Winning never gets old for Vining

The people who ask Clark Vining every year – heck, every game night – if this dynasty business ever gets old presume to already know the answer.

And they do.

The question isn’t just rhetorical, it’s reflex. It’s the act of clearing their throats.

Because it doesn’t get old. Why would anyone think so?

“Just going to state is something you don’t take for granted,” said Vining, CEO of Gold Ball, Inc., a subsidiary of Colton Wildcats Girls Basketball, and there is both data and anecdotal evidence to back him up.

Vining and the Wildcats take aim at their seventh consecutive State 1B title this weekend, and the concept of dominance will have to get into the weight room and bulk up to be worthy of limning what Colton hath wrought at the Spokane Arena.

The Wildcats are as perennial as a Monroe Street pothole, and just as likely to blow your doors off.

Their current winning streak – 68 games – is staggering, as it puts them within 14 of the hallowed Brewster boys’ blitz of the mid-1970s. But here’s the thing: the Wildcats have also had streaks of 37 and 42 games during their championship chokehold. Indeed, if not for a 43-34 hiccup against Kamiah back on Dec. 28, 2012, the Wildcats would be sitting on 105.

So, of course, their winning ways are very much taken for granted.

Even by a few folks who’ve lived for more than 10 minutes in the greater Colton-Uniontown metropolitan statistical area. Strange, that. Until Vining took over coaching the girls in 2005, the school had never sent a basketball team to the State B. By that point – seven decades of futility – there was every reason to think the drought would stretch to B-ternity.

And as for Vining’s own lack of nonchalance about success? The 44-year-old coach played his high school basketball at Toutle Lake – and never in March.

“All four of my years, we played to go every year and lost,” he said.

Well, he’s certainly scratched that itch.

Vining helped Eric Swanson at his alma mater for a couple of years after graduating from Washington, then assisted at Pullman while his wife, Megan, finished school at Washington State. When she landed a job with the city, Vining became the boys coach at Colton. He made the switch to the girls program in 2005 after becoming the head football coach.

“Kids hearing the same voice from August to March is a long time,” he said. “It was probably healthy for everyone.”

Healthy? It was a B-12 shot for the girls. They were 16-9 that first year, qualified for state for the first time the next and took third, then made a pit stop as runnersup in 2008 before simply taking over.

The elements of Colton’s preeminence have been well-documented: swarming defense, uptempo offense, a deep rotation, plenty of 3s, a youth program going down to Grade 3 synched with Vining’s philosophy and an intense summertime commitment by kids and parents.

“The very first week of practice (in 2005), we had a girl who passed on an open shot,” Vining recalled, “and I blew the whistle and said, ‘We shoot when we’re open.’ She looked at me like I was crazy.”

And, yes, there have been some pretty good players, though this is well beyond the nice-little-run-of-athletes vein at the heart of most high school glory sagas.

In the process, Vining has found nirvana. He and Megan, a Wahkiakum grad, are small-towners to the core – the family moved from Pullman six years ago. Like the rest of the Colton faculty, he’s asked to keep a lot of balls in the air – he teaches junior high history, computer classes, P.E., weight training. Those multiple responsibilities aren’t nudging him to look to move, even if his 238-23 record has elicited some calls.

“It takes everybody to be successful at a small school,” he said, “and everybody pitches in here.”

Ask Vining for some how-to dynasty tips and he says he really doesn’t have any, though a conversation reveals a couple. The first is simple: don’t think of it as a dynasty.

“Kids don’t get caught up in it because the way we look at it, each team is different,” he said, “and each team wants to leave it’s own mark. We don’t get credit for last year’s wins on this year’s record.”

The other is equally basic: absolutely think of it as a dynasty.

“The great thing here is that it’s a one-building school, K-12,” Vining said. “Kids know everyone. The kids playing now, they were little ones running through the halls with the first teams we took to state. They’d watch them win on Friday night and they’d be walking right next to them on Monday.

“It’s the same way now. Our girls do a camp for the third graders and those girls are wide-eyed.”

And that part really never gets old.