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By Loren Kopff
LCCN Sports Editor | Follow X
September 22, 2026
Valley Christian High inducted four more former head coaches to its Coaches Hall of Fame last Friday bringing the total to 20 of the best athletic mentors the school has had. The names of Sheri Admiraal, Tim Becksvoort, Gene Bras and Kim Looney, and the sports they coached at V.C. were revealed two hours before last Friday’s football game against St. Anthony High on a brick wall just steps from the V.C. canteen with the previous inductees. At halftime, the quartet were recognized in front of everyone in attendance for the game, including former V.C. head coaches and athletic directors. The newest members were notified this past spring of their inductions.
Tennis may not be one of the more popular sports in any high school, but Admiraal spent 19 years as the V.C. girls coach, claiming the Olympic League title in 2005, 2007 and 2011. Before that, the school had claimed four league championships from 1991-1997. She also coached the boys tennis team for five years. She said it was a privilege and just a lot of fun to be able to be honored by the V.C. community and welcomed back and to be a part of a place that she stepped away from.
“I would say it’s a great privilege to be on the wall with some of those names,” she added. “But really, when I coached, I just stepped into coaching because I just enjoyed the sport and I wanted to be able to hang out with kids, teach them a sport that I loved and just build a relationship and hopefully give them something to carry into the future.”
The best season she had with V.C. came in 2010 when that team advanced to the CIF-Southern Section Division 5 semifinals for the first time in school history where it would fall to eventual champion Linfield Christian High 17-1. That season, V.C. finished in second place in the Olympic League but was a wild card team in the playoffs where it would knock off Westminster High 11-7, then eliminate Gladstone High 13-5, San Dimas High 11-7 and Savanna High 13-5.
“[It] was really fun,” said Admiraal. “I think as we kept going, we were excited. The semifinal [match] which we lost, and we got destroyed…but I think the journey there was fun like any playoff run. Every step further that you go is just exciting and then you see what you’re going to do the next day.”
In her other two league titles, which were in the Alpha League, Admiraal had her 2005 team fall to Cabrillo High out of Lompoc 11-7 in the first round and two seasons later, fell to Savanna 10-8 in the second round.
“It was a huge part of my life in many ways,” she said of being a tennis coach. “Those girls became my kids, so I think it was just fun to be able to, in some ways, build up that family and hopefully they’ve lessons that they’re just carrying on into the next stage in their life.”
Admiraal is now the lead pastor at Hope Fellowship Church in Denver, a position she has had since 2022.
Tim Becksvoort
When one thinks of V.C. boys and girls cross country and the school’s boys and girls track and field programs, Becksvoort’s name will be near the top, if not at the top. During his combined 29 years of coaching the four teams, he won a total of 24 league championships.
“What a great honor it is,” said Becksvoort. “When you look at the [previous] names on that list; Harold [De Bie], Eleanor [Dykstra], Fred [Wind], Mike [Winderley], and you could go on. Just to be a part of that, and then to be a part with this foursome. It’s just an amazing honor and just deep gratitude for this place, what it’s meant to me and my family and to all the people it still means much to.”
V.C. has won a combined 25 cross country league championships with 15 coming from the girls. Becksvoort was involved in nine girls league championships and five boys league titles. But when it comes to postseason action, his 2016 boys team were the CIF-Southern Section Division 5 runners-up to Desert Christian High 74-79 and the next season, his team lost to Thacher High 82-117 in the Division 5 finals. His 2016 team was also third in state,
For his track and field accomplishments, he would win the Olympic League six times with the boys and four with the girls.
“That’s pretty tough for me to top,” he said. “But beyond that, just the good kids that I had to work with, right? And just the lessons they taught me and hopefully they picked up along the way, too. Every single time we went up to Mammoth Camp, it was amazing just to spend that week with those kids. The competitive things are on one side, but deeper than that, just the relationships with the kids.”
Becksvoort is currently the principle at Zuni Christian Schools in Zuni, New Mexico, just a short drive from the Arizona border. Even though it was a short weekend trip back to Cerritos, he was amazed to see the improved facilities at V.C. However, he did say that it was never the facilities that made the school what it is.
“It’s the people, it’s the spirit of this community; the presence of Christ among the people who are here,” said Becksvoort. “That part has not changed, or it’s deepened and that’s been good. Even just our short time here; just feeling that and knowing that and seeing that continue on is just a beautiful thing.”
Gene Bras
No other V.C. coach has been involved in more sports than Gene Bras as he coached half a dozen sports totaling 23 years and 48 seasons. He was the head coach for the softball team from 1996-2000 while assisting with the girls basketball team for five seasons, including being a head coach in the 2005-2006 and the 2019-2020 seasons. Bras spent 14 seasons as an assistant boys basketball coach, 11 baseball seasons as a member of the coaching staff, 10 as a cross country coach and was the boys tennis head coach for three seasons.
“I guess I really didn’t think of it that much,” said Bras of the number of sports he had coached at V.C. “So, I guess I never really coached for those accolades. It’s kind of more like can I help out the school? I like to coach, and I like to support the head coaches. So yeah, it was a nice honor for sure.”
Bras began his V.C. coaching resume in 1996 with cross country as well, and his teams would go on to win 13 league titles. Since then, he has experienced four other league championships and was on the staff of the 2007-2008 boys basketball team that captured the CIF-SS Division IV-A crown with a 60-45 win over Twentynine Palms High with Bryan Branderhorst as the head coach. That team finished the season at 27-4, the most victories and fewest losses the program has had in the past 29 seasons.
Bras admitted he was surprised when he was notified that he was going to be one of four newest members of the V.C. Coaches Hall of Fame. He was notified by Looney, who acted like it was a no brainer, according to Bras. But still, Bras said he wasn’t expecting it but was still grateful for the honor.
Bras added that even though one of the sports he was involved with captured a CIF-SS championship, the third for the boys basketball program, the other five had their special moment.
“With baseball, we won league in my first season,” said Bras. “That was not just a successful season, but just a really fun season. I was saying that to Tim…with cross country, we had such a good bunch of athletes and coaches. One of those years, we got close to winning CIF. It was cool just to watch; Tim is a good friend of mine and I supported and watched him [coach]. It was kind of cool to see us turn the corner and then things just kind of got easier.”
On top of his time spent with the six sports, Bras is also the voice of six V.C. athletic teams as he continues to be the public address announcer for the boys and girls basketball, football, softball and boys and girls volleyball events, routinely coming up with one-liners for the home athletes.
“It’s a lot of fun; I enjoy doing it and people seem to enjoy it, so that makes it fun,” said Bras of his announcing obligations. “Again, year-round, we’re a tight community [and] it kind of feels like an extended family and that makes it a lot of fun, too.”
Bras stopped coaching four years ago and to be eligible for the V.C. Coaches Hall of Fame, one must wait at least five years after they retire from coaching. But the school let Bras be a part of this group, which made it more special to him.
Besides being the school’s public address announcer for the six sports, he still teaches history, which he has done for the past 30 years.
Kim Looney
Of the 16 sports at V.C. in which a league championship was accomplished, girls soccer has finished in first place 23 times and Looney, who was the sport’s head coach for 19 seasons, won 12 of them. The first began with the 2001-2002 season in which she was a co-head coach with Jane Kors, and her last came in the 2019-2020 season. During her 19 seasons on the sidelines, Looney went 296-133-52 with an Olympic League mark of 110-17-21, finished in second place four times and third place three times. Her teams advanced to the CIF-SS quarterfinals and semifinals three times each, were Division V co-champions in 2005 and in 2007, lost in the 2009 finals and won the Division 6 crown in 2017. As one of the most decorated head coaches the school has had, all her teams made the playoffs.
“I was humbled, I was grateful to represent Valley Christian in that capacity,” said Looney. “Some of my best memories are as a coach out here on the field. So to be able to represent Valley Christian in that way, I was blessed; I was very humbled by it.”
Coaching for as long as Looney did and seeing a tremendous amount of talent come through the program, it’s hard to pick out some of the best players or even some of the best games of the 472 that she coached. And Looney agreed that there were, in her words, so many good moments, and by talking to different players you remember games that you don’t even think you would remember.
“But I think one of the biggest moments was that CIF championship in 2017 just because it took us three years to get there,” she recalled. “It was building that culture and that program after having to break it down and push them to that position. So, that was just a night [when] all of that came together.
“There was also another night when we lost in Hemet [in] 2014 and that senior class is still very special to me,” she added. “I still keep in touch with a lot of those girls to this day. But just standing in the middle of that field with them at the end of our season and praying with them; crying with them are moments I’ll cherish forever.”
The 2017 title was a 2-1 contest against Grace Brethren High as V.C. ended that season with 17 straight victories and 23 of the last 24 games with the Defenders outscoring their opponents 67-4 in those 17 wins with a dozen shutouts. Three seasons prior, the Crusaders, as they were known back then, fell to Hemet High 2-1 in overtime, ending a season where the defense allowed 20 goals in 28 games.
Once the final whistle was blown to end the Grace Brethren game and the bench players raced onto the field to celebrate with their teammates, an emotional Looney went to her knees on the sideline for about a minute to reflect on how long it took for her and the school to claim a solo CIF-SS championship.
“That was a championship of hard work; getting the entire team to buy into the system that when the next group came up, getting that group to buy into it because they were just such a talented group of kids,” said Looney. “We went through a lot in those three years, and I think the fact that we came out on top, it overwhelmed me in the moment.”
One of the staples of any of the teams Looney coached was the stellar defense and that’s a testament to her former V.C. coach and mentor who is also in the Coaches Hall of Fame-Fred Wind. Looney said that he did all the scouting in her earlier years as a head coach and a lot of what Looney did was based off of what Wind did.
“You tweak things to fit your style or whatever, but Fred would always tell me defense wins championships,” said Looney. “You have to be organized defensively, and some of the best players I had were defenders and I was able to capitalize on those moments. But if we weren’t going to defend, we weren’t going to win. So we had to do that.”
Looney never thought her name would be on the wall with the other hall of famers because the previous 15 members were individuals she had looked up to. She said she never thought she could be on their level or on their status and learned everything that she became because of each and every one of them.
“They helped me and mold me into what I became,” said Looney. “So, I’m honored to be put in the same realm as them, now. But I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them.”
Looney is currently the V.C. girls athletic director, replacing Zac Chan who now lives in Idaho and when she found out about her induction, she was thrilled to know that Chan was going to make the trip back to Cerritos for the event.
“His response right way was, ‘I’ll absolutely be there’,” she said. “And he made it happen. At first, his wife was not going to be able to make it, and then by the end of the weekend, [he said] all right, me and Jaime will be there on Friday afternoon. That was just a testament to the relationship that I had had with him and how we had grown together. He grew in his A.D. job and he helped me grow in my coaching job, and to share it with him is pretty special as well.” Valley Christian inducts latest quartet into Coaches Hall of Fame
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