‘Wouldn’t trade it for anything’: Why Maize boys basketball coach retired
After spending the last 24 years as a Kansas high school basketball head coach, Chris Grill announced Thursday that he is retiring as the boys basketball coach at Maize.
The decision comes shortly after his youngest son, Alec, finished his senior basketball season playing for his father. With Alec as a starting guard, the Eagles won 11 of their final 13 games, including an upset of the No. 1 seed at the Class 6A state tournament en route to a third-place finish.
The father has spent the last 10 years coaching his three sons — Caleb, Kyle and Alec — at Maize and now that they are all done, Chris wants to spend the next few years following their basketball careers. Caleb just finished a successful collegiate career at Missouri and will pursue a professional career, while Kyle was a key player for a Fort Hays State team that qualified for the NCAA Division II Tournament and Alec recently signed to play in college at Kansas Wesleyan.
Consider it a temporary retirement as a head coach as Grill, 50, said he still has the desire to coach basketball again. He will remain a teacher at the high school and an assistant coach for middle school football and high school tennis, while he will search for a less time-consuming and more flexible job during the winter.
“I would still like to stay involved with basketball, but I also want the opportunity to get out and go watch my kids without feeling bad about it,” Grill said. “I don’t want to feel guilty for traveling to watch my kids play, so that’s why I want somebody that’s going to be able to fully commit themselves to the program and to the school.”
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Grill compiled a 341-198 records in 24 years as a head coach, including stops at Andover (2001-05), Maize (2005-10), Garden Plain (2010-14) and Maize again for the last 11 years. Grill most notably led the Eagles to the 2021 Class 5A state championship. Since returning to Maize in 2015, the team has won 70.7% of its games (162-67) with five state appearances and four semifinal appearances.
Grill won a host of coach-of-the-year awards in Kansas following the 2021 title, the only one in Maize’s program history.
What made the experience even more special for Grill was the fact that Maize reached the Final 4 in each of his sons’ senior years: Caleb (2019), Kyle (2022) and Alec (2025).
“It’s been a lot of fun to see them and their friends have success, not just at Maize, but afterwards too,” Grill said. “When you coach them when you’re young, you get to know their friends and their families, so to get to coach them together in high school was really cool. But it is a little more special when they’re your own kids and they have success. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. That’s been very fulfilling.”
Grill also believes the timing was right to step down because the program has the potential to be an annual contender in Class 6A and Division I of the Ark Valley-Chisholm Trail League.
Maize graduates several key players, but the Eagles are slated to return starters Brayden Myovela, an All-Metro player, and Ty Willits.
”It’s a good time for a transition because we have a ton of talent in our program,” Grill said. “Not just with the kids coming back, but with the talent we have coming up through the middle school. It’s going to be a great opportunity for someone else to continue competing at a high level.”
This story was originally published April 11, 2025 at 6:03 AM.
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