Ephrata’s Dave Johnson inducted into ABCA Hall of Fame

EPHRATA — Dave Johnson has received plenty of recognition at the local and state level for the success his baseball teams had while serving as the head coach at Ephrata High School, but the former Tiger baseball coach received a new honor last week – being inducted into the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

Johnson was the EHS head coach from 1971 to 2006, winning eight state championships, 25 league titles and 20 district championships over his 36-year career. His career record is 687-201-2, which includes the most wins in state history. 

“It means quite a lot; it’s quite an honor, and a humbling honor because there’s so many people that made our whole program successful,” Johnson said. “It wasn’t a one-man thing; what it does, is it recognizes the players that played for us and the coaches that I had. Most of them were with me for 30 years.” 

The process of nominating the longtime Ephrata baseball head coach began in the fall of 2022, when EHS Athletic Director Bryan Johnson – Dave's son – began to collect information about Dave to submit to the ABCA to be considered for its hall of fame.  

Among the criteria to be selected into the ABCA Hall of Fame is 15 years as both a head coach and active membership in the ABCA, made professional and personal contributions to the ABCA and significantly contributed to the advancement of the sport at the local, national or international levels. 

“It’s a very competitive process,” Bryan said. “It goes through all college coaches, high school coaches. There’re hundreds of thousands of candidates. This is the Cooperstown of high school and collegiate baseball hall of fames.” 

While Dave wasn’t selected on the first year of his nomination in 2023, he received a call in January of last year.  

“My son never told me what he was doing,” Dave said. “So, that was a surprise to me.” 

After graduating from Whitworth University, where he played baseball and was a captain for the Pirates, Johnson entered the workforce at 22 and was hired as a teacher at Ephrata High School. Chuck Panerio, who went on to be inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2010, had been both the baseball and wrestling coach at the time. 

“He was a very good wrestling coach – head (coach of) baseball and wrestling – and he didn’t know which way he was going to go,” Dave said. “When I was hired, I was either going to be the assistant to him or be the head coach.” 

Panerio elected to step down as the Tiger baseball head coach and stay with wrestling instead, which opened the door for Dave to step in as head coach of the Ephrata baseball team at just 22 years old. 

“I didn’t even really know if I wanted to coach,” he said with a laugh. “... It was the 1960s, ’70s, Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam War issues, all that kind of stuff. I was kind of sour on sports, because it wasn’t cool to be in sports at the time. It was kind of a time of anti-authority.” 

Despite his initial concerns about coaching, Dave was offered the job and took it. At the teacher orientation ahead of the next school year he met Marty O’Brien, who had applied to be the middle school physical education teacher around the same time Dave was named the head coach of Ephrata baseball. Both Dave and O’Brien had grown up in the Spokane area but weren’t familiar with each other, he said. 

“He and I coached together for the next 30 years,” Dave said. “He was the assistant baseball coach and I was the head coach, but we were actually kind of co-coaches. He really wanted to be a coach, and he was very good at it. He’s a tremendous motivator. Us two together, we were opposites on a lot of things, except we both wanted to develop a great program.” 

Two years later, Ephrata High School alumni Gary Archer joined the program as an assistant coach. The trio of Johnson, O’Brien and Archer roamed the dugout for the next 30 years. 

“We had about 90 years of experience," Dave joked. 

Dave attributed the longevity of his coaching career to sharing time with O’Brien and Archer. 

“We were always on the same page, but we are quite different from each other – opposites attract,” he said. “... Three guys with college baseball experience, good experience. We all came together at the right time, and then we had some tremendous talent coming through from (1975) through the ’80s.” 

To win the number of state championships that Ephrata claimed in the late 1970s through the 1980s, you have to start somewhere. Dave pointed to the 1975 season, where the Tigers fell to Clarkston in extra innings of the state championship game.  

“That team in ’75 was the one that started putting us on the map,” he said. “It started that success.” 

In Ephrata, the focus on baseball didn’t just take place during the spring months; Ephrata hosted TBI Baseball Camps in the summer months, which would bring in nearly 150 youth players a week for four weeks in the summer. The five-day camp featured two practice sessions per day, where youth baseball players worked on the fundamentals of the game.  

O’Brien led the bulk of the instruction at the camps, Dave said. Eventually, they didn’t need to advertise the camp; word of mouth was enough to get the message out. Players from across the Pacific Northwest and into Canada would travel to Ephrata for the camps, he said.  

“That just propelled our success,” Dave said. 

Camps served as a fundraiser for the program, helping Tiger baseball purchase things like uniforms, batting cages, pitching machines and, of course, spare baseballs. 

“We had an unbelievable amount of baseballs,” he said.  

In a career that included many highlights, Dave noted a few standout moments during his 36 years in the dugout with Ephrata baseball. 

The first championship, in 1977, was a memorable one. 

“’77 was really special, and the kids were really special in ’77,” Dave said. “They were called ‘The No Names.’ The team in ’76 was supposed to win it all, but we took second in state.” 

Another was coaching the 1999 team, where he coached his son Bryan Johnson. That team wound up winning the 2A championship, defeating Naches Valley 9-8. It was Dave’s eighth championship win. 

“It wasn’t easy coaching your own son,” Dave said. “Your son sees you as Dad, while the other players see you as Coach.” 

In his 36 years at Ephrata High School, Dave didn’t only serve as the school’s varsity baseball coach; he also taught history and psychology. 

“He would get the tests back to kids the next day – if it was 180 students, essays and multiple choice and all that, he would grade them that night and have it back to them the next day, which is really hard to do,” Bryan said. “He was definitely a teacher first, coach second.” 

After retiring in 2006, Dave wasn’t away from the dugout for long. 

“He took a couple years off and then did 12 years as a coach of the River Dogs summer program as an assistant with Randy Boruff, and after that he started up our middle school program (in 2024) for the first time since the ’70s,” Bryan said. “He’s had a lifelong dedication to coaching baseball. It’s a passion of his.” 

Of the eight members of the 2025 ABCA Hall of Fame class, Dave is one of two high school coaches, joining Larry Turner of Owasso High School (Oklahoma). The other six members of the 2025 class are Rich Alday (University of New Mexico), Dave Jarvis (Belmont University), Costa “Pop” Kittles (Florida A&M University), Charlie Migl (St. Mary’s University), Dunn Muramaru (Mid-Pacific Institute) and Jim Schlossnagle (University of Texas). 

Dave is now a member of four halls of fame: The ABCA Hall of Fame, the WIAA Hall of Fame (Class of 2011), the Washington Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame (1988 Charter Member) and the Ephrata High School Athletic Hall of Fame (Class of 2019, Inaugural Class). 

“The only way to be a state champion in a team sport is that the whole team has to be a state champion,” Dave said. “You can be the fastest guy in the 100-meters in the state, but that doesn’t mean your track team is going to win state. Basketball is a team sport, baseball is a team sport, football is a team sport. You’re not going to win a state championship unless the whole team wins. I think that’s a big deal.” 

    Members of the American Baseball Coaches Assocation Hall of Fame Class of 2025 smile for a photo. Former Ephrata coach Dave Johnson, center left, was one of two high school coaches inducted this year.
  

    Dave Johnson is now a member of four halls of fame: the American Baseball Coaches Assocation Hall of Fame, the Washington Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame, the WIAA Hall of Fame and the Ephrata High School Athletic Hall of Fame.