Vandals hire veteran football assistant to coordinate running game

College football: Veteran coach Gordy Shaw has been named the Idaho run game coordinator/offensive line coach, head coach Robb Akey announced Monday.

Shaw was the defensive coordinator at Idaho in 1989 when the Vandals went 8-0 in the Big Sky Conference.

His most recent position (2009-11) was as Hawaii’s offensive line coach.

Gallaway picks Santa Clara

Basketball: Brooke Gallaway took a recruiting trip Friday to Santa Clara and before the Central Valley senior left she gave an oral commitment to the West Coast Conference school.

Unlike many of her college-bound peers, Gallaway played her senior season not having a clue where she would go to college.

“It was kind of stressful, but during the season I was more worried about my high school team and what we had going,” Gallaway said.

Boise State and Wyoming also recruited Gallaway.

The 5-foot-9 Gallaway, who will likely play wing at Santa Clara, averaged a team-leading 16.6 points per game and was named the Greater Spokane League’s Most Valuable Player. She led CV, the regular-season champ, to state where the Bears finished second.

A four-year starter, Gallaway finished second all-time in career scoring with 1,437 points – 23 behind Emily Westerberg. Gallaway started every game she played, beginning with the first game of her freshman season.

She holds the school record for most games scoring 10 or more points (80). She finished second all-time in free throw percentage (539 of 670, 80.4 percent).

Greg Lee

Cold overlooked on Iditarod Trail

Online: Septuagenarian Bob Jones of Kettle Falls has chiseled into the frozen culture of arctic Alaska as he’s snowmobiled 1,100 miles along the Iditarod Trail between Anchorage and Nome.

His diary and photos of travels with Josh Rindal of Spokane have been a highlight on Rich Landers’ Outdoors Blog for two weeks.

Here’s one of Jones’s many observations from icy remote villages as he pushed through bitter temperatures:

“Cold weather is never a conversation topic among Alaska villagers. When it drops to 30 below, they just put on another layer of clothing and go about their business.”

Of course, it might be different if Alaska villagers had to come up with something quick to say on an elevator lift to their office.