Coming off a successful eight-year run as the boys basketball coach at Oregon Episcopal that included a 3A title in 2020, Ed Kirk has moved up in weight class.
Kirk has taken over as the coach at 6A Beaverton, replacing Andrew Vancil, now the coach at 5A Silverton. Kirk, who went 118-79 during his tenure with the Aardvarks, said he already has talked with Beaverton coaching legend Nick Robertson about what it means to carry the torch for the Beavers.
“I'm learning more about the history,” Kirk said. “These opportunities don't come up a lot, a chance to go to a basketball-tradition school. It's cool because a lot of the kids that play there now, their parents played at Beaverton. There are a lot of generations within the program.”
Kirk, battle-tested in the tough Lewis & Clark League, now gets to trade blows in the Metro League. He said the Metro is a throwback to his high school playing days at Bryan Adams in Dallas, Texas, where he was a teammate of former NBA star Kenyon Martin.
“It's similar to the league I played in back home,” he said. “The Metro has a lot more college-level basketball players than 3A. At 3A, you might have some here and there, but in the Metro you might have three or four on a team.”
Kirk played at Alaska Anchorage and professionally in Germany before starting his coaching career at Timberline of Lacey, Wash. He coached at the freshman and JV levels from 2002 to 2007.
He served as Oregon Episcopal's JV coach for eight years before taking over as head coach in 2018-19. In his second season, the Aardvarks went 22-7, setting a school record for wins, and captured their first state championship.
Oregon Episcopal made the 3A tournament three more times during his tenure, falling in the quarterfinals in 2022 and the semifinals in 2023 and 2025. Last season, the Aardvarks went 17-11 and lost in the second round of the state playoffs.
“It was a great run. I'm going to miss it,” Kirk said. “It was really, really tough to leave OES. I love it there.
“The love and support I'm getting from Beaverton – the community and parents and students – they've made the transition more comfortable. I couldn't ask for a smoother transition from a school where I've been so long.”
Kirk has a few building blocks left from a Beaverton team that finished 12-13 overall, 4-8 in the Metro, including senior guards Ahmed Abalo and Blake Unruh and junior guard Wyatt Smith. He was encouraged by the team winning seven of its nine summer-league games, including a victory over Metro rival Westview.
“A lot of the games we played, the kids were diving on the ground for 50-50 balls,” he said. “They're working their butts off.”
Kirk's teams at Oregon Episcopal often won with a stingy defense. The Aardvarks beat Cascade Christian 35-33 in the 2020 state championship game.
“Everything started on the defensive end at OES,” Kirk said.
Kirk will bring that philosophy to Beaverton.
“Of course I've got a few more athletes, kids that can get up and down the court,” he said. “Since we're small, we're going to have to push the ball a lot more, try to score. We'll play man-to-man a lot. Just continuous motion, like I did in the past.”
Kirk will be the second member of his family to compete in the Metro. His daughter, Jada, was a freshman on the girls team at Mountainside last season.
“It's a great opportunity to be in a very, very competitive league every year,” Ed Kirk said. “I'm looking forward to it.”
Juma Kamara has been promoted from assistant to replace Kirk as Oregon Episcopal's head coach.
jerryu@osaa.org
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