Ron Livingston is a graduate of Highland High Dchool in Cowiche, Washington where he played basketball and baseball. By his own admission, he was not a very good player, but that never deterred his love for the game or his desire to coach. Upon graduation, he began his pursuit of educational credentials at Yakima Valley College, Central Washington University and his alma mater, Washington State University. While there, he was able to take classes from Elwood Crosier, Dean Nicholson and George Raveling, all legendary hall of fame basketball coaches who left their legacies on many players and future coaches. While at WSU he began his coaching career as a volunteer coach with the Pullman Parks and Recreation department and upon graduation in 1979, took his first job as an assistant coach for Toppenish High School.
After successfully coaching the sophomore and junior varsity teams for five years, he joined head coach Steve Myers who had recently relocated from coaching stints in Indiana and North Carolina. As the varsity assistant, he and coach Myers had seven state appearances in ten years with state championship games in both 1991 and 1992 with the Toppenish Wildcats.
Basketball was fully ingrained in his life, and it was after the unrelenting urgings of a former player’s mother, he finally went on a blind date shortly after the 1986 state tournament. Ron has been happily married to Karri Jo for thirty-seven years.
Looking for a slightly less demanding role as his boys grew up, he then coached 7th Grade boys and 8th Grade girls at Toppenish middle school for ten seasons which allowed him to coach his boys in AAU basketball.
In 2000, Coach Steve Elder became the head boy’s coach at East Valley (Yakima) and Ron rejoined his former Toppenish player, again as a varsity assistant where together they had five teams qualify for the state tournament and a championship appearance in 2004. After ten seasons, Ron stepped back from coaching to focus on increased instructional and administrative duties with Toppenish School District where in 2021 he retired after forty-two years as a teacher, coach, and administrator.
Upon the urging of his boy’s, Ron once again teamed with Coach Elder as the boys volunteer varsity assistant at East Valley where he is now just entering his fifth season with his second go around as a member of Coach Elder’s staff.
When not coaching basketball, Ron and Karri spend much of their retired time traveling and staying involved in the lives of their son (Dr. Chase Livingston D.O.) his wife Paige, and their two granddaughters Everly and Noelle. In addition, they are greatly attached to a young man whom they met on his first day of kindergarten (Mikael Rojas J.D.) and his wife Jackie who live in Washington D.C. and are shortly expecting their first child. Ron feels great satisfaction with having been able to be a part of his boy’s high school basketball careers in which they qualified for the state tournament three of their four years in high school.
Ron is greatly appreciative of the personal relationships that he has had with both Coach Steve
Myers and Coach Steve Elder and the many fine players and families that he has had the pleasure of working with in both Toppenish and East Valley school districts. He has long insisted that the key to success in basketball isn’t solely about basketball, but hinges greatly on the relationships that are built on and off the court and can last a lifetime. His favorite quote is *The will to win, is only as great as the will to prepare to win.” He now is beginning to encourage his granddaughters in the love of basketball.
