Will Mead Keep Winning Record Once Schools Split? Coaches Insist Credit For Success Belongs To District, Kids, Staff; Not The Size Of School

It was no surprise that Mead High teams, athletes and coaches won four of five trophies awarded last month during the 1996 Junior Sports Awards Luncheon.

Mead is on pace to win its 16th straight Greater Spokane League All-Sports trophy, given annually to the school with the league’s top overall athletic program. The school with the GSL’s largest enrollment has also been honored each of the past 10 years by Tacoma’s Morning News Tribune for having the state’s best prep sports program.

That could all change when Mount Spokane High, the Mead School District’s second high school, opens next year. Many observers believe that splitting Mead’s huge enrollment between two schools will result in a more level GSL playing field.

There’s logic behind that belief. For instance, would Mead have been as dominant in the GSL if Central Valley and University high schools had remained one school, or if Ferris had not split off from Lewis and Clark?

But Mead’s coaches don’t necessarily buy that argument.

“Everyone wants to put it somewhere and not put credit where credit belongs,” said girls basketball coach Jeanne Helfer. “It’s not size. The biggest schools in the state don’t always win. This is a quality district with a quality staff and quality kids.”

Mead cross country coach Pat Tyson said most Mead coaches would have preferred the advantages of remaining one large school. But he believes the district’s two high schools can be as successful in the future as Mead has been in the past.

“Now I think the coaches’ goal is to create two equal and incredible high schools with the Mead mystique in both,” said Tyson.

Tyson’s cross country teams have won a record nine straight State AAA championships. Several of his most talented distance runners will be at Mount Spokane next year.

“But that’s all right, it’s part of the deal,” Tyson said. “I taught at a junior high with 700 students and had 100 out for cross country. Now that the ninth graders are up I think we have a better opportunity to be successful.”

Gary Baskett, whose Mead track team will likely run its dual meet winning streak to 150 straight and chase a fourth straight state championship this spring, doesn’t seem to be worried about the future, even if numbers drop.

“That might make us even better,” he said. “The thing we’ve talked about is the mentality, not the physicality. I think we have a way of getting kids to buy in.”

Eleven of 18 head coaches will remain at Mead after the split. Four, including Helfer, football coach Mike McLaughlin, and girls track coach Annette Pedersen, will move to Mount Spokane. Soccer coach Dick Cullen will leave coaching to become Mead’s new athletic director, and wrestling coach Cash Stone is retiring.

“It was strictly a personal decision,” said Helfer of her move to Mount Spokane. “My girl will eventually go there so it’s what is best for my family and daughter.”

It won’t be easy for Helfer to leave the school where she achieved such great success. At Mead, her teams won three State AAA championships and placed in the top five at state four other times.

“As I look at the pictures on the wall knowing it is the last year, it’s heart-wrenching,” she said. “It’s hard to believe we’ll be competing against kids I’ve known since they were old enough to shoot.”

Mount Spokane will have no seniors next year, but only McLaughlin’s football team will not play a GSL schedule during the school’s first year.

School counselor Bob McCray, who has an extensive college coaching background, is the new Mead High football coach. He has no qualms about following a coach who won three GSL championships and qualified for the state playoffs seven straight years. But McCray said he will miss the comradeship of his departing peers.

“I’m not too worried about us having a great drop-off,” he said. “One of the reasons is the (new) coaches we have on the staff.”

They will all be in-building, one important reason, McCray said, that Mead will continue to succeed in sports and that its new sister school can as well.

As a college recruiter along the I-5 corrider, he watched once-strong Seattle-area programs struggle when schools ceased athletic commitment.

“I saw what happened to programs that used to be proud when they couldn’t hire in-building coaches any more,” he said.

The Mead School District and its citizens planning committee have established a goal of creating two excellent and equal schools with competitive activities programs, McCray said.

Certainly to expect Mead High to win the GSL All-Sports program every year may soon be unreasonable.

“Obviously with two schools, everybody can’t win everything,” said McCray. “We will both have competitive programs.”

Growth in the Mead School District hasn’t been what had been expected and the district’s prep athletes will now be competing against each other. But Tyson doesn’t sell good coaching short.

“I really believe it’s hiring people who are infectious with kids,” he said.

A secret, said Helfer, came early in her career when she saw multi-sport athletes in Cullen’s dominant boys and girls programs.

“Someone said that when Mead finally figures out how to get athletes out for three sports it will be a power,” she said.

Those are reasons coaches think that two Mead schools instead of one will gang up on the GSL.

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