BOING: Farewell Cardinals (part 1)

For anyone outside of my nimble little world, it is simply impossible to misconstrue the madness that composes my young self. For anyone to walk through the personification of my wistful mind would be to conjure up the most vivid nightmares of your past.

Indeed, I am a freak.

The things that enter my mind are not for the weak-hearted, mild-mannered or polite - I'm about as politically correct as slavery.

So it is with a heavy heart that I bid NIC's great newspaper goodbye. I have spent the past five semesters on The Sentinel, serving as sports editor the past four.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of this lustrous position is the "sports column."

Thanks to "Boing," I've made a few enemies, lost a few friends, built some bridges while undoubtedly burning even more. However, when I look back, I don't regret a single article.

We've examined my incredibly lackluster coaching career over the past two years.

My downright awful all-time record of 19-32 (covering baseball, basketball and soccer) is at the same time a trademark to my coaching philosophy: "Conditioning is something you do after you shampoo."

In reality, I wish they didn't keep score for youth athletics - and not just because my teams lose.

We learned more than most other teams, and one of the greatest pieces of advice I was ever christened with was that 10 years from now, the kids I have coached won't remember whether they won a certain game or not, but they will remember whether they sat on the bench or not and how much fun they had. Long story short: We have fun.

In the spring of 2005, you went with me to "the almighty perennial powerhouse of a basketball cathedral" to witness Ronny Turiaf's last home game as a Gonzaga Bulldog before getting drafted by the Lakers. Thanks to my younger sister, I received a student "ticket" and posed as a Gonzagian to enter the game.

That fall, we met Geno, and I was introduced to the wide world of hunting.

Driving around the mountains just outside town, with a shotgun in one hand a beer in the other, I was taught the rituals of road hunting, where I dropped my first bird from a moving vehicle:
"I've never scored the winning touchdown in a football game, but I have played co-ed recreational softball ? 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."

Little did I know, Bambi would prove harder to drop than originally thought.

So I may have finished my first deer season with an empty tag, the same wouldn't be said for this season: "I may not have butchered Bambi, but I murdered his mom," I wrote in last issue's column.
Yet there was so much more than just coaching and killing.

I became a student in the religion of Pong, Ping Pong. I witnessed the University of Oregon's football team come from behind in one of the most controversial comebacks of our time when they beat Oklahoma in Eugene this fall.

I had a press pass to last season's Mariners-Tigers game in Seattle, and actually stepped on Safeco Field - a childhood dream-come-true!
Speaking of baseball, I was just outside the gates of Busch Stadium this fall when the Cardinals beat those same Detroit Tigers in St. Louis, winning the World Series and bestowing upon me the necessity to riot with the city.

Indeed, the past two-and-a-half years have been quite overwhelming.
I will remember The College By The Lake for some great sporting moments: I was here when the wrestling team finished second in the nation; I was there when both men's and women's basketball teams held their respective district tournaments in Christianson Gym; and this year, our volleyball team placed fourth at nationals - a school first!

NIC has a lustrous athletic department. and I feel privileged to have worked with them.

BOING: Death to Bambi

AH, THE FRAGRANCE of death is permeating throughout North Idaho. It seems the further you get from downtown Coeur d’Alene it feels more and more like the bad side of Detroit.

Gunshots, killings – and that’s just in the mountains past Lake Fernan.

It is deer season, baby, and I’m getting ready to assassinate the kingpin of the forest. Bambi, once my childhood friend, is about to meet his maker (and I’m not talking about Walt Disney).

Oh how I yearn to bathe in the blood of the dead.

Sure, I have shot a grouse, caught a salmon and dropkicked a squirrel, but to bring down a beast as big as myself makes me shudder just imagining the sheer possibilities – the gallons of blood, yards of entrails and unholy smells are worth the 22-year wait.

I got my first deer tag this year, and I’ll be dammed if I chalk up a goose egg.

ON SATURDAY MORNING, I made a decision: I called in sick to work because I was going to hunt. I was unwavering in my mission (though I did watch the first half of the Michigan-Ohio State game), and prepared for the hunt of a lifetime.

Rifle? Check.

Camo jacket and Carhartts? Check.

Lawn chair, pillow to sit on, peanut butter sandwich and deer call? Check, check, check and check.

Indeed, it was to be a glorious day.

I nestled into my lawn chair under my Grandparent’s deck, tossed a few marshmallows into my hot cocoa and leaned back as gunshots echoed throughout the mountain like Independence Day. I’m the first one to admit that some people don’t call what I do “hunting.”

These are the same people who don’t shoot grouse from moving vehicles or hunt by the light of the moon. They also follow the “laws.”

But my hunting guide (my cousin Geno) told me long ago that we write the rule book as we go. So what if we sat in lawn chairs next to the dryer vent at our grandparent’s house? At least we keep warm.

WE SET UP a decoy up on the hill, complete with a two-way radio next to it. We sprayed deer piss liberally across the meadow. Then we sat under the deck.

Most people wait hours, sometimes days before seeing a deer on their hunt. We waited 15 minutes. But as a massive buck approached and we grabbed our guns, an ear-splitting screech pierced the still air – it was the sliding door to the deck.

We like to consider ourselves great hunters – real men of the wild – yet we often times forget we are sitting next to a house; it was time for Grandpa’s cigarette.

Thus, the deer ran for its life.

So between the door sliding open and close every so often, the occasional sound of cars driving by and the ever-present noise from the washer and dryer on the other side of the wall, we simply waited.

This time, unlike numerous other hunting trips under the deck, we had a radio next to the decoy. That enabled us to use a deer call from the house, through the radio, and it sounded like it came from the decoy!

Illegal? Most likely. But that’s the only way to get the big deer.

After watching one tiny buck cower away from our daunting decoy (the rut was approaching, and thus bucks will attack each other for first dibs at the most beautiful babes of the backcountry), we waited a little while longer.

Being the impatient imbecile I’ve been dubbed, I decided to no longer wait. I’m not missing out on a deer this year, so as it got darker I concluded the next deer to walk out was going …

Boom-shakka-lakka!

I dropped that monster of a doe so quick I heard the valley shake when she hit the mud. So what if it didn’t have antlers, it was a big deer and it was now dead – by my own hands!

Nevertheless, my cousin was the one who gutted, skinned and hung the bloody carcass from the rafters in our garage. Long story short, I basically just pulled the trigger and then watched Geno slaughter the slain beast.

But already, I cannot wait until next season. I have the urge to ungulate anther, a passion to kill again. There is a dead deer in my grandpa’s garage right now waiting to be cut up, but I’m already contemplating my next kill.

I may not have butchered Bambi, but I murdered his mom.

Anything that Moves

The sun is nearly setting on a crisp October afternoon. The mountain leaves have changed color, and the wind seizes a sharper bite. Big-game hunting seasons are still a few days premature, and thus traffic on the mountains past Lake Fernan is minimal. One blue truck barrels into the wilderness with the eagerness of a young child.

The windows down, freshman education major John Monnier can hear everything in the brush. He just turned off the main road and quietly prowls toward his base camp 18 gravel-encrusted miles away.

It’s a short trip for this outdoors addict, even though he’s driving most of the way. Normally, he says, “I’d rather find a trail and walk.”

Suddenly, the truck comes to a screeching, gravel-tossing halt. The driver’s-side door explodes open, and Monnier erupts from the truck to the bush in one bounding leap.

The forest is now eerily quiet. No more birds are chirping, the squirrels have all but silenced. Even the rustle of wind over the tops of trees has vanished. If it was a horror movie, the monster would attack … now.

Somewhere, Monnier is in the brush tracking something he spotted from the …

Boom!

A gunshot. A crackle. A broken branch. A dead bird cascades in front of the idling truck.

Then a blood-curdling shriek from the 24-year-old former Hawaiian yielding a shotgun.

“Hoorah!” he bellows from behind the bush. “How’s that for a Hawaiian punch?”

An audacious Monnier hurdles down the embankment and leaps next to his fresh kill. With a swift thrust of his hands, a stomp of his foot and a sudden yank, the bird is gutted and breasted in one fell swoop.

“I just learned that move a few days ago,” he chuckles, tossing the curiously clean bird into his cooler. “Sure as hell beats plucking the damn thing.”

Back in the truck, the smallest of tears transcends his cheekbone.

“It’s not that I’m sad,” he says, swerving around a fallen tree. “I assure you this is no tear of sorrow. I think it’s because I’m so happy that I ended the life of something. It’s like a power trip. An overwhelming power trip.”

* * *

Monnier grew up in California before moving to Maui, Hawaii, with his family. It was there, in the lush, green rainforests, that hunting became a steadfast element in his young life. He honed his skill by tracking wild boar and mountain goat.

“I’ve killed one of everything you can kill in Hawaii,” says a deadpan Monnier.

He slams his hands down on the wheel, Apparently he missed a rabbit.

“Anything that moves,” he says. “It’s a motto I live by, whether hunting or picking up women. When the bear is hungry, he will eat.”

For the next 14 miles, Monnier decides to put the pedal to the metal and rally his ’94 Dodge along the steep embankment. He shares tales of his four-year stint in the Navy and how he learned two important things: Drink fast and drive hard – in that order.

He talks of other loves besides hunting – hiking, rock-climbing, ultimate Frisbee, acting and writing. In what appears to be a legitimately brash and extreme move, he swerves his truck straight into an upcoming bush in mid-sentence.

Alas, there is a trail.

“I cover that up so no one finds my spot,” he says.

As the trees fade away, a small expanse of dirt opens up to a magnificent view of the entire valley. The sky meshes a whirlwind of bright reds, deep purples and a never-ending array of blue.

“This spot reminds me of Guam,” Monnier says.

Four years ago, the super-typhoon Pongsona hit the tiny island of Guam, home of America’s largest re-fueling stations in the Pacific Ocean, and the Navy sent Monnier to the island. Even though he was a member of the search and rescue squadron HSC25, he was far from the bloody mess that made up most of the region. Instead, he was fixing the electrical systems of helicopters, a daunting task in and of itself, the aviation electrician admits.

“When I wasn’t fixing choppers,” Monnier says as he unpacks the truck, “I was chasing those bastard boars across the island.”

He shows a scar where he was tusked from a wild boar, a nasty groove extending from his upper calf to his knee.

“It looks bad now,” he admits. “But you should have seen what I did to that damn pig.”

The sun is fading fast. With the upcoming night comes lower temperatures, and Monnier unravels his sleeping bag. He tears apart sheets of paper to start a fire, and within minutes he’s setting large chunks of wood atop the growing blaze.

The dead grouse from earlier is all that he has to eat.

“I guess if I didn’t shoot anything, I’d go hungry,” he says.

If he didn’t bring a gallon jug of water he would have nothing to wash down the game bird.

“I would have liked to get a hike in this afternoon,” he says with a mouthful. “But there’s always tomorrow morning. Besides, the birds will be used to my smell by morning. They will think of me as safe.

“And that is when I will take them down.”

It is 5:30 in the morning, and a lingering fog covers the entire valley. Monnier awakes to a deer eating from a bush nearby. Smoke is streaming from the dissipating embers inside the makeshift fire pit.

Within minutes, he has eaten the leftover grouse and cleaned up camp: sleeping bag back in the trunk (no tent, he always sleeps under the stars), and fire put out.

“If I keep my standards low when hunting,” he says, “then I can never be disappointed. And so when that magical day comes that I drop a Sasquatch or massive elk,” he pauses, looks across the valley, and continues: “then I will have truly outdone even myself.”

With his shotgun over his back, he looks over the valley before trouncing through the bush like a madman. Within minutes, the sound of a shot fired echoes throughout the valley.

Bushes are ravaged again as Monnier undoubtedly searches for his kill.

Once more, the valley is filled with the echoing reverberations of mankind, as Monnier roars again:

“Hoorah!”

BOING: You don’t have to win to succeed

When it comes to sports, I like to consider myself an all-knowing, well-versed mastermind. I may not know all there is to know, but I tell myself I do.

It is also true that I have an uncanny way with children - this may be because that we're on the same wavelength, as far as maturity is concerned, at least. We understand each other more than we probably should.

So when you mix the two together, youth sports is right up my alley, right?

Indeed it is, but with an overall coaching record of just 14-27 (that includes two stints at Little League and one season apiece for soccer and basketball), my "winning" percentage is far from winning - only a stingy .341.

And while I now consider success to be in the eye of the beholder (the trophy-holder, in my early days), I always remember the greatest piece of advice I have ever heard: "You don't need to win to succeed."

Anyway, I absorbed that morsel of knowledge into my coaching repertoire and eventually buried it in the wide abyss that is my conscious.

There it lay, dormant in my mind this year, until I was pondering whether I had time to coach another basketball team. But when I relished the possibility of another 1-9 season, maybe I wasn't as good a basketball coach as I originally thought.

The John Wooden of Coeur d'Alene Park and Rec, I think not.

Yes, I love the sport, and I claim to know a great deal about it. I've always taken pride that teams under my coaching umbrella may not be the best in the league, but my kids always agree that they have more fun "playing" the game instead of just learning the rules.
However, last year's third grade basketball squad seemed aloof.
I enjoyed the season tremendously, but watching certain players transform from awkward ball-handlers to confident point guards made me love the sport even more. Alas, it wasn't to be. Save for our 4-2 manhandling of only one team, we lost every game.

"You do not need to win to succeed," I repeated to myself all throughout the year.

Our pizza party came and went, and the parents all thanked me for volunteering. I figured they would all look forward to another year, another coach.

Ten months later, that all changed. For upon my arrival at Black Sheep last week (my former place of employment), I was confronted by one of the cashiers.

"Jake, two women were looking for you today," she said.

Mother of God, what did I do now?

"They said you coached their sons' basketball team last year," she continued. "And they wanted to make sure you signed up again this year so you can coach their kids."

Mother of God, I almost cried. Tears of joy, mind you, for this was the greatest thing I'd heard all day? all week? all month? heck, this was the nicest thing I truly think has been said about me in my entire life.

While I ate myself up for the past 10 months thinking I did a horrible job, two players' moms sought me out to make sure I would coach again.

There is no greater compliment on Planet Earth.

So I sauntered on down to the Park and Recreation office at City Hall and promptly signed up. To make the whole deal sweeter, they even remembered my name when I walked in.

We won't win every game this year; that much is certain. If we finish at .500, I will be impressed. But if we lose every game and still finish with smiles on our faces, then I will be ecstatic.

Remember, you don't have to win to succeed.

BOING: Weed, Vodka – Oregon college football

Undoubtedly, the greatest moment in any sport is when the fans storm a field after their home team emerges from a tight game victoriously.

That puts NIC in a predicament: Seeing as how our great “college” (rather, high school with ash trays, if you will…) is so small, it resembles more of a high school experience around this neck of the woods than a monumental moment in collegiate history.

Sure, watching the Cardinals beat CSI makes me happy. As it should every fan in Cd’A.

But witnessing the most controversial come-back in the past 15 years with 60,000 other fans may have transformed a former hater like me into the newest, biggest Duck fan Coeur d’Alene has to offer.

Now don’t get me wrong: There is no hatred on earth greater than the passion for which I detest the University of Oregon.

The Sporting News calls it the most intimidating place to play in college football, however, I have always considered Autzen Stadium the personification of everything I loathe. Though much to my detest, “The Autzen Zoo” is truly a beacon of the college football world – a true fan’s venue above all others.

Nonetheless, did you witness the football monstrosity that was last week’s Oklahoma-Oregon contest? The most shocking, epic, colossally catastrophic game of the year, indeed!

And I absorbed every minute of each quarter with a fervor reminiscent of a small child at Disneyland for the first time – from the raging, ear-splitting, wild (while at times violently awesome) mosh pit that is the University of Oregon student section.

(I must give thanks to my younger sister Abby for coughing up her ticket, and Ian for letting me use his ID to get in the game, as well…)

The smell of vodka, marijuana and stale nachos permeated the air, as would be expected at any collegiate sporting event, let alone the largest gathering of people in Hippyville, USA, history. There were more beer cans strewed about the aisles amid the “section that never sits” than at a Seahawk game – and they don’t even sell beer in college venues.

The Quack Attack was back, Jack.

With a higher nationally ranked opponent in the Sooners (Oklahoma was ranked at 15 while the Ducks flapped right behind at 18), the magic men in Vegas predicted the would-be upset by favoring the Ducks with roughly 4 points.

How sweet it would be if in the only rematch of a bowl game from last season, the mallards won Round 3 – at home.

Heading down to Eugene, I was in a dilemma: While my buddy, Ben, expected me to root against his mighty Ducks, I would surely be booted from the student section if I bore any red and white attire. Last year, I saw a girl get punched in the face for wearing gold shoes to the USC game!

Not to mention, his diehard roommates might even evict me from the couch and boot me on the street for four days.

Much to Ben’s chagrin – as well as all his UO roommates – however, I stumbled towards the stadium in a green and yellow shirt, a green foam finger, green and yellow wig and an old-school leather helmet.

A boisterous visual schmuck? In not so many words, you could say that.

Yet amid my many chants and Heisman poses with the inebriated masses among me, I was looking forward to this game of all games with an anticipation never reached during my blurry days at OSU.

This posed a problem. For I am a legitimate “Beaver Believer,” and if anyone sniffed that out during the game, I was a goner. Alas, I took a shot from Ben’s flask and entered the collegiate cathedral that is Autzen Stadium.

The next few hours are a greenish-yellow blur. I don’t remember the first half, so thank God for pictures; not to mention the fact that I got lost at halftime. But football euphoria was among us, and the smell of an upset was stagnant – until the end.

One thing students will never see in their days at NIC is the two-minute drill executed in perfection (well, almost perfect, thanks to the referees!).

With his team down by 13, less than two minutes left, Ducks QB Dennis Dixon marched up and down the field, taking the lead by one before coughing up the ball to OU with awesome field position and two seconds left.

It wasn’t going down like this. It just couldn’t.

Sure, half the stadium had already emptied anticipating a crushing defeat with still five minutes left, but now Oklahoma was preparing to demoralize Oregon’s comeback that even Hollywood couldn’t concoct with a flippin’ field goal!

Then, the outlandishly tall Asian we all called Alex proclaiming: “I better record the last two seconds of this game! I got a feeling we’re going to block this kick!”

We blocked it. We won. We stormed the field.

I reached football nirvana.

And now, I can officially say that I’ve jumped the bandwagon. My only dilemma now is this year’s Civil War, the annual grudge match between Oregon’s two football teams.

Talk about a predicament: My mom’s one of the biggest Beaver fans I know.

I may be painted orange and black for this November’s rivalry and I’ll probably even bet 10 bucks on my Beavers to cover the spread (like I do every year).

This time, however, I may hope to lose that bet.

Just don’t tell my mom.

Cardinals destroy 4-year program

It could have been a blowout.

On paper, it may have been easily touted as the perennial varsity-JV match-up: a four-year school from Oregon coming to face North Idaho’s two year soccer program.

On paper, the romping that NIC laid upon the defenseless Northwest Christian College may not have seen feasible.

However, this is the first year that NWCC has boasted a men’s soccer program, according to the Beacon’s head coach Chris Bolton, former Oregon High School Coach of the Year.

NIC, on the other hand, won the SWAC championship last season and made it to the Region 18 Finals. They were nationally ranked last year and the team won numerous individual awards over the off-season.

Thus, the 5-0 spanking the Cardinals bequeathed to Northwest Christian seems justified in the end.

“I liked how we played,” said Scott Moorcroft, head soccer coach. “Even though it wasn’t a game that mattered for our conference, we got involved in the game and possessed the ball well.”

Possessed the ball, indeed.

Much of the game it seemed NIC lacked a defense – for they didn’t need one. The Beacons spent more time defending NIC’s cutthroat offense than manning the ball themselves. One thing NWCC had going for them was the Card’s overanxious zeal for breaking away from the pack, leading to countless offsides penalties.

With 9:25 left on the clock and an injured Beacon waiting for a substitute, Bolton yelled from the sideline: “We’re done.”

While the score could have been higher, freshman forward Jared Bork’s long-range goal from nearly mid-field highlighted the day.

“A longer goal makes you look a little bit better,” a mild-mannered Bork said after the game.

Shortly after, NIC and NWCC got into a scuffle near midfield, with a Beacon defenseman, Nathan Adams, Junction City, Ore., being ejected from the game with a red card.

“You wanna punch me again?” yelled the freshman as he walked off the field in a cussing fury.

With the SWAC only boasting a trifecta of teams this season, much of NIC’s schedule is chock full of non-league games, as well as four-year schools.

“The league is what it is,” Moorcroft said. “We’re hoping the league will expand, and there are a few colleges hoping to get in. The good comes with the bad, though. You miss league games, but we get to play tougher four-year schools.”

When they beat the four-year Whitworth, 1-0, the Pirates were ranked third in the nation – a true assertion of the talent on Moorcroft’s squad.

After Saturday’s victory, the Cards improved to 5-2-1 on the season.

Earlier this season, the team beat Laramie County Community College in Salt Lake City, 2-0; tied Salt Lake Community College, 1-1; beat Whitman College, 1-0; lost to Walla Walla Community College, 2-1; crushed Western Wyoming Community College, 5-0; all after opening the season with a 3-0 loss to the four-year school Albertson College.

BOING: Safeco Field Magic

I waited 21 years, four months and 13 days for the greatest moment of my entire life: To step on the grass at Safeco Field.

Believe you me, the wait was well worth it.

Indeed, quite a lot has happened between November 9, 1984 – the day I came crying into this world – and April 22, 2006 – the day I walked onto the Safeco grass with a press pass around my neck and a tear in my eye (OK, more like a shower of joyous water spewing from my eyes).

Thank God I had sunglasses on.

You see, over the past 21 years I have amassed a cornucopia of Mariners memories.

I have endured 1,742 wins, 1,683 losses, nine different managers, three division titles, a wild card play-off berth and two separate ballparks.

I’ve seen superstars raise the roof in the King Dome only to be traded or wanting to leave the Emerald City faster than a Randy Johnson fastball.

Speaking of which, I’ve seen RJ dominate the game in a fashion that only Nolan Ryan once boasted, not to mention his once tell-tale reddish mullet gleaming over his shoulders, while standing six inches over the rest of the players.

There was A-Rod, the player worth a quarter of a billion dollars (according to Texas), who took in a salary worth more than that of the whole Minnesota Twins.

The greatest shortstop, indeed!

We’ll never forget Joey Cora crying into a white towel after the crushing ALCS defeat to the Cleveland Indians; Jay “The Bone” Buhner’s luminous bald head, and the droves of fans who shaved their own for free tickets.

There was Dan “The Man” Wilson, Mike Blowers, Tino Martinez and as I like to call him, Butch “My mamma calls me” Husky. Now we have Richie Sexson, Raul Ibanez and the man Japan idolizes more than the god of Sumo, Ichiro.

Seattle also produced the greatest designated hitter of all-time… literally!

In Edgar Martinez’s last week as a Mariner, Commissioner Bud Selig announced the DH of the year award would forever be deemed the “Edgar Martinez Award.”

That’s an honor you cannot outdo, even if you built lampshades out of baseball bats on Ace Hardware commercials.

But then there was the grandest of them all, the most prolific center fielder of the 20^th century, “The Kid,” the human highlight reel, the personification of the definition of baseball: Ken Griffey Jr.

Long story short (because I could write non-stop about him…), I named my dog Griffey.

The now-second greatest moment in my life was watching him score – from first base! – the winning run against the New York Yankees in the 1995 ALDS, after Edgar hit that left field double that scored Cora to tie it.

Even watching reruns, to this day, gives me a chill. Woo-eee, I love it!

Yes, stepping onto the field where the Seattle Mariners call home was one of the most immense memories I will ever recall.

The dugout, the on-deck circle and the media (which I never really felt apart of, even though my press pass denounced me as such) – it was as overwhelming as it was memorable.

And I realized that sports writers take it for granted.

They show no emotion, no fanfare, basically no love for the game in which they are covering. The only excitement I witnessed from the Asian photographers in the booth was when Ichiro leaned over to tie his shoes.

There were more camera clicks in those five seconds than I could possibly make by myself during the entire game!

I decided right then and there, that if you ever see the name “Jake Donahue” as a byline for any story in any newspaper, magazine or other media outlet, Seattle will be a word you won’t see.

Thus, it was in the last place I could ever expect – Safeco-freaking-Field! – that all the luster of a sports writer suddenly vaporized.

No longer will I yearn to be a beat writer for the Seattle Times, covering every single Mariner game, home and away, east coast and west. Those free hotdogs in the press box are nice, but they just aren’t worth more than a sheer obsession with Seattle sports.

Besides, the press box is alcohol-free.

So I think I’ll just stick with the Cardinals for now.

BOING: Stupid is as stupid does

“Terrell Owens is the Jesus Christ of the NFL.”

“Mark McGuire never did steroids.”

“Can I get an enchilada without cheese?”

Indeed, there have been some instances where I may have muttered a word or two slightly below the academic norm – stupid, if you will.

According to Emily Donahue: “Every word that comes out of your mouth.”

Considering she graduated high school a year after I did, went to Gonzaga and will graduate with her bachelor’s degree around the same I’ll walk away with my associates, once again my younger sister is probably right.

OK, she’s definitely right. How do I know this? Because when I take a deep, long look at my published past, I cringe when I see the printed text my high school allowed me to publicly proclaim four years ago:

“Female-athlete is an oxymoron.”

Oh, God.

I still remember that basketball chick hurling a women’s-sized ball towards my head (which, upon impact, really didn’t hurt that bad – after all, women use smaller balls…).

But honestly, I truly do appreciate the game of women’s basketball. And I’m not going to lie; I’ve been updating my ever-growing women’s basketball repertoire almost daily these days.

After what’s-her-name dunked for that one school in the women’s NCAA bracket last month, I must admit I took a step back and absorbed the SportsCenter highlight more than once (names and schools need not matter – they just take away from the fact that a woman “dunked”).

How could this be? How could a woman do something that was once considered a man-only feat?

Upon asking myself that very question, I was taken aback as a blood rush to the head caused me to sit while I pondered of memories past:

How could Amelia Earhardt fly across the ocean? Why, in all of God’s green earth, would the PGA allow a woman to golf in a man’s tournament?

The answer is simple: Because women are capable of everything a man can do (save for whiz standing up or throw down a 22-second keg stand. Then again, if you’ve ever seen a sorority bachelorette party… never mind).

So, really, the greatest thing a woman possibly could do for the sport of basketball is, well, dunk!

It brings new life to a lackluster sport, where the stadiums were hardly full before and network sponsors were minimal. This newer, younger generation of the WNBA is going to throw more high-profile women on the court and more fans in the stands.

And I’m not being facetious: I really do wish well for women’s hoops. In fact, I can wholeheartedly admit that after my uncle forced me to watch the women’s Final Four a few weeks ago, I was somewhat perplexed.

Yes, women’s basketball is a far cry from anything like the men – it reminded me of a high school game where there’s more passing and most shots bounce off the back of the rim – yet calling it more fundamentally sound is dead on.

Not to mention they play with more passion than men.

If you agree with the rest of America that there is more heart in the NCAA than there is money in the NBA, remember that women have far less to look forward to in the pros than do men – where even though they’re going to be playing with the best women in the world, they won’t even make a quarter of the money their male counterparts will make.

So to say women have more heart than men is incredibly justified – more women than men will play their last games in college.

Needless to say, when Tennessee’s Candace Parker twice soared toward the hoop against Army in the first round of this year’s women’s NCAA tournament for the first “slam dunk” in collegiate women’s history (mostly dunk, not so much slam…), it didn’t just bring new life to a once pitiful sport, it threw the WNBA draft into the national spotlight last week.

And once people get excited about the draft, they’ll be stoked as soon as the season starts – I know that I’ve already circled May 23 to see LSU’s Seimone Augustus (the first player picked in the WNBA draft by the Minnesota Lynx) take on the pretty good-looking Debbie Merrill (Ohio State University) and her Connecticut Sun on ESPN2.

But I’m not just in it for good-looking women. Lord knows they’re few and far between in the WNBA.

When I want to see sexy women battle, that’s what women’s tennis is for.

Damn, that was stupid, wasn’t it? Chalk one up for Emily.

Can I get that cheeseless enchilada now?

Playing with Fire

As an artist, Terry Brinton is a freak. In every sense of the word, he is a freak of nature – an outlier, one who transcends the definition of normal. He is a freak in the same light as those who break free from social configuration by defining their own sense of normal.

But no one would know that after just talking with the 24-year-old NIC graduate who continues taking classes at the college. Brinton fits every accepted collegiate stereotype

known to man, dawning a hooded sweatshirt emblazed with an average college logo (West Virginia, in his case), shaggy hair, torn jeans and an old pair of sneakers.

Indeed, there is nothing freaky at all about that. But when a person takes a gander at his artwork, however, it doesn’t take long before he realizes that Brinton flourishes at a level of which most collegiate artists only dream.

His pieces are more reminiscent of the Australian outback than the Guggenheim. Rightfully so, for while other student-artists are busy copying famous artists from past and present, Brinton derives his inspiration from cultures rather than icons.

“I like pieces that look like artifacts,” he said. “Everybody’s work is going to be influenced by the artists they admire. There’s artists I admire, too, but I try to build on my philosophies instead of copying.”

Those philosophies are ever-present throughout his Tubbs Hillside home, where he lives with fiancée Lindsey Schoonover. On the living room wall, sharp copper poles protrude upward just enough to hang a piece of silk over a molten mass of metal that oddly resembles a mask from ancient Africa. Not to mention the back room, where his metalwork seemingly sprawls from every corner. In a glorious glow of red (the lamp is covered with fabric), sketches, paintings and sculptures fill the room where the couple keeps their home theater.

“Some of them are scary and give me nightmares,” Schoonover said. “I’ve made him hide some a few times, but I absolutely love them.”

And it’s that same philosophy – whether inspired from Africa, Oceana or Native America – that can be found on Brinton’s latest endeavor: a heaping mass of copper and stainless steel twisted and welded and cut in so many ways, it’s the most dangerous-looking fountain most people are likely to see.

That’s right, a fountain.

Though dangerous-looking, it was made to help. Brinton was hired by the Coeur d’Alene Community Art Project’s Fountain of Wishes fundraiser to design and sculpt a fountain with a budget of $5,000.

Much like the Moose on the Loose program two years ago – where painted moose statues were strewn about the city in hopes of raising money for local schools – Brinton’s fountain will accompany 13 others along Sherman Avenue. Each fountain will collect change for charity, and at the end of the summer all the fountains will be auctioned. The Coeur d’Alene Fire Department will benefit from Brinton’s fountain.

“If we raise enough money,” Brinton said, “the fire department will be able to buy infrared cameras to locate bodies in burning buildings. Right now they just have to walk around and feel in the smoke.”

Last Monday he won first place at the student art show and even sold a piece for $350. On May 3, from 4- 7 p.m. in the Driftwood Bay upstairs at the SUB, Brinton will be holding his own art show.