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

Pring feels more than pain of injury


West Valley High School senior Tim Pring watches a play during Eagles football practice. Although Pring's playing season ended when he dislocated and broke his right thumb for the second time, his dedication to his team has not lagged. 
 (Holly Pickett / The Spokesman-Review)
Steve Christilaw Correspondent

Tim Pring is hurting.

The hurt starts about the time classes at West Valley High School let out, and doesn’t let up until his football teammates leave the field at the end of practice. It’s worse on Friday nights.

A standout linebacker and wide receiver for the Eagles, Pring’s senior season was sidelined after he broke his right thumb in the season opener against East Valley-Yakima. He dislocated the same digit in a thwarted comeback attempt at Medical Lake.

Pring is still a mainstay at practices. On Monday he sported a bright red baseball cap with the big University of Nebraska “N” emblazoned on the front and a pair of red shoes with the same logo, with a box of goldfish crackers hidden in his jacket – a stash assistant coaches tap on a regular basis between drills.

“This hurts so bad I can’t even tell you,” Pring said, not referring to his thumb. “I feel like I’m letting my family down, my teammates down – letting everyone down. It’s just a thumb, right?

“Right now, I’m pretty much done. The only way I can get back on the field would be for us to go deep into the playoffs, and even then it’s a pretty slim chance.”

At this point, with two games left in his senior season, a slim chance trumps no chance at all.

The Eagles (3-2 in league, 4-4 overall) currently are tied with Colville for third in the Great Northern League going into Friday’s game at Deer Park and finish the season at Clarkston, which faces Pullman Friday in a showdown between undefeated (5-0, 8-0) teams. Colville (3-2, 6-2) plays host to Cheney before finishing up with Riverside.

Four teams advance to the state Class 2A playoffs, meaning the Eagles’ fate rests in their own hands.

“We’ve won three straight games, and I think we’re finally starting to put it all together,” Pring said. “We were down at halftime last week at Riverside and we really turned it around in the second half. We have to keep that up. Deer Park has been playing well and we can’t allow ourselves to look past them. And we still have Clarkston and we’re excited to get a shot at them.

“We had our chances against Pullman (in the GNL opener) and gave it away in overtime. We’d love another shot at them.”

Pring knew his thumb was injured early in the season opener – eventually discovering later that he’d broken a bone and torn a ligament. But he wasn’t about to let anything as minor as a thumb injury take him off the field and even managed a one-handed catch for a touchdown – trapping the pass with his good hand against his stomach

“I kept playing because it didn’t hurt,” he said. “It hurt later, but not then. I thought for a while that I had just dislocated it and I kept trying to just pop it back in. But it wouldn’t pop. The coaches finally took me out when they saw me shaking it.

“I didn’t get it checked out until the next morning. The doctor took a look at it and said I needed to be in surgery.”

Surgeons inserted a pair of pins in the bone to aid in the healing process and cleared him to play in week six against Medical Lake.

“I just came down on it and I knew it was gone again,” he said. “But I still didn’t want to come out.”

Pring’s love affair with football began the first time he pulled on pads to play Grid Kids ball – much of it with fellow seniors Bryan Peterson and Parker Flynn, among others. He made his presence known on arrival at West Valley and turned heads as a sophomore linebacker in the Greater Spokane League.

A year ago he was an All-GNL first-team linebacker and worked hard to make himself better for his senior football season. Wide receivers coach Vic Wallace, talked him into turning out for track to improve his speed and he spent a year in the weight room adding strength.

“Running track really helped and I feel like I got a lot faster,” he said. “I knew the first time I started to run that I loved the sport. Coach Wallace had me running the 100, 200, the 4x100 relay and the 4x400 relay. I loved the 100, but I have to say that by the end of the year I really loved the 400. There’s something about taking that baton for the last 400 of the race and having a couple guys in front of you that you need to run down.

“I love it. I’m really looking forward to track season.”

What has taken a major hit has been Pring’s chance to impress potential college football coaches. He hopes they will take notice of his senior track season and, perhaps, his senior wrestling season.

“I didn’t turn out for wrestling last year and I really regretted it,” he said. “I’m really thinking about coming out this year, but I’ll be really behind by the time my thumb is healed and I can go 100 percent.

“I hope college football coaches will take note of that.”

Pring hasn’t given up his dream of playing college football. If a scholarship is not on his immediate horizon, he plans to pick out a school and walk on.

“The other thing I’m thinking about is going the junior college route,” he said. “That’s a real possibility. I can play a year or two of junior college football and then try again at a four-year school.”