IEL’s large schools make big strides scheduling

The biggest fear among Inland Empire League athletic directors and football coaches – whether they would be able to fill a nine-game schedule for next fall – may have a happy ending after all.

With reclassification in Washington and similar shuffling going on in Boise, it’s been a nightmare for IEL athletic directors as they’ve tried to schedule football games for 2006.

Usually the athletic directors are crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s on home-and-home game contracts by early January. Not this year.

The word all fall from the Boise area was that the 5A teams there wanted to play all league games and not travel outside their district. Understandable, really. It’s a no-brainer why a school would opt for a 30-mile road trip over an eight-hour trip, one way, through two other states just to reach our parts.

But Coeur d’Alene athletic director Larry Schwenke, who serves on the state’s football scheduling committee, said word from Boise is the IEL can divvy up games against defending 5A state champ Meridian, Borah, Centennial and Capital.

Although the Greater Spokane League won’t make it official until later this month or early February, it’s hopeful that the 11-team league will opt for a nine-game conference schedule, meaning all schools will have one bye week.

4A schools Lakeland and Moscow have their schedules all but wrapped up. Lakeland is cutting back its games against 5A conference teams after making few strides in rebuilding its program the past two years. Lakeland will play natural Rathdrum Prairie rival Post Falls, which moves up to 5A next year, and one other 5A school – either Lake City, Coeur d’Alene or Lewiston. Which school that is depends on which school has a hole to fill on its schedule.

“We’re not looking to find patsies. We just want to be more competitive so we can grow our program,” Lakeland athletic director Will Havercroft said.

Moscow, which is also rebuilding, prefers not to play 5A schools in football and has a scaled down schedule in the works for a second straight year.

The 5A officials understand Lakeland’s and Moscow’s situations.

The IEL’s 5A schools are pooling their possible non-league opponents together – along with the possible dates from the GSL – to fill their schedules. Madison of Rexburg has agreed on a home-and-home with LC or one of the other 5A schools; Flathead of Kalispell, Mont., is probably available for one year; and Lewiston has agreements with Oregon schools Pendleton and Hermiston. There’s a possibility of games with 3A schools from what will be a combined 4A/3A Big Nine Conference next year.

Lakeland, Moscow and 4A Sandpoint all have opportunities to play teams from the 3A Intermountain League and Washington’s 2A Great Northern League, including possible dates with West Valley and Cheney.

•The next scheduling hurdle facing the IEL officials is boys and girls basketball. The GSL recently decided to play a 20-game conference schedule next year. The Lake City boys and girls, for example, had four games apiece with GSL teams this year, the most of any IEL school. Some IEL schools played up to three GSL teams.

“Basketball is now looking like a more difficult animal to corral,” said LC athletic director Jim Winger. “We spent a lot of time getting the GSL schools back on our schedules. This could really put us in limbo land, and we (athletic directors) don’t like limbo.”

•The scheduling dilemma has seemingly made the IEL officials a tighter-knit bunch.

“The efforts of the administrators to coordinate things for the good of everyone has amazed me,” second-year Sandpoint athletic director Cheryl Klein said. “Obviously I’m new to this, but it’s not each school for itself or what advantage is there for me. The mentality at the administrative level is to make this good for everyone.”

As well it should be. After all, if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a dozen times – athletics are for the kids, not the parents, the coaches or the administrators. Or the media.