State-champion Foss heading back to Yakima. But a trophy hasn’t withered coach’s fire

Mike Cocke’s voice booms throughout the gymnasium as he shouts offensive and defensive responsibilities in front of the Foss High School boys basketball team’s bench.

His team might be different from last season, when it brought Tacoma its first state boys basketball championship since 2002. But has a state trophy at all changed the 10th-year Foss coach?

“No,” Foss senior Demetrius Crosby II said, smiling and widening his eyes wide for emphasis. “He’s even more fiery.”

Cocke is planning a second consecutive trip to Yakima for the 2A state tournament, with No. 2 Foss earning a bye to the state quarterfinals after its dominant defensive effort Saturday, cruising past No. 10 Pullman, 56-44, at Mount Tahoma High School in the regional round.

But he’ll assure you; Next week will be no vacation.

“We had been to state plenty of times before we went to 2A. It’s a grind,” Cocke said. “It’s watching teams’ film, figuring out our logistics, when we’re going to have shootaround … it’s business.”

So, no, that state trophy didn’t rid Cocke of his competitive edge.

It’s the same one he grew up in Tacoma with, starring at Stadium before playing at Centralia College, accompanied at both stops with his best friend and Foss assistant coach Chris Hyppa.

Cocke and Hyppa were inducted into the Centralia College Hall of Fame together last week, after Foss beat Renton for third place in the 2A West Central District tournament.

Hyppa recalls almost getting into fist fights with Cocke over video games when they were college roommates.

“When he sets his mind to doing something, he does it,” said Hyppa, who joined Cocke’s staff in 2015, even though Cocke had been asking Hyppa to help since 2010.

“We won a state championship together, we went into the Hall of Fame together — we’ve done a lot of stuff that have been firsts. And that’s because when he sets his mind on something, he gets it done.”

Said Cocke: “I mean, I’m competitive in ping-pong, pool and darts. And if I’m going to spend time with these kids for four months out of the year and be away from my family, I’m going to give it everything I got.”

But coaching doesn’t always take Cocke away from his family.

His brother, former Stadium coach Doug Cocke, is one of his assistant coaches (he was out scouting Saturday), and his son and former player Michel helps in an unofficial assistant coach capacity.

“It’s a family affair,” Cocke said, with his younger son, Carter, nearby. “This is really just an excuse for me to go hang out in a gym for three hours a day.”

Said Michel: “He’s the most competitive human in the world. We used to play board games back in the day. You beat him in Monopoly … it’s not good.”

Crosby said Cocke makes Foss go. His booming orders from the sideline only intensified Foss’ defensive energy Saturday in the Falcons’ rematch of last year’s 2A state semifinals against Pullman.

Foss forced two shot-clock violations and a 10-second violation with its trapping zone defense. Pullman’s Jake Wells, who averaged 24 points in his past four games, was held scoreless in the first half, when Foss had a 26-13 lead.

Micah Pollard led Foss with 17 points and Crosby had 15, while Damani Kelly and Christian Barnes each scored eight. All four guards were part of last year’s title team.

“It’s going to be surreal,” Crosby said of heading back to Yakima. “That feeling when we won it last year, it was amazing. That was the best experience I’ve ever had in my life.”

Foss is better defensively this season.

“And I’m more of a defensive guy, so this takes me back to my roots to when I first started coaching,” Cocke said. “We used to defend the hell out of everybody. This team can really guard.”

It reflects Cocke, who was a team captain at Centralia College and all-conference before taking over at Foss in 2008.

Crosby said he had no idea his coach was a decent hooper.

“Not with his nasty jumper,” Crosby laughed, as he demonstrated Cocke’s apparent high release. “I really didn’t know that.”

Cocke said he lets Hyppa do most of the skill development with their guards.

But Cocke serves many other, bigger roles.

“He’s like my second dad, to me, to be honest,” said Crosby, this year’s 2A South Puget Sound League Mountain MVP. “He takes care of me and he’s always asking if I need anything,”

In that sense, nothing has changed since last year.

“We have five guys in the locker room who have won a state championship,” Cocke said. “I think those guys know what it takes and they’ve done a good job of stressing to the younger guys how important these games are.

“But winning the state championship was last year. We’re trying to win another one.”

This story was originally published February 24, 2018 at 5:37 PM with the headline "State-champion Foss heading back to Yakima. But a trophy hasn’t withered coach’s fire."