Never before in a decade at the Shawnee Mission West football helm had Tim Callaghan enjoyed an end-of-the-season banquet quite as much as this season’s.

Not that it’s difficult to fathom why, considering that the Vikings claimed the Kansas 6A championship and finished the season with 11 straight wins.

“You probably don’t smell the roses as long as you need to, but that’s our aspiration — to do that every year,” Callaghan said. “The reality that you got it done makes you feel good, though. Those banquets aren’t nearly as fun other years.”

SM West, 12-1, ended a 27-year drought for the program — and the Shawnee Mission district as a whole — with its championship run and, although it ended barely a month ago, Callaghan’s focus already has shifted to the 2013 season.

“We gave the guys a week, but then we got back into a winter weights program for about three weeks,” he said. “We won because of the hard work the kids put in, which is something we’ll use as a rallying cry in the spring and summer. Everybody’s going to keep getting better and we have to do that too.”

Nope, don’t expect the Vikings suddenly to become the hunted or get satisfied with one title every quarter-century or so.

Callaghan won’t allow it.

We, however, are allowed to slow down and savor the title for him.

After bucking history during a season in which two assistants coaches missed chunks of time, one because of a detached retina and the other because of open-heart surgery, Callaghan has been chosen as The Star’s All-Metro football coach of the year — an honor he, in turn, passed to his players.

“They just kept on getting better,” Callaghan said. “Everybody talks about that after they win, but that really was the key. They improved every week, but it just flew by. It was a dream season as far as practices and all of that goes.”