Creative restaurant recruiting lands CCS top-notch athletes
They’ve discovered a revolutionary way to recruit at Community Colleges of Spokane:
Dining out.
The Sasquatch’s latest coup is the nation’s leading junior college javelin thrower, who is sifting through scholarship offers from Washington State, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, TCU and Nevada, among others.
Quite a leap from waiting tables at the Coeur d’Alene Resort, which is what Lynnea Braun was doing when CCS cross country coach Erik Anderson and his wife stopped in last summer. Braun noticed Anderson wearing “a T-shirt from a track meet I remembered from high school,” and from that seed of conversation, the Sasquatch will likely harvest another champion when they host the NWAACC meet Thursday and Friday at Spokane Falls.
Braun was a State 3A javelin champ at West Valley-Yakima, but accepted an offer to play volleyball at North Idaho College, where she was a libero on a fourth-place NJCAA team in 2006. While at NIC, she picked up the spear exactly once.
“I had a couple of javelins in my garage and I took them out to the soccer field,” she said, “and in about three minutes the campus security officer was there saying, ‘You shouldn’t be doing this.’ “
But Anderson convinced her to contact CCS throws coach Ryan Weidman, who worked her out for about an hour and then put her on a runway with a five-step approach – and saw her pop about 10 throws beyond 140 feet.
This spring Braun has twice topped 160 feet in two meets – her best of 163-5 being 17 feet better than any other national JC thrower.
The working world has been good to CCS. A year earlier, former assistant Linda Lanker struck up a conversation with a waitress at another Coeur d’Alene eatery who, yes, was wearing a track T-shirt. Jennifer Bolton had been an 11-6 pole vaulter in 2003 at Lane Community College, and the Sasquatch turned her into last year’s NWAACC heptathlon champ.
“Our athletic director has given us free reign to recruit Coeur d’Alene restaurants,” said CCS coach Larry Beatty.
Panhandling for gold
It paid to have a North Idaho athlete on the roster for conference championship weekend – four took home titles from the Big Sky and WAC meets. The most unlikely may have been Melissa McFaddan.
A former walk-on at Idaho, McFaddan won the WAC 10,000 meters in 38 minutes, 41.91 seconds – the first time the Post Falls sophomore had won a race as a Vandal, or even led in one.
“Maybe I ran a little too conservatively because I really didn’t expect to be leading,” she said.
UI’s Lucas Pope, a Lake City grad, scored a minor upset of teammate Mike Carpenter in the pole vault, clearing 16-83/4. Eastern Washington’s Bonnie Millard (Priest River) defended her Big Sky discus title, while Idaho State’s Erin Bell (Rathdrum) won the long jump.
Also at the WAC, Idaho’s Darcy Collins (Harrison) was second in the heptathlon and Allix Lee-Painter (Moscow) placed in three distance races, including second in the steeplechase. Decathlete Eric Demers (Sandpoint) and 1,500 runner Breanna Sande (Lake City) had third-place finishes for Boise State.
Digging deep for Moore
One of the weekend’s better underdog moments belonged to EWU’s Cameron Moore. The Ferris graduate had never finished higher than sixth in the triple jump at a Big Sky meet, and stood third in the 2008 competition heading into finals. Then Sacramento State’s Derek Hammond popped a 47-61/2 in the fifth round to take the lead, bumping Moore to fourth. But Moore responded with a 47-81/2 and sweated out the last attempts by his rivals.
Bell lap
For the second straight year, Washington State University’s Sara Trane needed a big kick to win the Pac-10 steeplechase title. “In the last 200 meters I kept thinking, ‘I can’t do this again’ but then I had to.” … Former WSU discus throwers are having a good spring. Ian Waltz took over the U.S. lead with a 217-8 throw in the Maui Big Wind competition, where Drew Ulrick (194-9) won a B section a few days earlier. Sam Lightbody, a former Coug offensive lineman, has bumped his best up to 193-7.