Jim Sevall is a 1971 graduate of Roseburg High School, where he was a member of four Oregon State championship tennis teams. He was a three-time finalist in doubles, winning twice. He graduated from the University of Idaho in 1976. Coach Sevall played on two Big Sky Conference championship tennis teams and won conference titles in singles and doubles in 1976.
Sevall coached men’s tennis for six years and women’s tennis for four years at his alma mater. During his tenure, his teams had 189 wins and 82 losses.It was at the University of Idaho that he ad the opportunity to coach David and Holly Long.
Coach Sevall joined coach David Long’s Columbia River High School basketball coaching staff in 1991 as the girls JV coach after spending one year coaching JV girls and boys seventh grade teams at Lake Oswego Junior High School.
Sevall had been Long’s trusted assistant for 31years. The duo makes for the perfect coaching pair, and their strengths and weaknesses complimented one another. Sevall is organized, detailed-oriented, and with a more outside-the-box thinking on ideas. “He rejected most of them.” Sevall said, “but he said to his assistants, “If I don’t take your suggestions, don’t think I didn’t hear you.”
Long does not undersell Sevall’s value and views their roles as equal. Sevall’s role at varsity games might not be as noticeable as Long’s, but his impact as a junior-varsity coach cannot be overlooked.“We made for such a great team,” Long said. “Coach Sevall has as much to do with success. It would have been a hell of a lot harder to do what we did without him.”
In thirty-three years of coaching junior varsity basketball at Columbia River, Sevall’s record is 462-157.
Along with coaching basketball, Sevall has coached high school tennis for thirty- seven years at five different schools in Oregon (Sunset and Lake Oswego) and Washington (Hudson’s Bay, Skyview and Columbia River). He has helped coach ten State Championship teams and worked with two State singles champions and six Championship doubles teams.
