POULSBO ­— It was a Friday night in Tacoma. The North Kitsap Vikings baseball team was in the 1988 state semi-finals against Mount Vernon. Then it began to rain.

But the Vikings were no strangers to poor weather conditions on the field. Earlier in the season, coach Virgil Taylor continued a game in wet weather that others thought should be called.

It may have paid off.

After a 45-minute delay, the game resumed.

Aaron Sele was on the mound. Why save your best pitcher if you don’t make the championship? The team knew what it took to win in the elements.

The Vikings, who lost five games overall in the 1988 season, eliminated Mount Vernon. They had made it to the championships.

“Our kids played tougher than hell,” Taylor said.

It was the 1988 team that went on to win the state championship, defeating Mount Tahoma High School 12-4 the next day.

“We just played awesome,” Taylor said. “We clobbered them.”

The 1988 Vikings baseball team is the only North Kitsap team to win a championship in school history. It’s one of many moments Taylor remembers as a long-time coach in the North Kitsap School District.

Though Taylor would say he is retired, he’s really not, at least from a coaching perspective.

Still a paid coach with the Vikings football team and a volunteer on the baseball team, Taylor has stayed involved with the school and community since 1965. He taught at North Kitsap for 36 years. He began coaching baseball around 1965, where he would soon become the high school coach. He began coaching football not long after.

“I’m still in love with high school sports,” Taylor said.

Taylor began his sports career playing basketball, baseball, football and wrestling. He grew up in Anacortes, which is a big basketball town. He admits he was not good at basketball. He wrestled just to stay busy. Taylor played baseball and football through public school.

He continued onto Washington State University, where he played football as a linebacker for one season and arena football. Taylor graduated with a degree in political science and later from Western Washington University for his teaching certificate.

Taylor worked as a social studies teacher in North Kitsap, which gave him the opportunity to teach many subjects. That included a class on the evolution of change and, his favorite, sports appreciation.

He enjoyed teaching, calling it “very, very rewarding.” But after 36 years, he decided that was enough.

Staying involved with sports, however, may have lasted longer that Taylor expected.

Following Taylor’s arrival, two more long-time coaches arrived: Tom Driscoll (1970) and Jerry Parrish (1973). One evening, Taylor and Driscoll decided they would coach as long as Parrish coached. Parrish ended his coaching career in 2008.

“It’s just perpetual motion,” Taylor said. “You get so used to [coaching] that it becomes part of your life.”

Taylor and his fellow coaches have seen significant changes in North Kitsap sports.

Football is less physical than it once was. Taylor remembers the contact sport as being unforgiving. Concussions were common. Taylor himself had several concussions, which would cause memory loss and confusion.

Underfunded athletics was also an issue. District tax levies failed beginning in 1973, but finally won voter approval in 1986. As a result, from 1973 to 1985, baseball players purchased their own uniforms. The uniforms were stock colors, not school colors, to save money. For years, the Viking baseball team’s colors were navy blue and white.

And with decades of coaching comes decades worth of statistics.

Taylor began keeping track of baseball stats around 1965. He has binders full of data about each game played. Some of the information in them, he said, is esoteric. And, prior to his first Macintosh computer, everything was done by hand. He even took a few summers off from working — he was a fisherman in Alaska and worked with Washington State Ferries — to compile the stats.

To show just how involved he’s been with sports in the community, a good portion of the Poulsbo Historical Society Heritage Museum’s baseball exhibit is dedicated to Taylor.

Taylor is a father of three men. He’s a grandfather and will soon become a great-grandfather. When it comes to the time commitment of being a coach, he said he is fortunate to have such an understanding wife, DiAnn.

When DiAnn does retire from Wolfle Elementary, Taylor will end his time with the North Kitsap teams. Taylor said the two plan to travel as much as possible. They will probably avoid a motorhome and stay in hotels.

But Taylor is unsure when his travel plans will come to fruition. For now, the long-time North Kitsap resident can be found on the sidelines or in the bullpen. With iPad in hand, he’s still keeping track of those statistics and working with the teams he’s so familiar with.