North Coast Section commissioner Pat Cruickshank will retire at the end of the 2025-26 school year, he confirmed Friday to the Bay Area News Group.

Cruickshank has served as the NCS commissioner since 2019, when he succeeded Gil Lemmon in the role. Cruickshank had previously been an NCS assistant commissioner for the 2018-19 school year after coaching basketball and leading the athletic department at Heritage High in Brentwood.

The replacement for Cruickshank, 66, will be the NCS’s fifth commissioner in the past 54 years. Cruickshank was preceded in the role by Lemmon, Paul Gaddini and Tom Ehrhorn.

A year before he joined the NCS office, Cruickshank won the NCS Division I boys basketball championship, beating Dublin 100-98 in a double-overtime title-game thriller. 

The process to select the next NCS commissioner will begin in December. According to the NCS’s Executive Committee agenda for its meeting on Friday, Sept. 5, the job announcement will be distributed on Dec. 1.

Applications are due on Feb. 13. A paper screening period will take place from March 2-6, followed by interviews with the section’s Ad-Hoc Committee.

Candidates who advance past that initial round will then meet with the Executive Committee between March 23-27. The position will be offered between March 30-April 3 and ratified on April 17.

As Cruickshank did in 2019, the new commissioner will start on Aug. 1.

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