Finding renewed baseball-coaching purpose on journey to unabated sobriety

After more than a decade as a pitching coach and top recruiter at the NCAA D1 level, Elliott Cribby is back in the high school ranks - and having the time of his life in first season at Eastlake

In his first season leading Eastlake baseball, ex-UW pitcher and assistant coach Elliott Cribby got to celebrate a Class 4A bi-district championship. / Photo by Jeff Steinbok

When close friends or former college associates see that Elliott Cribby has resumed coaching baseball at Eastlake High School in Sammamish, the most common question he gets is one simple word.

Why?

Why would one of the brightest pitching minds and most successful recruiters in college baseball for more than a decade, with stops at NCAA Division I programs Abilene Christian, Seattle University, Purdue, the University of Washington and the University of Pacific, take such a detour back to the high-school ranks?

His answer: It is where the path to newfound sobriety has taken him.

"I needed to hit the reset button," Cribby said.

And it tickles Cribby, who is just a few weeks shy of turning 40, to be on this latest adventure with KIngCo powerhouse, which just captured the Class 4A District 1/2 championship last week over Jackson to earn one of the top four seeds for the regional round of the WIAA playoffs.

This accomplishment comes on the heels of the program graduating its two best players to NCAA Division i programs - outfielder Grady Woodward to the UW, and catcher Jack Edmunds to Brown University - and losing longtime coach Frank Smith, who resigned in the offseason.

"This team is built a lot differently," Cribby said. "It's about self-driven team leadership. They understand it's about them."

For a program that doesn't boast the amount of college-ready talent as in years past, Cribby has this group focused on "applying constant pressure" - a must in small-ball execution.

"Really, it's the accountability and great detail in how we play the game," Cribby said. "Everything matters."

Elliott Cribby, Eastlake baseball coach / Photo courtesy of Eastlake athletics

It took Cribby a brief reprieve last week for to realize how far Eastlake has come in a few months under his guidance.

Last week, Cribby and his wife, Cassie, welcomed their first child - a daughter. She was born Thursday, right in the later stages of Eastlake's bi-district tournament.

When Cribby returned Saturday for the bi-district championship game, he sat back and watched a master class in small-ball execution amid a downpour as the Wolves won, 14-0, in five innings.

Senior Cody O'Donnell threw four shutout innings to earn the victory. Seven of the team's eight hits were singles. They took three bases on balls. And they stole five bases - by Dominic Miller, Thomas Wood, Travis Beam, Gabe Prock and Larson Kohlman.

"I told them, 'This was real baseball tonight!'" Cribby said.

What this all does is set up a potential full-circle moment for Cribby, an ex-UW reliever (and teammate of Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum) who left professional independent ball to start coaching (and work late-hour shifts at Trader Joe's), eventually guiding Mount Si to the Class 4A championship in 2011.

Two years later, he moved to Texas to become Abilence Christina's pitching coach and program's top recruiter in the Northwest.

After one season, Cribby joined former UW assistant Donny Harrel's staff at Seattle University where he took charge recruiting 18 players over a five-year span, including current American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal, who were eventually selected in the MLB Draft.

Cribby then went to Purdue (2018), UW (2019) and Pacific (2022) to serve as the pitching coach before his career was impacted by alcohol-related issues.

"For the longest time, all I cared about was what people thought of me," Cribby said. "Now, it's about how I can be a service to others.

"This is what life is all about. I am now at two years of sobriety. And I am so grateful for the life I get to live now ... and so grateful for this opportunity (at Eastlake)."

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