Wall of fame a special honor for dedicated ML coaches

High on the east wall of the Medical Lake High School gym hangs a special sign.

Made of darkly-stained wooden slats, it contains the names of past coaches who put in enough time to earn their way into the 20-year coaching club.

Notable among them is Leroy Lemaster who spent the better part of 50 years making the school a tennis power. John Giannandrea had 24 seasons on the sidelines for the Cardinals in football and is their all-time winning grid guy. Softball mentor, and Medical Lake Mayor, John Higgins served multiple terms as softball coach.

The subject of coaching turnover, the harsh reality of today’s high school sports, came up in a discussion with Medical Lake athletics director and assistant principal, Chris Spring when he recently announced a pair of new hires.

Former Cardinal standout Josh Edmonson was named the new Medical Lake wrestling coach and Kari Knowlton takes over in the fall as the new volleyball coach.

Even though there has been some turnover, there is quite a bit of longevity among current Cardinal coaches.

Soccer’s Zane Higgins has been on the job close to 20 years. “I think Zane’s a season or two ahead of me,” 17-year veteran tennis coach Dawn Eliassen said.

“Sam’s like 18 (seasons) or something,” Spring said of former head wrestling coach and football assistant, Sam Petersen. Basketball head coach Arnold Brown is at 11 years.

But some leaders fall off traditional radar.

Boy’s head golf coach, Jim Mason “has been here forever, but he was middle school mostly, he’s coached 30 years I believe,” Spring said.

And Eliassen was quick to inject a dab of hyperbole, “Tammy Simmons has been coaching 3-4 sports a year for the MS (Middle School) for a thousand years.”

When the idea was formulated for the display, Spring said he thought not many schools had anything like it.

“One of my missions when I got hired (was) I’ve got to celebrate our history,” Spring said. The Medical Lake Athletic Hall of Fame followed and each fall a handful of former Cardinal greats are inducted.

“There are still some who will likely be added to that wall,” Spring said. But when some of these current longtime coaches hang up their whistles, who knows?

Things are hardly like they were when Spring began teaching 26 years ago. One of the issues is just the nature of society. People do not stay in one place like they used to.

And changes in how teaching and coaching job contracts are structured have transformed high school coaching.

Teachers and coaches were once hired on the same contract. “In the old days you couldn’t say, ‘you know what, you’re going to quit football, you’re not going to be the weights coach anymore, you signed a contract here to be the football (coach) and P.E. teacher,” Spring said.

Now the two contracts are separate, and maybe for good reason since the No. 1 job of educators is to teach.

“A lot of coaches find out there’s so much work being an effective teacher,” Spring said. “When the day is done, they are often wiped out.”

The erosion of people who both teach and coach has been substantial over the years. “I have so few coaches that have a teaching position in our school,” Spring said.

That’s what really gets the revolving door spinning.

Medical Lake’s ultra successful track and cross country coach Gene Blankenship finished his California career in parks and recreation work and uses coaching money to supplement retirement.

However, many of today’s coaches try to fit their round peg avocation into the square peg hole of their vocation.

With volleyball, the sport with the most turnover recently, it’s life conflicts that have caused the departures. In the past nine seasons there have been four different coaches.

“There’s babies, (or) ‘all of a sudden I got a new job, I have to make a living,’” Spring said. “It wasn’t that they didn’t want to coach volleyball at Medical Lake High School.”

And as for the pressure that sometime presents itself from the parent front, many moms and dads are hopeful — perhaps way too optimistic — that athletics will pave the way for their children to go to college, or even the more miniscule gamble of professional sports.

To them, Spring offered some advice: They need to spend their time in the house working on the academics because there’s millions and millions of dollars out there available in academic aid, as opposed to athletics.

“That’s where the money is,” Spring said.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.