Steve Banks was trying to put into perspective just how long he's been coaching girls' volleyball at Fitch High School. It's been 27 years overall, 25 as the head varsity coach, which is actually longer than Eastern Connecticut Conference volleyball has been in existence.

"We had three teams back when I started coaching," Banks said of the ECC, which recognized volleyball beginning with the 1998 season when East Lyme joined Fitch, Ledyard and Norwich Free Academy as the league's fourth team.

"There were rumors St. Bernard was going to get a team ... East Lyme might be getting a team. We couldn't have a conference until we had four teams."

A part of the fabric of ECC volleyball for his entire stay with the Falcons, the 63-year-old Banks made the announcement to his team following the fall season that he was stepping down from coaching. He affirmed it Tuesday, emailing The Day a copy of the letter of resignation he originally sent to the Fitch administration.

Banks, who began coaching at the varsity level in 1996, won nine ECC titles, nine league tournament titles and was state tournament runner-up twice during his tenure.

The Falcons were 6-10 his first year, then finished with a winning record for 23 straight seasons until a COVID-19-shortened 2020 season, during which Banks' team competed only six times and missed the ECC tournament due to the school undergoing a period of remote learning during the postseason.

"We had a good, long run and we did it really well," Banks said. "It's hard. I'm going to miss the kids, of course, miss my fellow coaches. I won't be missing the bus rides. We've been talking about it for a few years. People would always say, 'Fitch is good again. Fitch is good again. Fitch is good again.' That takes a lot of work."

Banks said that last season took a toll, with all of the work the coaches and players did to avoid COVID. One week the team would be playing. The next it wouldn't.

"We tried to do the best we could to give them something to play for, even though they realized it wasn't going to be any kind of normal," Banks said of the players.

He also worried about his family, including his wife Kathy and his dad Bill, who had heart surgery last August.

"I couldn't live with myself if something happened to one of my family members because I passed it on to somebody," Banks said.

Banks is a competitor; he and Kathy once ran the Kona Marathon in the blazing heat of Hawaii in June. He could always be frank with his players about where they needed to improve, while still considering them a part of his family. He is partial to a quote attributed to basketball coaching great John Wooden: "Teamwork is not a preference; it's a requirement."

Banks also wrote in his letter of resignation of the pride he has in Fitch's contributions to the community. Fitch and East Lyme have teamed to raise more than $20,000 for the "Side-Out Foundation" breast cancer initiative. The Falcons also contribute annually to the Joshua Eudy Scholarship Fund at Waterford High School in memory of the Lancers' late volleyball coach.

"It's been a lot of fun, but it's also been a lot of work," Banks said, adding that he's coached some of the children of former players. "We worked hard. We did camps. We did a lot of things to prepare the teams, to try to make the practices as much like a game situation.

"I'll remember all the kids and all the different things just coming through. It's like a family, you know? That's kind of the way we did it over the years."

v.fulkerson@theday.com