Maybe he was supposed to be a cross country coach all along. It just took Brad Hake more than 20 years to get there.
In his first year as a freshman football coach at Helias in 1993, Hake remembers watching the cross country team practice while running the track around the football practice field.
"I'm not making this up, when I was watching them I wondered what it was like to coach cross country," Hake said Friday after he was introduced as the new head coach of the program. "So a long time ago, I did envision myself as being a cross country coach."
Hake served as an assistant football coach for 21 years. He also spent time with the school's basketball and baseball programs through the years.
Hake joined the cross country staff as an assistant last fall after coaching the distance runners in track in the 2015 season.
"I found out I loved working with those kids," Hake said. "The cross country team is a family and I'm happy to get the chance to continue working with them."
One of the team members is indeed family as his daughter, Abby, has run cross country her first two years at Helias.
"It's great for Brad to get an opportunity to be a head coach at this school," Helias activities director Brad Dempsey said Friday. "I have heard from numerous people he's one of the best teachers in the building, one of the best at building relationships with the kids."
It will be the first head coach position for Hake, an all-state football player at Helias who started coaching at his alma mater in 1993.
"Over half of my life, I've been involved in coaching and teaching at Helias," Hake said. "You are always around great people."
Being a head coach of a sport wasn't necessarily a career goal, Hake said.
"I just wanted an interview and whoever they chose was going to be for the best because our school deserves the best," he said. "I just wanted to earn it and I think that's what happened."
He thinks his experience in various other sports can be a positive for cross country.
"In the end, you are working with young people to try and not only become better athletes, but better people," Hake said. "I'm very excited, it's unbelievable the great kids we get to work with."
Hake replaces Mary Haskamp, who stepped down last month after 28 seasons in a Hall of Fame career.
"Mary did a great job, she's had a lot of success through the years," Hake said. "I hope to continue that."
The Helias girls finished fourth last fall to earn their second consecutive Class 3 team trophy, while the boys also qualified for the state championships and finished seventh.