Dome’S Versatility Tested
It’s a nice problem to have.
Even for Tom McGann, first-year manager of Idaho’s Kibbie Dome. He’s trying to accommodate practices and/or games for football, basketball, track and tennis at the multipurpose facility. Throw in finals week, Dec. 14-18, and it’s migraine central.
Football created this Dome snarl by winning the Big West Conference and advancing to the Humanitarian Bowl.
“We’ve still got two days we’re trying to work out, but the coaches have been really good,” McGann said. “I pretty much started the process by asking basketball and football to give me their ideal schedules and some days worked out from that. Then we went back to the coaches with the trouble dates.”
The goal is to service every sport as efficiently as possible, though football and basketball are at the top of the pecking order. The problem is it takes a 12-person crew 4 hours to convert the floor from football to basketball and vice versa.
McGann figures it’ll take 12 conversions I’m guessing that’s a Dome record between Thursday and Dec. 27. In the past, when Idaho qualified for the I-AA football playoffs, the fake grass pretty much was glued to the floor.
The women’s basketball team has moved Saturday’s game against Utah from the Dome to Memorial Gym. But Memorial is the site of winter commencement ceremonies earlier Saturday afternoon, so the team won’t be able to practice there for two days leading up to the game. Men’s basketball has one practice in Memorial.
But as McGann says, everybody’s making sacrifices.
“All my worst nightmares and best dreams came true,” McGann chuckled.
Panhandling
Shad Bertsch, former Coeur d’Alene High standout, is in his first year coaching boys basketball at A-4 Salmon River in Riggins. His team lost its season opener to Genesee.
I can’t mention Bertsch without recalling his magical week in February 1990. He hit a game-winning 3-pointer to beat Lewiston. Three days later, he scored 38 points and made a 42-foot buzzer-beater to nip Post Falls, giving Coeur d’Alene an Inland Empire League title.
Nice gesture by Lake City Boosters and some T-Wolves senior players to send football coach Van Troxel and his wife, Karen, to Tacoma to watch Van’s brother, Andy, help Pasco win a 4A Washington state title. Andy is offensive coordinator at Pasco, which defeated Wilson 17-0.
The boosters/players bought the Troxels plane tickets and footed the motel bill.
George Greene, 94, UI athletic director from 1941-51 (minus a few years to serve in the Navy during the war), died just before Thanksgiving. He was a faithful fan at Vandals’ games, and close with many former/current coaches, for more than 20 years.
Former basketball coach Larry Eustachy solicited Greene, then in his late 80s, to help Deon Watson with free-throw shooting. At 92, Greene went on a UI basketball road trip.
“I remember him Sunday morning with two sets of newspapers on his lap, smiling about Idaho (football) beating Boise State,” said Greene’s grandson, Craig Mosman, a Moscow attorney. “And that Tuesday he was listening to a basketball game and (coach) Dave Farrar ended the broadcast by saying hello to an old friend (Greene) who was listening. He died that night.”
The NCAA hasn’t informed Idaho what - if any - punishment the football team faces for using defensive tackle Mao Niko in the first two games of the season. Niko misled UI officials about his eligibility and was booted as soon as the school learned the facts.
Idaho, understandably, isn’t pressing the NCAA for an answer.
Alert Ripley’s. College of Southern Idaho has lost five straight men’s basketball games under first-year coach Kevin Jones. You can bet the squawking from CSI fans, who have little tolerance for losing, is loud and could be deafening if the Golden Eagles fall to Treasure Valley Friday.
Front row
Serious choices this week. The men’s and women’s basketball games should be dandies when NIC plays Utah Valley on Thursday and Salt Lake on Saturday. Women at 5:30 p.m., men at 7:30.
In a duel of teams that shared the NJCAA wrestling title last year, NIC entertains Lassen on Friday at 7:30.
Best of the preps: Lake City at Coeur d’Alene girls, Thursday at 7:45; boys, Friday at 7:45, also at Viking Gym.
Grad school
Clarion (Penn.) University’s Jason Moaney, a former NIC wrestler, is undefeated in nine matches and has won two tournament titles.
The 174-pound senior won tourneys at Ashland, Ohio, and, last weekend, at Las Vegas.
Rumor du jour
Ex-Idaho football coach John L. Smith was a candidate for the UNLV job that went to John Robinson, according to a wire service article. Hard to believe Smith would consider leaving luxurious Louisville for weakling Vegas.
Football’s the last thing on Smith’s mind right now. His father died last week in Idaho Falls.