BOING: What coaching taught a coach

Few things engulf the entire human species as the notion of sport. And for as long as I can remember, the wide world of athletics has consumed my entire being, as well. Aside from actually sponsoring a team, I have been involved with every aspect associated with sports for my entire life.

As a toddler growing up in Seattle, I was clothed in the respective colors of the Seahawks, Mariners, Huskies, Thunderbirds and Super Sonics. With age came coordination (I’m still working on that), and thus my introduction into the perennial world of instructed exercise. However, It didn’t take long to realize I was not destined for athletic stardom.

Fast-forward to now, and few things have changed. I’m still immensely obsessed with sports, though what has changed is monumental: Where I once read the newspaper looking up stats of my favorite players, nowadays I spend more time compiling those same stats for this paper.

Most importantly, where I once played the sports I love so much, I have now undergone a life-changing role-reversal. As I look back on my sporting career, it doesn’t take long to realize that no aspect of the athletic community has been half as fulfilling as coaching.

Few things make a man appreciate the game as being a coach, whether that game is baseball, basketball, football, soccer, hockey, swimming, golf or bowling.

The rush you get when your own team executes a play for the first time is simply unrivaled. You just stand back and revel in the pure awesomeness of youth athletics, and suddenly the sheer joy of the sport overwhelms you. Soon you realize that you would rather help a sixth-grader get on base for the first time than hit a game-winning homerun yourself.

In only three seasons of coaching youth sports (two stints at Little League and my current third-grade basketball team), I have learned from three teams more than I ever learned from playing on 20-plus teams myself.

First and foremost, never underestimate the power of post-game snacks. Mother of God, if all you remember to do is make sure someone brings snacks, you’re a success. You would rather be hustled by the mafia than face the sad-yet-wicked face of a thirsty, Capri Sun-less 8-year-old.

It’s simply frightening, and will haunt your dreams forever.

“Conditioning is something you do after you shampoo.”

I said it. I stand by it. I’ll say it again – at least concerning youth sports. A 10-year-old boy has more energy than a Kentucky Derby champ. Never worry about them running out of juice, so you don’t need to run them ragged in practice.

Sure, they’ll need a break for water and maybe a quick time-out, but while the rest of us are worried about tearing an ACL or rupturing a hernia after 10 minutes of three-on-three, these kids would play six games in a row if they could.

Yet perhaps the most important thing is dealing with parents. I was instructed early on to just nod and smile when taking their advice or criticism – yet I’ve been so lucky, all I’ve received are constructive comments and obvious advice. Most of the time, they’re right, too.

Eventually, though, I’ll have to deal with the dad who’s re-living the glory days through his son. And that’s one of the reasons I choose to coach at a younger level: The vast majority of parents don’t – and physically cannot – expect their children to perform at such a high level if they’re still learning the game.

Yet parents are integral to the entire process. They’re the single greatest element in the whole equation. Because of them, the greatest joy I get from coaching is helping parents coach their kids. It should be the parents helping to inspire their children to play, not just a coach.

However, I still live to inspire. So, if because of me, a child decides that he likes the game that his parents forced him into and decides to play again, than I accomplished my biggest goal.

Thus I will always remember those who inspired me.

Larry Brown, when coaching the NBA’s Detroit Pistons last year, “wasted” a timeout late in a sure-win to extend the standing ovation for opponent Reggie Miller’s final career game. Not only was that the classiest move I’ve ever witnessed, I can duly assure you there was nary a dry eye after witnessing a tear-jerker such as that. For I imagine an elite mountaintop known as coaching’s upper pantheon, where Brown sits with Penn State’s Joe Paterno, UCLA’s John Wooden and every coach who changed a child’s life.

Yet speaking of classy, no one tops the classiest coach of coaches in my life: my mother.

The single mom, who worked as much as she could, still came to every single soccer practice, every single basketball game and every single baseball jamboree when I was younger. Carting around my three little sisters wasn’t easy, I know, and she still made time to keep score or work the snack booth.

It’s because of her I’ve become the coach I am today. Learning that respect in the sport is key, but respect for life is the greatest goal one can score.

So if there’s one thing I want to reiterate after playing sports, writing sports, photographing sports and most importantly, coaching sports, it is simply to respect the game.

Hopefully I can pass that on to just one 9-year-old like me.

BOING: They call me TNT, Dyn-o-mite

Breaking up the monotony of my newly-dawned 21-year-old life may seem challenging until you realize that my life is far from that.

Amidst the madness that makes up me, lies the most important aspect that I feel I truly represent: Surrounding myself with those who match my maturity level – thus explaining why I love coaching third grade basketball for Coeur d’Alene Park and Rec.

Indeed, this age group is solely playing for the sheer enjoyment of the game. Or, at least, that’s what I tell myself after respective losing scores of 17-3, 16-4 and 20-0. And true, while all is fun, I must gloat about our sole W on the score sheet: a 4-2 romping we barely held on to in the final minutes.

For, to say the least, that’s all I can hold on to. Until my cousin Geno calls me up, of course.

That’s when I set aside my copy of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Coaching Youth Basketball,” which I really do own, and absorb all that Geno has to offer.

(By the way, this is the same dude who got me hooked on North Idaho’s claim to fame: That redneck’s national pastime of the ever-amazing sport known as road hunting. He taught me that few things rival the feeling an exploding grouse leaves you with. Especially when you shot with one hand from a moving truck, while not spilling your beer in the other.)

But today, he just got done watching Rob Zombie’s movie “Devil’s Rejecets,” and enlightened me with some of his self-proclaimed wisdom he boisterously dubs ‘Geneglish.’

“Even though Rob Zombie’s wife kills people in the movie, I think I’d still date her,” he said. “She’s so freaking hot; I guess I’m just a sucker for danger!”

And this is the guy I’m supposed to hunt big game with the next morning. The same guy who asked me to hunt with him that night (illegal) from his truck (illegal) on private property (also illegal).

“Didn’t you know that a full moon is God’s natural spot light?”

May God have mercy on my virgin-hunting soul.

True, I once vowed to kill Bambi, and while I didn’t share Geno’s gut-wrenching, mind-bending, twisted enthusiasm, I was going to get a deer in my first season, that much is certain.

So before leaving the house last Wednesday morning, I grabbed my boots, Carhartts, hand warmers and camo jacket – no safe hunter’s orange for us, apparently that stuff’s for “pansies.”

“Those deer are just frolicking down there and eating their morning grub,” Geno said. “Little do they know, there is gonna be bloodshed in theat peaceful little village.”

Once in the truck, I felt it necessary to call a friend back in Oregon about my upcoming experience, and share with him my love for deer hunting (lackluster at this point, to say the least). After cussing me out for waking him up at 5 a.m., I was belittled once more: “You’re hunting!?” he blasted. “Since when do they sell Carhartts at the Gap, you preppy little mountain-man wannabe.”

Screw him, I had deer on the mind, and deer piss on my clothes. Welcome to Idaho, where the men are men and the deer are scared, where buttering yourself up in deer urine and huddling around other men in the woods is considered bonding – not bondage!

However, one major problem surfaced during our first legal outing: We both re-learned how big of a klutz I am.

“From now on, Jake, I’m going to call you TNT,” he said. “Because when you walk through the woods it sounds like a bomb is going off.”

That meant only thing, we were back in the old Toyota and headed further into the wilderness, where I couldn’t scare the deer away and Gene could stun them with the brights. Why use deer decoys when the front headlights of a pickup will stop any deer in its tracks.

Illegal? I thought so, too.

“If we go down,” he says, “we go down hard.”

Long story short, day one was filled everything but deer. So the next morning after we camped atop a local mountain, we barreled through the snow-encrusted hills with a ferocious fervor – the first legitimately legal outing we had experienced together.

We used a deer decoy, with no luck. We tried deer urine all over the place, with nothing to show but a God-awful-smelling tent, and then we even tried deer calls.

You guessed it, nadda.

“I think I use the deer call too much,” Geno said. “Just like with women, I call so much I scare them away."

Two more days went the exact same. Sure, I heard deer in the brush, but I’m sure they were bouncing around back there making fun of me, saying to other deer how funny I smelled.

I know I wouldn’t go anywhere near a deer covered in human piss.

The experience as a whole turned bittersweet. While hunting, legally, leaves a morally clean slate, I think I may stick to the warmer climates offered by an elementary school gym. Indeed, there is no greater joy than coaching youth sports, but I’ve still got a vengeance for venison.

Bambi is still numero uno on my list, but we’ll see if I tag him.

As we left the camp, I came to the conclusion I may never hunt with Geno again, for the sole reason he mentioned this demented musing after, noticeably, much thought: “I wonder how bad a deer’s butt stinks when it’s in heat.”

Mother of God.

Chasing Pre

With the shaggy brown hair reminiscent of his lifetime idol, Adam Oster epitomizes the stereotypical appearance of the modern cross-country runner: yellow Livestrong band, Nike shoes, short shorts, flat stomach and shaved legs.

Rightfully so, for the Oregon native lives, breathes and ultimately bleeds green and yellow – the collegiate colors long associated with one of cross-country’s greatest: Steve Prefontaine. This year marked the 30^th anniversary of the legendary runner’s death, and all one needs to do is visit Oster’s apartment to gain a sense of appreciation he feels for the University of Oregon runner affectionately known as Pre.

A poster-sized portrait adorns the living room. Magazine clippings fill counter tops. Banners hang from the ceiling. A feature from The Oregonian hangs in a frame on the wall. The same article is pinned in his bedroom. Another copy rests on the wall of his roommate’s wall.

His mother mailed four total copies, “just in case one of them gets ruined,” Oster said.

“It’s a good article about rockstar runners,” he added. “My favorite quote is: ‘Pre wasn’t a runner. He was a rebel who happened to run,’ because Pre totally revolutionized the sport of running in terms of where it is today.”

However, the 19-year-old freshman engineering major, is no wannabe.

He finished in the top one-half percent of the 48,000 who ran Bloomsday this year, second in his age group and 188^th overall. He won first place in 5K Kootenai County Substance Abuse Fun Run earlier this year.

Then there was the Bloomsday Road Runners Club Ultimate Runner Championship race. Oster ran five races (5K, 400-m, 100-m, 1600-m, 10K, respectively) in less than two and a half hours, holding first place until the final three minutes when he took second to a sponsored runner from Spokane Falls Community College.

He also won the 8K Spring Dash this year for his age group and took third in the Sherman Mile with a personal record of 4 minutes, 46 seconds.

“What drives me to run is mental sanity,” Oster said. “When I get pissed off, I run hard. When I want to think, I run slow and long. It helps me bring clarity to a lot of things; it’s really taught me a lot about myself and what I can do physically.”

When he learned the hard way in seventh grade that he was too small for football (“I was a puny linebacker against a bunch of refrigerators”), he took up track. Yet when running laps proved too boring, he branched into the longer distances that cross country offered. He wrestled until he tore a muscle in his back and has since become a runner for life.

Even at work, Oster finds times to run – during his lunch break. No matter the weather, when lunchtime lingers, so do Oster’s running shoes.

“He really is a freak of nature,” said a former co-worker. “I’ve never seen a guy run through the snow day after day, let alone the rain. He puts himself through workouts I couldn’t even imagine.”

As far as workouts go, Oster gets help from former NIC track coach Lewis Watkins.

“We don’t get together a lot,” Oster said, “but he basically gives me workouts. I manipulate them and know how to tweak them to specifically work on what I need.”

He’s not much of an early morning runner, so save for the lunchtime sprints, his big runs come between school and work, and then after work before attempting homework. A good workout provides just enough strenuous activity to clear his mind for school then drains his body for a long night’s sleep.

Said Oster’s roommate, fellow Oregon native and NIC student, David Brejule: “What Adam does for the sport of running is phenomenal. He goes balls to the walls and simply has a passion for running that very few people can understand.”

And when school, work and running are done for the day, it’s that passion that keeps Oster looking for the next race to run.

Local magazines, such as The Race Rag, provide information on area races and running competitions. Yet Oster also keeps in touch with the track coach from Spokane Falls Community College, who also informs him of running events.

“I go through the schedules of local community colleges and find any invitationals,” Oster said. “I’m counted as a collegiate athlete because I’m in college. I can enter in the “open” division, obviously unattatched as NIC has no running program.”

Yet Oster’s ultimate goal – other than growing a Fu Manchu mustache and long sideburns to match his shaggy mop top and mimic his hero, Pre – is to form a Cardinal running club. While he’s already asked around, the interest level isn’t where he wants it.

“If it’s only two or three of us out there, there’s really no point,” Oster said. “I’d feel good if I had about 10 people who got together once a week and ran together. I’d like it to be more than that, though, and have enough to form a cross country team and enter races as a team.”

Generally, a cross country team has seven runners in a race, and the top five are scored. Yet if 10 runners competed, scoring becomes easier.

“If I can get a good turnout,” he said, “I would be more than happy to spearhead damn near anything I possibly can.”

The same passion that long ago inhibited a skinny kid from Coos Bay, Ore., to redefine the definition of a cross-country runner is easily identifiable in another Oregon native. While Pre ran through the streets of Track Town, USA (aka the University of Oregon in Eugene), Oster is running through the streets, trails, mountains and campus of the “college by the lake.”

“It’s always fun when someone walks into my apartment and asks if that’s me in the poster on my wall.”

BOING: Birds, Beer Cans and Bullets

I recently experienced the most North Idahoan tradition that I am sure exists: road hunting. Because of this truly redneck ritual, I have ultimately realized how skewed my interpretation of this sport was – nay, how skewed was my perspective of all sports.

Indeed, I may have once deemed any “sport” boasting the use of animals or wheels (such as rodeo and big game hunting, or NASCAR and BMX racing) was as far away from the wide world of sports as one could reach. If baseball was the sun in our solar system of sports, NASCAR was a black hole in a different universe.

I even proclaimed they were simply reasons for rednecks to congregate and drink themselves into oblivion – much like St. Patrick’s Day for us Irish folk, or college for guys like me.

However, after a close friend of mine took me on this life-altering journey through the woods, with a rifle in one hand, a Natty Light in the other, and his knees on the steering wheel, I now understand why rednecks road hunt: It’s like shooting fish in a barrel!

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve been around hunters my whole life: my dad, my grandpa, my uncles and my cousins. Oh sure, I went camping and fishing and I’ll be the last one to turn down a venison dinner; I even work for Black Sheep Sporting Goods – the leading vendor of all things fishing- and hunting-related in the Northwest.

But let’s face it: I’m a city kid. While my cousin wears camouflage, I shop at the Gap; when they’re up four in the morning before daylight, I wake up in time for the 1 p.m. Seahawks’ game. While I’m at parties chasing tail, they’re in the woods chasing whitetail.

Needless to say, I’m the last one you’d expect with a gun. Yet all it took was $30.50 at the mighty ‘Sheep, and now I’m an official card-carrying resident hunter/fisher.

And that’s all it took for my cousin to throw me in the pickup with a rifle and 12-pack. The walking, talking, human quote-machine of a cousin of mine has been like my big brother; so if he says it’s legal, I simply assume it is.

“Laws? What laws?” he once said. “I write the rule book as I go.”

We embarked on our journey slowly but steady, a stop for gas, a stop for beer, and a quick pep talk before heading up the mountain to slay the bird locals know as “grouse.”

“In town I may be the biggest loser around,” he said, staring off into the wilderness. After a momentary pause, as a devilish grin slowly spread across his face and the twinkle all but vanished from his eyes, he added: “But up here on the mountain, out in the woods, I am God – I decide what lives and what dies.”

He reared his head back, bellowed a satanic chuckle and peeled up the swerving dirt roads.

I have no other worldly experiences to justly compare the following two hours of my life. In short, I flat-out don’t remember the most of it, simply quick images of the sky clouding up for a rainstorm (“If this weather was a pizza,” said Gene, “than it would be extra-saucey!”).

I remember answering a phone call from my girlfriend – to his complete and utter disgust, as women apparently do not belong in the world of hunting, or even on the minds of men in the “hunting zone.” Yet as quickly as he was to denounce my answering of the call, he yielded one more bit of advice from his ever-growing repertoire: “Tell her that she has the body of a supermodel and the brains of an astronaut.”

At one point, I’m pretty sure we were knee-deep in elk feces searching for a fallen grouse carcass.

All in all, we didn’t end up with a single bird in the bag. In fact, the journey in which I speak of lasted only 25 minutes – that’s all it took before we reached the real hunter’s plateau: a monstrous grass field where grouse are aplenty, the deer and the elk roam, and beer cans and shotgun shells can be seen for miles.

It was indeed a true redneck’s paradise; worse yet, I found myself awe-struck when I quietly muttered one solitary word in this land of animal solitude: “Glorious.”

Apparently road-hunting is illegal, some rule about being 200 feet or so from any roadway. Yet what I considered road-hunting was actually legal: riding to the prairie with guns behind the seat.

Consequently, I have now budged from a position that many felt was impossible: I will be the first to admit hunting is a sport. The adrenaline rush you get when ending the life of another living creature is simply unparalleled.

I’ve never scored the winning touchdown in a football game, but I have played co-ed recreational softball. I’ve coached two Little League teams and I’ve sunk a hole-in-one on the third hole of Seattle’s most notorious mini-golf course.

Yet all those pale in comparison to shooting a grouse. Worst yet, I bought a deer tag this year, too. If they’re at all like shooting a grouse, than may God have mercy on the whitetails of North Idaho.

Bambi, prepare to die.

Sailing with Speed

North Idaho College already boasts a wrestling dynasty. Both men and women’s soccer teams are on a rampage through their new conferences and the Lady Cards are nationally ranked ninth in the NJCAA volleyball poll.

However, there exists one more realm for the Cardinals to rein supreme and dominate the national playing field with a severe upper hand.

“NIC could have a nationally ranked sailing team!” said Craig McBurney, of The Catamaran Club, a sailboat dealership/club that has found a new home on Lake Coeur d’Alene.

With the enrollment of NIC increasing each and every term, it seems fitting that the population of Coeur d’Alene is rapidly rising, as well.

And for a city defined by its lake, the increase in boats is only to be expected.

Thus, it was simply a matter of time before sailing found its niche in what National Geographic has proclaimed one of the five most beautiful alpine lakes on the planet.

“When I first visited North Idaho,” he said, “I quickly realized that this area has some of the best sailing in the world.”

Miles Moore of sail-s.com, the local Hobie Cat and MacGregor yacht dealer, is also the sailing instructor for NIC. Once he contacted McBurney at Reynolds Sailing and his role as r33.com dealer territory manager, he sought to bring in the Reynolds Sailing line of performance sport racing and cruising catamarans.

The catamaran procured by Moore, a 33-foot double-hull with a 14-foot beam, stands nearly 50-feet out of the water and can catch even the slightest breeze.

“The funny part,” said McBurney, “is that Idaho was actually one of the last states on my list to prospect for dealers! Miles quickly convinced me otherwise.”

The addition of Lake Coeur d’Alene to the Catamaran Club adds a new home to four of the West’s most premier sailing waterways: San Francisco, Long Beach, Los Cabos, Mexico, and now Coeur d’Alene.

Lake Coeur d’Alene is a beautiful lake to sail on and produces some amazing winds to sail with, said Moore. The deepest point is 187 feet, which, combined with the warm summer months, tends to produce smaller waves ideal for sailing.

For students who can’t fit a sailing class into their schedule via the PE department, they can still join the local sailing club and/or the Catamaran Club, related to the Reynolds 33 Catamaran. Or, by simply heading down to the NIC beach, the boat is ready and waiting on the dock.

“Walk down the dock and meet me on the boat, the Lake Cat,” says McBurney. “We will take students out for free; and for those who dream of sailing the world, we’ll shanghai them into being first mates, as we are always seeking a good crew for our charter operations.”

What makes the Lake Cat an ideal sailboat for this lake is its incredible bulk: Once a big cat begins moving, it creates some of its own wind and then converts that into sail power, called apparent wind. Another reason this area attracted McBurney is the occasional shift in those same winds.

“On light days, with puffs and shifts, one quickly develops real sailing skills by necessity,” he said. “Big, steady air, like the Caribbean trade winds, for example, makes it easy to get a boat moving.

“Lake Coeur d’Alene, with its many protected and phenomenally gorgeous anchorages, and no rough wave conditions, combine for the perfect environment for beginners to seasoned ocean sailors.”

Indeed, McBurney and crew have sailed all over the world, professionally and commercially. With their expertise and knowledge of all aspects in this sport, a strong endorsement and commitment to NIC, as well as the surrounding area is quite the accomplishment.

While NIC currently offers sailing classes and dawns an active group of sailors off the college-owned beach, the catamaran that Moore has brought in is an added bonus few can claim.

“NIC is the only college in the country that has this kind of high-tech racing multi-hull available to introduce state-of-the-art gear, carbon fiber sails, high apparent wind and extreme sailing techniques; as well as seamanship skills in general,” McBurney said.

Now it simply remains a matter of time, and a matter of will, before a competitive sailing team will represent the Cardinals of NIC. Athletic funding aside, the possibilities are sky high for a future sailing team: The necessities are available, now all that’s needed is a team.

“Sailing is truly a life-long sport that can be enjoyed by all persons, regardless of ability or disability,” said Moore. “How many sports do you know that can be done from the age of six to 106?”

For more, contact 888-LAKE-CAT, or visit www.r33.com.

Iron Man hopeful perseveres

The Iron Man Triathlon has proven one of the most grueling, vigorous displays of human agility in modern athletics.

Indeed a feat in itself, just attempting the monstrous tribulation is the life-long dream of many athletes: Some train for years, spend tens of thousands of dollars and travel across the globe to practice in perfect conditions.

Yet to qualify as a finisher in the physically demanding 17-hour race, which spans from Higgins Point on Lake Coeur d’Alene to Liberty Lake, Wash., participants must cross the finish line by midnight of race day.

For student Tony Parks, a Coeur d’Alene resident registered in this year’s Iron Man, one year is all he took to prepare for the race.

“I was inspired by the late-night finishers last year,” said the 26-year-old Parks, who witnessed the racers struggling to make the midnight deadline. “Then I registered the day after it ended, the very first day you could.”

And so began the oftentimes torturous training of an Iron Man.

With the help and support of his loving wife, Tiffany, as well as his son Logan and daughter Hailey, Parks invested in a brand new wetsuit, a specialized bike and initiated a healthy, nutritious diet to prepare for the world-famous event next month.

However, training sometimes takes a backburner to the rest of Park’s life: He is the Dockmaster of the Boardwalk Marina for the Coeur d’Alene Resort, requiring 50 hours of his time a week, he is taking 14 credits at both North Idaho College and Lewis-Clark State College, and he teaches portions of communication classes at NIC, not to mention, having two young children and a wife taking up the rest of his time.

“It’s go-time from the second I wake up until the time I go to bed,” Parks said. “Some days I don’t even get to see my kids they’re asleep when I leave for work, and they’re asleep when I get home.”

Because of the hectic schedule, he sometimes trains partly before work or school and then trains partly afterward.

Consequently, Parks was recently diagnosed with a stress fracture in his left tibia near the ankle. So far, the doctor has required Parks to stay immobilized for six to eight weeks, although he has been cleared for bicycling and swim-training.

“The doctor says I shouldn’t run at all,” Parks said. “But I have a brace on it now, and I’ll leave it on until I have to run in the race. That will be the first time I run since the doctor told me I couldn’t.”

Because of the nature of his injury, his training regime will now consist of only biking and swimming. Although, it does give him the opportunity to emphasize heavily in both of those areas.

“I’m hoping to finish the swim and bike portions in a fast time,” Parks said. “That way, I’ll have a lot more time for the 26-mile run. I just don’t want to look like the guy in the Gatorade Iron Man commercial.”

In that commercial, Gatorade reveals footage of an Iron Man competitor losing complete and total control of his entire body, crumbling to the ground in the final home stretch of the race.

But Parks has a different prediction for his race.

“I’m going to do whatever I need to do so I can cross the finish line before midnight,” Parks said.