North Central Loses Coach Again; Tibbles This Time
The strain of being an out-of-building coach cost North Central another basketball coach.
Tammy Tibbles resigned after compiling a 6-34 record in two years with the Indians’ girls basketball team.
“It was a real time conflict with her job as a firefighter,” NC activities coordinator John McCoy said. “She’s not a bad person and she’s not a bad coach. If she taught here she would still be coach. With the time restraints, she resigned in the best interest of the kids and the school.”
NC is also looking for a boys basketball coach after Don Van Lierop resigned last month. Van Lierop coached at NC for two years while teaching at Ferris.
Applications for both positions will be taken though April 28, with interviews for finalists to be completed by May 12. Both new coaches are guaranteed a teaching position.
Great opportunity
Despite being just 34 with no experience as a head football coach and only one year at East Valley, Mark Perry thought he would take a chance.
He applied to replaced Dick Armstrong, the winningest coach in Washington prep history, as coach at Snohomish. Armstrong won 279 games in 39 years, the last 31 at Snohomish.
Perry had an in - he was a football assistant at Snohomish for 11 years before moving to Spokane to become the head wrestling coach at EV, a post he held the previous seven years at Snohomish.
And Perry was picked to follow the legend.
“It was a situation where, when you get an opportunity to make a move like that, you’ve got to do it,” said Perry, a Sandpoint native. “At my age, I can afford to do it.
“There are a couple of tough parts. We moved here because of family, but they’re the ones who support us. The other part is, I’ve had a great year at East Valley; the staff and kids there are great.”
Teamwork
By placing in the top eight in wrestling and girls basketball, Mead maintained its 12-point lead in The Tacoma News-Tribune All-Sports race.
The Panthers have 120 points to put them in front of South Kitsap.
No Frontier League teams are in
the Class AA top 10, which is led by Gig Harbor with 114 points, three ahead of Blanchet.
In Class A, Riverside is fifth with 63 points, well behind the leading 104 of Omak.
Several teams show up in the Class B race with St. George’s, Wilbur-Creston and Dayton tied for second at 80 points, 16 behind Toutle Lake. Tied for fifth are Northwest Christian and Davenport at 64. Springdale has 60.
Up against a wall
South Kitsap faces a mill levy vote April 25, and if it fails for the fourth time in a row, the Port Orchard school is prepared to drop all co-curricular activities.
That would include football and baseball, band and debate.
The junior-dominated Wolves won the Kingbowl football title last fall and the baseball team, ranked No. 8 in the west by USA Today, is one of the favorites to win a state title in Spokane during Springfest over Memorial Weekend.
“It would be really catastrophic,” principal Steve Wilson told The News-Tribune. “I’m not just concerned about athletics. I’m also concerned about drama and debate and all those other sort of things. We sure as heck don’t want those kids on the streets.”
First-year Shadle Park activities coordinator Randy Ryan, who came to Spokane from the Port Orchard school, said he has received telephone calls from at least five SK coaches asking for letters of reference.
“Last year everything was cut 25 percent,” Ryan said. “If it goes down again, they will lose everything and I don’t think it will come back. The support has always been there, but it’s an organized effort by anti-tax groups (that keep the yes votes from reaching the required 60 percent for passage).”
Notes
Shadle Park is in the process of interviewing the six finalists for head football coach. An announcement could be made by the end of next week.
Shadle’s Sean Hughes threw a no-hitter in a junior varisty game against Rogers on Tuesday.