As Tracy Logan prepares for the next chapter in his life, the longtime Capital High teacher and coach spent a few minutes in his empty classroom last week reflecting on his career.

Logan, who for the past 25 years has coached wrestling and track at Boulder and Capital, is relocating to Colorado next week. His wife, Lee, a Veterans Administration employee, has taken a position with the regional office in Denver.

"She's passed up several opportunities to advance her career, so that I could stay doing what I wanted to do," Logan said. "So now it's my turn to let her do what she wants. Besides, I'm ready for a change."

Logan, 56, placed fourth in state as a high school wrestler in Arizona. After graduating from Carroll College in 1978, he was employed as a wood worker for several years in Helena. He then took a teaching position at Jefferson County High in 1982. For the next 10 years, he served as the Panthers' head wrestling coach and assisted in cross country.

In 1992, he returned to Carroll and earned his teaching certificate. Logan said that his beginning at Capital High was not promising at first.

"When I was first hired by Capital, I didn't even have a class," Logan recalled. "My office was in an empty closet."

But things improved shortly thereafter.

He said the first person he met at Capital was Tom Pedersen, the Bruins' former track coach. The two men "hit it off right away" and have been good friends ever since.

"Tracy had a real connection with the kids, both as a teacher and as a coach," Pedersen said. "He knew just how to bring them along at the pace they needed."

And has happens in most longtime sporting relationships, Pedersen had his favorite Tracy Logan story.

"It was a few years ago, late August and hot," Pedersen related. "Tracy was running with the girls towards the loop around Spring Meadow Lake, and fell behind. When he got to the lake, he discovered that his whole team had jumped in the water to cool off.

"So from then on, we've always teased him about the lake run, and his famous Spring Meadow workout."

Logan started out with Capital's wrestling program as a volunteer assistant under Pat Hurley, and as a paid cross country assistant under Gil Wooden. He became the head wrestling coach in 1995, serving in that capacity until 1999.

Logan took over the reigns of the Bruin ladies' cross country program, a position he held for 10 years, from 1996 to 2006. And he was the girls' track distance coach from 1999 until this spring.

"I learned an awful lot from working with Sam (Samson), and just watching how he dealt with the kids" said Logan, referring to his time under the Panthers' Hall of Fame harrier coach. "My coaching philosophy was molded after him."

But one of the benchmarks of his career was a learning experience from his own behavior.

"I've got a pretty bad temper, and in Boulder once, my kid kept getting slammed and we couldn't get the call. So I finally I went off-shift (lost my temper), and started yelling at the ref. I got kicked out of the gym.

"But before I left, I threw a roll of white athletic tape down on the mat, and it bounced up, hit the ceiling and came down and hit the ref. Boy, I really made my wife proud that day. She couldn't believe it.

"Anyway, I decided that that was not the kind of example I wanted to set for the kids. So I toned down my behavior after that.

"And you know what? I bet I've tried a thousand times to get a roll of tape to bounce off a mat that high again, and it's absolutely impossible."

Logan went on to explain the main difference between coaching wrestling and coaching cross country is that the intensity level and emotional swings are far greater with the former.

"But distance running and wrestling are alike in the fact that they're both individual sports. Your decisions and actions are responsible for your successes and failures.

"I always felt that my job was to teach the kids to develop characteristics to take with them beyond school," he said.

Over his career, Logan coached five state mat champions: Steve Rogne and Kris Mayes at Boulder, and Capital's Travis Snellman, Joe Horne and Kyle Nay. In cross country, his best team finish was a state runner-up trophy in 1996.

But the crowning achievement of his tenure was two-time state harrier champion Katie Gilboy, who copped back-to-back titles in 2005 and 2006.

"To repeat like Katie did is extremely hard to do, because everybody is gunning for you. She is a big meet runner, and I just can't tell how sweet that moment was," Logan said.

Gilboy said that her coach always believed she could win state, and never let her get down on herself.

"He helped me believe in myself, and always trained me for the end of the year," she said. "And he taught me to keep looking ahead to the next level, to be prepared to compete after high school."

Logan teaches chemistry and physics, and there is not a whole lot of differnece in his classroom and coaching philosophies.

"I'm just helping them along. I feel that I've been able to provide a foundation for their academic growth, a stepping stone for their next level of education. I'm extremely fortunate to have the wonderful caliber of students I've had," Logan said.

In Colorado, the Logans will be closer to their two children. Daughter Miranda lives in Denver and their son Zach resides in Grand Junction.

"Tracy is going to be dearly missed here at Capital," Pedersen said. "You just don't replace someone like that."

"The coaching took up a lot of my time, but I have no regrets," said Logan, "and it's going to be hard to leave.

"But it's the right time to go, and I'm still young enough to be able to do some of the other things I'd like to do."