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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Bulldogs’ Title Really Belongs To Community

You have to applaud the jobs done by football coaches Satini Puailoa of Sandpoint and Van Troxel of Lake City.

It’s appropriate, too, that both were voted as co-coaches of the year by their peers.

They arrived at their schools at the same time four years ago. It’s not a coincidence that both programs finally arrived this fall.

Both coaches will look back at 1997 as the year their programs stepped to the top of the Inland Empire League.

And they should battle for league supremacy for years to come.

The other thing the teams established is a rivalry. A healthy rivalry, too.

Lake City went from the basement to a co-league title, from 3-6 a year ago to 8-2 and the top ranking in the final state poll.

Sandpoint (9-3) capped its turnaround under Puailoa with the best prize of all - a state championship. The two years before Puailoa arrived, Sandpoint was 1-15-2.

The Bulldogs are 24-16 under Puailoa.

Until this year, though, the Bulldogs had yet to win a big game. It’s a notion that grated on Puailoa all season.

He vented about that and the knocks against the program he inherited moments after the Bulldogs’ 24-21 win in the state finale.

“When we started the program it was a thing where people said they don’t play football in Sandpoint,” Puailoa said. “The kids won’t play, they won’t put out, they won’t work hard. That was really a misnomer. These kids work really hard. I doubt if anybody works harder or plays harder than we do.

“They said kids wouldn’t come out. You can see we have a ton of kids playing football; they will come out. Then you go back a couple of years ago and we hadn’t beat Lakeland in years and now we’ve beaten them. We hadn’t beat Coeur d’Alene in 17 years and we’ve beaten them. Then it was (said) we couldn’t win the big game. We finally beat Post Falls and Lewiston and now we’re here.”

The baggage the Bulldogs have carried in recent years isn’t quite as weighty today.

And every player who’s been in the program - not just this year’s seniors - has had a part in the building process, Puailoa said.

“We never bought into that (a floundering program) for one minute. These kids have overcome a lot of adversity. We’re in Bonner County and we get absolutely no funding, the parents in the community support this unbelievably. We play Lake City and Coeur d’Alene, which start the season with their $50,000 budgets for athletics. What this community - parents, school administrators, faculty, kids - have to do to pull off stuff is amazing. Our state title is a community win.”

Two years ago, Bonner County school officials seriously considered adopting a pay-to-play policy. Coaches, administrators and parents fended off the attempt - something that would have taken the heart out of Sandpoint athletics.

You only need to look north, to Bonners Ferry High, and see what pay-to-play has done to the Badgers’ programs. It has darn near gutted them.

“That could have been us,” Puailoa said.

Things aren’t all rosy at Sandpoint. The district’s financial woes have been well-documented. But those responsible for keeping athletics afloat have much to be thankful for today.

Are high school athletics important? Should school districts ante up no matter the cost?

We suggest asking the 61 players on the Sandpoint football team. Or folks in the community.

Sandpoint and LC are the only schools in the IEL to field three teams below varsity - junior varsity, sophomore and freshman. The other schools offer a combined JV/sophomore team.

Puailoa and Troxel believe the extra team encourages more participation and allows the not-so-gifted athletes an opportunity to develop to the point of possibly contributing to varsity as seniors.

Perhaps the other league teams should consider doing the same.

Otherwise it could just be a two-team battle from year to year.

, DataTimes