After 14 seasons manning the helm of Sequim High athletics, Dave Ditlefsen is handing over the reins to Craig Brooks.

“I kind of missed being back in the classroom,” Ditlefsen said last week.

“I’m looking forward to having more time with my family.”

Ditlefsen will keep his position as head coach of the SHS varsity baseball team, a squad he’s led since 2006, as well as his mathematics teaching role at Sequim High.

“I really, really enjoyed the collaboration with the coaches … [and with] other ADs in the league,” Ditlefsen said.

Since his first season as athletic director for Sequim High in 2008-2009, the Wolves amassed 38 outright or shares of Olympic League titles, eight district crowns, 11 individual state titles and three team state championships (fastpitch, 2011; girls tennis, 2019; boys track and field, 2019).

The average athletic director tenure, Ditlefsen noted, is about three years.

“It’s a very time consuming, demanding job,” he said.

The past two-plus years of chaos wreaked by the pandemic didn’t help, he said.

“The last two years were every AD’s most challenging years of their career,” Ditlefsen said. “It just makes the job more difficult. How much people have risen up [and helped out], we have a lot to be proud of.”

Brooks is a former head coach of varsity boys basketball (4A Gig Harbor, 2011-2013) who teaches at Sequim High School.

“There are a lot of late nights, three or four nights a week of coming home at nine o’clock at night … [but] Craig’s prepared for this,” Ditlefsen said. “He has a lot of coaching and teaching experience. He’s played and coached multiple sports [and] has a pretty good grasp on what to expect.”