Rooftops to high tops
Steve Bourgard is the personification of persistence. Three times Bourgard applied for the head boys basketball job at Kellogg High School, his alma mater. Three times he didn’t get the job.
“I was getting tired of being turned down,” Bourgard said.
Rejection was difficult to swallow. In his heart, though, Bourgard, an 11-year boys varsity assistant, knew he could be a successful head coach.
He was never told in so many words by school officials, but Bourgard figured he wasn’t hired as head coach because he isn’t a teacher. He’s a roofer by trade.
So Bourgard was pleasantly surprised a year ago last summer when newly hired athletic director Troy Schueller called and asked him to interview for the girls head coaching job. The previous coach, Lisa Cheney, resigned to spend time with a young and expanding family.
“I’ve watched him coach (at the lower levels),” said Schueller, Kellogg’s former head wrestling coach, “and I’ve always been impressed with how he coaches his bench instead of his players on the floor.”
Two days after Bourgard accepted the position, Jeremy Bergquist resigned as head boys coach. The job Bourgard coveted was vacant again.
“I definitely would have hired him for the boys’ job,” Schueller said. “If he was good enough for the girls, he was good enough for the boys.”
Bourgard didn’t flinch. He had already met with the returning girls players and given them a four-year commitment.
Looking back this week, Bourgard admits it’s as if he were fated to be the girls head coach.
Schueller put some pressure on Bourgard immediately.
“I expected him to get them to state his first year,” Schueller said. “I didn’t expect them to do anything at state, but I expected him to get them there.”
It was a sizeable expectation considering Kellogg hadn’t sent a team to state since 1990-91, and the Wildcats were picked to finish fourth in the five-team Intermountain League.
Bourgard, 47, got his team to exceed the expectation. Although they finished the regular season just one victory better than .500 at 11-9, they tied for second with Priest River behind undefeated conference champ Bonners Ferry.
Priest River topped Kellogg in overtime in a district opener and earned the league’s lone automatic state berth by upending Bonners Ferry for the district title.
Kellogg won three straight back-to-back, lose-and-you’re-done games – including a 48-43 win over Bonners Ferry and a play-in victory – to qualify for state. With the goal achieved, the Wildcats could have shown up at state, played two games and headed home.
Yet two more wins gave the Cinderella Wildcats a date in the Idaho Center. Kellogg’s run ended in a respectable 49-44 loss to Shelley in the 3A state final. The Wildcats, who finished 16-11, collected their first state trophy in school history.
It appears that the late-season run from a year ago whet the Wildcats’ appetite for a state championship this season. Kellogg opened 16-0, matching its win total from a year ago, before a 30-23 road loss at Bonners Ferry last Saturday.
The Wildcats moved atop the 3A state rankings for the first time in school history last week.
“I’d be lying if I thought we’d be undefeated two-thirds of the way through the season,” Bourgard said. “We toughened our schedule up this year and I figured we’d be 4-3 in the first seven games.”
Bourgard preaches two things to his players: They must play defense and they must play smart.
Kellogg allowed 34.5 points per game last year. Teams are scoring 33.7 against the Wildcats this season.
The Wildcats are averaging eight more points a game this year.
“We’re better offensively and we’re as good defensively as last year,” Bourgard said. “And the girls have a better understanding of the game.”
Bourgard isn’t surprised by his team’s quick success.
“I stepped into a good situation. Lisa (Cheney) did a good job building the program,” Bourgard said. “I saw that we had the potential to be very good in a short period.”
All of the four boys head coaches that Bourgard assisted knew that he had head coaching ability. Bourgard assisted Tony Kerfoot for six years and Jeremy Bergquist for three.
“He’s got an amazing desire to teach the game,” said Kerfoot, the head boys coach at Mountain Home. “It’s natural for him. He was a tremendous asset to me.”
“He knows the game inside and out,” said Bergquist, who left Kellogg to become an athletic director at Meridian. “He knows his X’s and O’s and knows how to communicate. He’s got a lot of passion for the game and kids.”
Bourgard decided to go back to school last winter to get a degree in English and become a school teacher. He figures his body isn’t long for the roofing business. He had to put his education on hold this year, though, because his father was recently diagnosed with cancer.
“I plan on finishing school, but it could be five years,” Bourgard said. “I still have to do something to pay the bills.”
Although he envisions himself coaching boys some day, he doesn’t have the burning desire that he did as recent as a year ago last summer.
“I live and bleed Kellogg purple,” Bourgard said. “I’ve had a passion for basketball since I was eight years old. I remember watching the UCLA Bruins on TV on Saturday afternoons after playing in YBL (Youth Basketball League) games. I think I’ve had it in me to be a head coach for a long time.”