Quick hits

New head coaches

A couple of longtime assistant football coaches will take a stab at head coaching this fall.

Ed DePriest, 49, an assistant under Van Troxel at Lake City High, has been named the head coach at Bonners Ferry, pending final approval later this month by the school board. DePriest replaces Caleb Arceneaux, who resigned to spend more time with his family.

Jared Hughes, 32, a Priest River High graduate, will take over the helm at his alma mater. Hughes replaces former East Valley coach Ray Stookey, Priest River’s principal who served as the interim coach for a season.

At BF, DePriest was hired in early December as a P.E. teacher. He’s teaching three weightlifting/conditioning classes and trying to involve as many football players as possible.

“It’s obviously a different atmosphere than I’m used to – it’s not Lake City,” DePriest said. “It’s a rebuilding program. We’ll be young.”

DePriest was a head coach at Brady Bishop, a Catholic school in Concord, N.H., for two years in between stints at LC. He was an offensive assistant for seven years at LC prior to taking the job back East and was the offensive coordinator for LC’s freshman team the past three years.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for him,” Troxel said. “He knows it’s not going to be easy. He’s definitely qualified to go on and take over a program.”

Arceneaux’s teams were 21-17 in five seasons and 15-3 at home.

“I need to spend more time with my family,” said Arceneaux, a BF graduate. “I missed my son’s first wrestling match. I have three children and it’s just time to hang it up for a while. I told the (players) when I stepped down that I’m hoping to look at this as a leave of absence rather than a retirement. I’d like to come back at another time.”

At PR, Hughes becomes the sixth head coach in 10 years.

“I want to bring some consistency to the program,” said Hughes, who is also the school’s head track coach. “I plan on being here at least five or six years and maybe longer depending on where the program goes. I’ve seen what Timberlake has done and what Lake City and Sandpoint have done over the years. Everywhere you go you can find athletes. It’s just a matter of developing the program.”

Coaches step down

Sandpoint wrestling coach Mike Randles and boys basketball coach Tyler Haynes resigned last month.

Both cited a desire to spend more time with their young families as the chief reason for resigning.

Randles took a program that had won three state titles previously and captured three more state championships in nine years. He also had a runner-up finish this year, and two of his teams were nationally ranked.

When Randles took over, his wife was expecting their first child. Now the Randleses have three children, and the oldest, Casey, 8, has been in the Top Dog youth wrestling program for four years.

“It’s now time to chase my own boys around,” Randles said. “It was a tough decision even though I knew it was going to be my last season. I coached nine seasons, but each season was like two seasons. With the off-season (program), it felt like 18 seasons.”

Randles also wanted to squelch a rumor that he resigned because of dissatisfaction with the school’s administration. He thanked his superiors for their support.

His final team finished just 12.5 points out of first and had six finalists and four individual champs.

“This was a special group to go out with,” Randles said. “They not only got better and better and passed up kids who used to beat them, but they were well-balanced academically, they had a great work ethic and a great sense of humor.”

Haynes coached five years and had a 49-65 record. His second team snapped the school’s 27-year drought in state appearances, and he took back-to-back teams to state.

“Those two teams were fun to be a part of,” Haynes said. “To get to state was real satisfying. I’m real satisfied with what we’ve done, but I’m kind of tired (after 18 years of coaching). It’s a demanding job and requires a lot of hours.”

Assistant director named

Julie Hammons, who teaches at Centennial High School, has been named the Idaho High School Activities Association’s assistant director.

She will begin in August. She replaces Diane Wolf, who is retiring after 33 years in education, the past nine as the IHSAA’s assistant director. A native of Boise, Hammons has taught biology, anatomy and P.E. at Centennial since 1996.