Mike Vlahovich: Helfer blazed path for area women’s sports

Jeanne Helfer often wonders how she would have fared as an athlete in today’s advanced female high school world.

“I never met much competition,” said Helfer. “I wonder how I would have done in this generation.”

The answer to her reverie? Very well, indeed.

Thirty years ago in Walla Walla, Jeanne Eggart was a multisport sensation and athlete nonpareil. She played four sports in high school, plus softball in the summer. She excelled in basketball, was a member of the first Parade All-American team and scored just less than 3,500 points in seven years in high school and at Washington State. She was a state javelin champion and finished one spot away from making the USA Olympic team. Her older brother, Don, insists to this day that her best sport was football.

“She had great hands as a receiver,” Don said. “I used to say no boy in high school could catch a football as well as she did.”

Maybe one, she said: Mike Helfer, who would become her husband.

On Tuesday, Helfer, who coached the Mead girls basketball team to three state titles, will be inducted into the Inland Northwest Sports Hall of Fame.

Although she thrived in the public arena, she’s at once genuinely embarrassed by and in awe of the recognition.

“It’s a tremendous honor to be mentioned in the same breath (with Hall of Fame members),” she said. “It’s humbling and very much appreciated.”

Helfer caught Spokane’s imagination while in Walla Walla lending cachet to women’s athletics in their infancy from 1974-77. The first female scholarship athlete at WSU, she scored more points than anyone in school history.

While she never got a chance to test herself against an Emily Westerberg or Angie Bjorklund there’s no denying her impact on sport, not the least of it the titles Mead won under her watch.

“I believe without a shadow of a doubt that this is what I was supposed to be doing,” Helfer said.

She said she was a sickly child growing up who by rights should not have been an athlete. But in elementary school she knew she was destined to play, teach and coach. The quintessential tomboy remembers not wanting to wear gloves in her sister’s wedding because they were “too girly.” When her sis told her they were like batting gloves, “I fell for it and wore them.”

“I was driven from the earliest age,” Helfer said. “I hated to lose. And I wanted to please.”

Being chosen first on neighborhood teams by Don, five years her senior, was a goal. Don said he would tell her “all right,” but – “this sounds bad, but you have to understand the time period – I remember telling her she was not throwing like a girl.”

Much of what she learned came in the family backyard, playing football and Wiffle ball for hours, and on the playground. Don indicated that he could be demanding on his younger sister with a natural gift that she do things right.

Helfer said she benefited from living in the Columbia Basin where girls sports were more advanced than in much of the rest of the state. Her high school games drew more fans than the boys, and Walla Walla twice was a state finalist and also finished third (its only loss that year) during her career. It was not uncommon for her to score half or more of the points while playing half a game, her brother said.

“Jeanne was never flashy, but she was a scorer,” said Don. “She could shoot, was efficient and physical and savvy.”

She gave up tennis for track to win the javelin title as a junior. She didn’t defend as a senior because of an all-star basketball conflict for the Parade All-American team.

“She was just an athlete,” Don said. “She just did it all.”

Her induction into the Inland Northwest Hall of Fame is a fitting tribute.