Wichita Northwest soccer hires a school legend as coach retires after 41 years
After 41 years, Wichita Northwest has its second soccer coach in school history.
Austin Clifton, who played for the Grizzlies and has been an assistant coach at the high school for the past two seasons, has been named the successor to Bobby Bribiesca, who retired July 31. No Wichita soccer coach has had bigger shoes to fill, but Bribiesca believes Clifton is the man to do it.
Clifton has been leading the summer conditioning workouts with the boys and girls soccer teams this year, even before Bribiesca stepped down. When Bribiesca told Clifton of his resignation, they were at lunch together.
“He told me to apply right away, and he told me I had his blessing,” Clifton said. “That was huge for me to have support from the guy I looked up to and who built this program.”
Clifton interviewed at noon Friday and Northwest athletic director Lance Deckinger told him he got the job by 3:30 p.m.
The Grizzlies soccer legend was emotional.
“Northwest used to be place people feared coming to,” Clifton said. “We have a great stadium with great fan and parent support. We just want to bring that back. When I was playing there, it was a packed house every night.”
Clifton was a senior striker on the 2011 Northwest team that finished 21-0-0 and won the state championship, making Bribiesca the only two-time title-winning coach in City League history. Clifton scored 28 goals that season. He was an All-Metro, All-League, All-State and All-America selection.
He was the key to a team that is regarded as the greatest in Wichita high school soccer history.
Clifton said he didn’t always know that he wanted to coach let alone where, but he wanted to eventually make his way back to Northwest in some capacity.
“I’m ready to get to work, get with the boys,” he said. “I think we are going to surprise some people.”
In 2018, the Eagle wrote about Clifton’s return to Northwest as an assistant and featured his younger brother, Cole, who died of leukemia in 2014. Cole would have been a senior in 2018. In the reporting for that story, Bribiesca, who was nearing 40 years of coaching, said he was afraid of turning the program over to someone else.
When he spoke with his athletic director about his resignation, he told Deckinger, “Austin is the guy.”
“I told Austin, ‘Don’t reinvent the wheel,’” Bribiesca said. “I gave him my ‘Northwest soccer bible’ and told him to read it, change my name to his name. I want to make life easier on him; I’m only a phone call away. Northwest has a tradition of playing great soccer, and I told him, ‘I want you to keep doing that.’
“And he will.”
This story was originally published August 12, 2020 at 1:24 PM.