his retirement by way of the college.

But he is not the one Rahe stepping down after a storied profession with the college and local people. If you ask the Big Sky’s all-time winningest males’s basketball coach after wrapping up a three-decade profession, he could inform you he wasn’t even the very best.

After a profession that spanned taking part in, teaching and finally officiating Division I ladies’s basketball, Laura Rahe is becoming a member of her husband in retirement. For the majority of Randy Rahe’s profession main younger gamers on the basketball court docket, together with a sure six-time NBA All-Star in Damian Lillard, Laura Rahe additionally developed her personal ardour on the college — coaching and educating younger academics by way of Weber State’s training program, as a professor and supervisor of scholar academics.

On the facet, she did not quit basketball, both, officiating largely the ladies’s sport within the Mountain West, Western Athletic and West Coast conferences with occasional sidesteps to work males’s basketball scrimmages.

“In 16 years, she never missed a call,” Randy Rahe instructed native media on a video name of his spouse’s document as a referee, with a cheeky smile on his face whereas she laughed within the chair subsequent to him. “She asked me to review the film several times, and she never did.”

Rahe, 61, has been a coach for 36 years, and his spouse was a referee for near 30. Fitting, because it was the sport of basketball that brought them collectively, when Randy Rahe was an assistant coach at Colorado College and he confirmed as much as recruit throughout a boys highschool sport in Basalt, Colorado.

He arrived early sufficient that the ladies group was nonetheless on the court docket. But earlier than he may flip to go away, one of many coaches on the bench caught his eye, sparking a courtship and a wedding that stills burns practically 30 years later.

The Rahes have grown up with the Ogden neighborhood for the previous 16 years, since Randy Rahe was employed in 2006 after spending three years on the bench as an assistant on the University of Utah. At the time, the couple’s two sons Luke and Kade have been 4 and 6, respectively, nonetheless studying the fundamentals of the sport that brought their dad and mom collectively and ensuring dad contributed to the household’s “cuss jar” when his Division I basketball coach’s language unfold over to the eating room.

Both sons at the moment are Weber State college students, and mother and dad haven’t any plans past having fun with the sunsets and discovering out what’s subsequent in life’s nice journey.

Well, no plans, apart from one.

“I’ve got him on a training program,” Laura Rahe mentioned. “We’re going to leave in a week, go to Italy and ride bikes through Tuscany, then go to Rome and hang out with the Pope for a few days. He’ll be on a bike for a few days. We want to go there, and really enjoy our experience.

“Once we get again, we do not know.”

The plan to retire came about rather quickly — as quick as it took Eric Duft, Rahe’s long-time assistant and the new head coach at Weber State, to move into his new office, the old boss jokes.

It was just last week that the Rahes were in Hilton Head, South Carolina, combining one of Randy’s recruiting visits with a couple’s vacation. After one particularly long day, they opened a bottle of wine to sip — “which is what I’m actually good at,” he quips — and turned their thoughts to the upcoming June period, to offseason workouts and practices, to rebuilding a team losing Utah State and Marquette transfer Kobe McEwen, Florida transfer Dontay Bassett, Utah Valley transfer JJ Overton, and other seniors like Michal Kozak and Donatas Kupsas.

Every season requires a rebuild or a retool or a re-recruitment of some kind; it’s simply the life of a college basketball coach. But Randy Rahe knew that when that retool became too much — when he didn’t have the passion or the energy or the wherewithal to put 100% into the offseason like he often required of each of his players in-season — then it might be time to call it a career.

And last week, he had that feeling.

“This occurred fairly rapidly, so we’ve not made quite a lot of plans,” Rahe said. “We’ll sort of determine it out as we go.

“This is time for me and Laura. I think I quit at the right time, because she still likes me a little bit. A couple of more years to go, and she might not like me as much.”

What Randy Rahe will keep in mind are the gamers, the directors and the relationships he constructed over the previous twenty years with Weber State, the Ogden neighborhood, and the state of Utah. He’ll keep in mind much less concerning the wins and losses — 316 of the previous, a Big Sky document, and 191 of the latter, however who’s counting? — and extra concerning the individuals he knew, the jokes made in his workplace, the assists which have come and gone.

Randy Rahe had loads of alternatives to go away Weber State, however he by no means did. And now simply feels just like the time is correct.

“One of the reasons I felt like I need to be here was the family atmosphere, the other coaches, the administrators, everyone involved in Weber State,” he mentioned. “I couldn’t find a reason to get out of here, and I’m grateful they’ve let me stick around.”

Of course, he is additionally not unaware of the altering panorama of faculty basketball, from the switch portal to new controls on gamers’ identify, picture and likeness rights. He is aware of issues are altering, similar to the world all the time modifications, and the job of a coach is to adapt and survive. Rahe has all the time tried to deal with his gamers the identical method, whether or not they’re in his program for one yr or 5.

The portal and the convenience at which gamers can transfer round in at the moment’s sport typically makes that tougher. He’s misplaced gamers to transfers, however Rahe has additionally used the portal in addition to anybody, together with bringing McEwen again to the state the place he attended Wasatch Academy earlier than signing with Utah State and ultimately departing for extra taking part in time in Milwaukee.

“I don’t think you can coach Division I basketball without having genuine, caring relationships with your guys,” Rahe mentioned.

But …

“I’m an old-school guy,” he added. “Some of this stuff going on in college basketball maybe doesn’t fit me as much. But whether it’s better or worse, that’s for each coach to determine.”

What is left for Randy and Laura Rahe to find out is their subsequent trip, which of Randy’s former gamers they wish to watch within the NBA or abroad, and which bottle of wine they’re going to open subsequent. With the closing of every chapter, a brand new one begins.

The sport that brought them collectively in all probability will not be far-off, although.

“Basketball brought us together,” Laura Rahe mentioned. “I coached until I got married, and I went right into officiating. But I think it’s really fit me — and I think it’s fit both of us. We’ve been able to understand each other’s passion and drive. I’m a little sad to let those joys go, but we’ve got a bright, wide-open future, and we’re going to keep expanding rather than expiring. I can’t wait.”

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