PORT TOWNSEND — Victor Porter loved basketball so deeply he changed careers so he could coach the game.
Porter, 58, who took the Chimacum High School Cowboys to the Class 2A state finals in March, died Saturday morning while scuba diving on a reef near Tatoosh Island off Cape Flattery.
An autopsy Sunday afternoon determined that Porter drowned.
“Basketball was his joy in life, coaching basketball and playing basketball,” said Colum Tinley, Porter’s brother-in-law and partner on Saturday’s dive.
Porter graduated in 1968 from Michigan State University with a mechanical engineering degree and worked in that profession in Iowa.
He left the field, however, for his love of basketball, returning to school and receiving his teaching degree in 1973 from the University of Iowa.
He taught and coached at Jordan College in Flint, Mich., and Jesuit High School in Sacramento, Calif., before joining the Chimacum staff two years ago, Tinley said.
“He loved teaching kids through basketball about life,” Tinley said, “not just teaching them about basketball but learning lessons for life.”
Chimacum High School Principal Rex Whipple called Porter “a very good teacher because of his dedication and his willingness to do whatever you needed.”
Porter took the unranked Cowboys to sixth place in the state finals in the Yakima SunDome.
