Pratt Just Can’T Talk Himself Into Retiring

Coeur d’Alene High girls basketball coach Bill Pratt tried to talk himself into retirement.

He apparently wasn’t persuasive enough.

“I sort of took a reverse approach,” Pratt, 54, said. “Instead of thinking about why I should come back, I thought about why I was thinking about retiring. I feel I’ve got a couple of good years left in me.”

Pratt took over the program three years ago after it had fallen on hard times. It gave him the opportunity to be reunited with a talented sophomore class he’d coached for two years at Canfield Middle School.

Three years later, the seniors led Coeur d’Alene to the State A-1 championship. The Viks finished 25-1 with a 24-game winning streak.

The CdA job was Pratt’s first as a girls head coach. Pratt, who has coached for 30 years, had previous boys head-coaching positions in California in the 1970s.

“I wanted to turn the program around; that was the motivation,” Pratt said. “That’s accomplished. The kids wanted me back so that’s nice.”

CdA is 54-23 under Pratt, a record that includes a 21-7 mark two years ago when the Viks finished third at state.

Run for the Border

The first Border League track meet is Friday at Eastern Washington University’s Woodward Stadium.

All 10 conference schools are scheduled to compete.

“I think it’s the beginning of a great track meet,” said Cheney athletic director Joe Richer, who has organized the inaugural event. “There’s some pretty good athletes in these schools.”

The meet begins at 3:30 p.m. with running and field events. Admission is $4 for adults, $2 for students.

Each school is allowed two entrants in the sprints through middle distance races (100-800) and hurdles. Those races will be seeded by times and the first heats will feature the top seven entrants, Richer said.

Each school is permitted three entrants in the 1,600 and 3,200 and field events.

Lewiston is favored in the boys, and Colville is the team to watch in the girls.

The Lakeland Booster Club has come up with a novel idea: Raffle off a brand-new truck at a track meet.

Now that could be a way to boost gate receipts.

A 2000 Toyota Tacoma pickup will be raffled off Friday at the Lakeland Relays. The meet begins at 4 p.m.

Eight teams are entered including Priest River, Bonners Ferry and Timberlake of the Intermountain League and A-3 independent Wallace.

This ‘n that

Border League baseball and softball doubleheaders Friday afternoon involving Lewiston and Coeur d’Alene could go far in deciding conference championships and top seeds at the regional tournaments.

The baseball teams square off at 2 and the softball teams tangle an hour later.

CdA’s teams lost single games at Lewiston last week. In baseball, the Bengals clobbered the Viks 15-2 in a run-rule shortened game. In softball, the Bengals tripped CdA 5-4 in extra innings, temporarily knocking the Viks out of first place after CdA had taken two of three games from Lake City earlier in the week.

The Lake City girls golf team wrapped up the Border League championship Tuesday by winning the Moscow Invitational. That gave the Timberwolves team titles in three of the four tourneys where all the conference teams participated.

LC beat defending state champ Lewiston by 10 strokes at Moscow. The T-Wolves - whose starting five includes three sophomores, a junior and a senior - won earlier at Lewiston and Sandpoint. They finished second at the season-opening tourney at Clarkston.