Cda Needs New Playbook On How To Hire Coach

Welcome, students, to class: How Not To Hire a Head Football Coach 101.

Our case study today will be the Coeur d’Alene High School head football job. The selection of a new coach is a done deal. Change the name plate on the coach’s office at CdA to read: Bill Anderson. More on that later.

Last Friday, you may recall, school officials interviewed five candidates.

This may have been lost on others attending the Coeur d’Alene High booster luncheon Monday, but after athletic director Larry Schwenke said a decision would be made by May 9, Superintendent Doug Cresswell interjected that an announcement could be made as early as the day after the school bond levy.

The levy must pass for a teaching job to be packaged with the coaching position.

If officials had planned on selecting a coach from their own ranks, there would be no reason to wait as long as May 9. In-district candidates were interviewed out of courtesy.

The official announcement will be made a day after the school bond levy is held May 2.

A day after the levy, hmmmm. How convenient. If the levy passes, officials introduce Anderson as the next coach.

But what if the levy fails? And what if Anderson turns down the job? That’s happened the last two times the boys basketball job was open.

Do officials then offer the job to Will Havercroft, the leading in-district candidate? Hello to a five-egg omelette on administrators’ faces.

Sources in the know tell us that all the candidates except Anderson have been told they didn’t get the job.

And Anderson, who has obviously been asked to sit on the news until told otherwise, slipped when asked Tuesday if he’d been offered the job.

“I can’t divulge that at this time because there are a lot of things pending,” said Anderson, 51, the head coach at Grandview (Wash.) High the past two years.

Then he caught himself: “I haven’t officially been offered the job.”

Schwenke offered the company denial, saying he’s not at liberty to confirm or deny whether Anderson has been offered the job.

Can’t help but think school officials have fumbled the ball here.

Here’s what should have happened immediately after Greg Drake resigned as head coach: Officials should have advertised the job and then offered it to an outside candidate, if that was their persuasion, contingent on the levy passing.

That would have accomplished a number of positive things, not the least of which includes the following:

1) Should the levy not pass and a teaching job not be available, officials could have hired Havercroft. They may have had to beg Havercroft to take the job, but they wouldn’t have had to bend his arm too much since the above-board hiring process would not have embarrassed him as much as this bungled mess.

2) The head coach could have organized the off-season weight training/conditioning program and begun planning for summer camps. As it is, CdA, which returns much talent, finds itself in a similar situation as Lake City did last year when the school was starting its new program.

Officials had to know there was no possible way to keep their selection hush-hush until following the levy election.

The best candidate for the job, perhaps, was Hillcrest and former Kellogg coach Randy Gleave, who turned down an invitation to interview for the job.

Officials hemmed and hawed so long about the job that Gleave had to back out because he wouldn’t have had adequate time to sell his home, move to Coeur d’Alene, organize a coaching staff and prepare for the season.

Anderson, by the way, is a finalist for a similar job at Hudson’s Bay High in Vancouver, Wash. His name is also in consideration for a couple of other coaching positions.

Ivy League-bound

Lake City’s standout fastpitch, pitcher, Kelly Nelson has received an endowment to Dartmouth, where she plans to continue her athletic career.

Nelson signed a letter of intent Wednesday. She was also considering Carleton (Minn.) College and Princeton.

She is 8-1 overall this season and hasn’t walked one batter while allowing just two earned runs.