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.

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.

BOING: Johnny Damon to play Jesus in “Passion” sequel

By now, the haze over Boston should just be settling.

The red and white confetti, which has rendered useless for 86 years, is no doubt swept back up again. The streets may be clean, the fields may be empty, and true, some of the citizens may be sober by now, but Red Sox fans are still mesmerized in New England, my friend, for the curse has finally been broken!

So eat your heart out, Mel Gibson, the sequel to your most captivating movie has been written: “The Passion of the Christ 2: The Curse of the Great Bambino.”

Indeed, if there were ever an athlete to represent the Holy Son in such a movie, without a question it would be the longhaired, goateed, and white-clad Johnny “Jesus” Damon.

Sure, Jesus walked on water.

Two homeruns from Johnny “King of Kings” Damon in the seventh game of the ALCS (against the Yankees, no less!) sent the beloved BoSox to the Series, and his leadoff homer in Game 4 on Wednesday was all they needed to abominate the looming curse of the babe.

Just try and write a script more poignant than that, Mel Gibson, I dare ya!

Sure, Jesus had his 12 disciples. Johnny Damon, however, had Derek Lowe, Curt Schilling and Pedro Martinez. He had Orlando Cabrero, David Ortiz and Jason Varitek. Keith Foulke, Bill Muellar and Trot Nixon.

But then there was the savior himself, the ALCS Most Valuable Player, and the MVP of the World Series. While in the Catholic Church there stands a replica of Jesus Christ hanging from the cross, in New England they have begun to render posters and statues of

Boston’s savior: Manny Ramirez.

After nearly being traded this year, Ramirez relinquished himself by ultimately blowing out the candle on “the curse.”

Though some people say the Cardinals were not an admirable foe, that Boston just manhandled a weaker team. Well, perhaps those people didn’t watch St. Louis rape every team they faced this year and finish with the best record Major League Baseball.

A more dignified opponent, there doesn’t exist!

Not to mention that God, himself, played first base for the Cards. The most angelic player on the field, Albert Pujols personifies baseball, for when he comes to the plate, pitchers shudder, the infield doesn’t know what to do and angels sing from the heavens.

There is no other player as divine as the mighty Pujols.

Yet the Boston Red Sox pulled a Pontius Pilot and shut him down. Not to mention all the other members of the Cardinals, for the mighty, mighty BoSox never lost the lead in their final eight-game winning streak – from coming back in Game 4 against the Yankees all the way through Game 4 of the World Series, the Red Sox kept the lead the entire time!

A more grandiose story has yet to be penned, let alone be turned into a movie. But if Mel Gibson wants to follow up on the greatest story of our time, it is my advice that he makes it the greatest story of ALL time.

Sure, women cried after “The Passion of the Christ.” Children shuddered in their chairs, trying to comprehend the story.

Yet after the 2004 World Series, grown men fell to the floor in hysteria all across the United States and wept. They were awe-struck, amazed, astounded, with lips quivering and legs shaking, they simply wept.

Boston broke the curse, baby.

God Bless the Red Sox.

Determination is in the eye of the ball-holder

Bounding down the basketball court, Steve Ward suddenly decided that he was going to dunk. That’s all there was to it. The two opponents looming ahead of him and underneath the basket were no threat for he would simply jump over them. At 6-4, that was nothing new for this former state champion hurdler.

Yet as he was inches from performing the sport’s defining action – possibly the grandest means of netting two points in any sport – something went painstakingly wrong. In just a matter of seconds, Ward missed the dunk, landed crooked on his knee, then went up for the rebound and fell to the floor in pain, clutching his knee after bending it completely sideways.

“I knew exactly what happened right when I hit the floor,” said the 20-year old Ward, a Post Falls graduate now a sophomore in Business Administration.

As he lay on the basketball court last year in utter shock, he knew that he had torn his ACL (as well as MCL), and his basketball career was completely over. The doctors told him that he would never play again. They said the reigning state record holder in both the high school 300-intermediate hurdles and the 110-high hurdles was never going to play basketball again.

Perhaps he should have done what many others would have done in his position after graduation.

Winning back-to-back state championships in both hurdling events his junior and senior year, he ignored numerous track recruitment letters from such prestigious and storied schools as Harvard, Notre Dame, Brown University and the University of Oregon. Instead, he desired to play the sport, which he deeply loved, the sport where he snagged team MVP awards his junior and senior years and all-state recognition during his senior season.

He wanted to play basketball.

NIC gave him that opportunity.

So now, after enduring the “freak accident” during his rookie season at NIC, he was left disappointed, heartbroken and shocked to be suddenly catapulted so far from the sport he lived for. But while he loved basketball so, he remained unspiteful.

“You just never know God’s plan,” he said. “It’s just the journey of life, so you can’t be angry. Basketball isn’t everything.”

But then one surgeon proclaimed: “You’ll be back.”

That’s all that was needed to spark a fire inside of Ward. He assembled a support structure in his life: a close friend who possessed an interest in athletes and injuries, his parents, the athletic trainer of NIC, his basketball coaching staff and teammates, as well as his surgeon and physical therapist.

With their help, he returned beyond full strength. When he wasn’t at physical therapy he was in the gym playing basketball, and in only one year pulled a Gale Sayers recovery and returned healthier than before.

“I came back five times stronger, five times faster and I could jump so much higher,” he recalled.

Ward entered this school year in full throttle after months and months of intense physical training. However, during just the third day of school and the third scrimmage of the season, he encountered yet another freak accident.

“I was running down the basketball court in a full sprint,” he says. ”When I came to a stop I tried to pivot and lost my footing, but my knee just couldn’t handle the pressure.”

This was not the same knee as the previous year, so as Ward fell to the floor once again he prayed, “Please don’t let it be serious!”

But it was serious.

The entire training room cleared as he entered in a furious temper. He figured it was all over. He wouldn’t be able to come back this time. Basketball was done.

Yet half an hour later, he remembers it specifically, he came to the awe-inspiring conclusion that maybe it wasn’t over. He would be back-- for he had accomplished it before. Proving to be the resilient athlete he is, he decided to start at Square 1 once more.

It was hard at first, no doubt, and he’ll be the first to admit it was frustrating: for a month and a half he didn’t want to be in the gym at all. But his friends and family, coaching staff and doctors, stuck with him and he persevered once more.

He still can’t play basketball or participate in anything too strenuous for six months, but his surgeon predicts a full recovery just like before.

And that is where we find Ward today.

He is recently off crutches and getting ready for graduation this upcoming spring after three years at NIC. He won’t be playing basketball any time soon, and though his career as a Cardinal was cut extremely while reluctantly short, he yearns to continue on at a four-year program.

Yet with his freshman season being the only collegiate experience he’s had on the game clock, it will be difficult for future coaches to gauge his current talent. He’s considering Boise State University, yet Eastern Washington would be his school of choice.

Indeed, Ward is not stranger to resiliency, personal growth and persistency.

“I’ve never been afraid of hard work,” he says, “and I’ve never had a problem putting in the work for something I really wanted.”