1. I made a mistake in my post yesterday and here's my correction.
Whoever scanned the online Spokane Daily Chronicle issue I consulted to review the facts of Kellogg's monumental 106-57 loss to the Coeur d'Alene Vikings my junior year put the December 2, 1970 sports page in the December 1, 1970 newspaper. This was why I thought Kellogg played CdA on Monday, November 30th.
We didn't.
We played on Tuesday night -- which makes a ton more sense -- December 1, 1970.
I am having a blast diving into these Chronicle archives and communicating with other people online about high school basketball in North Idaho when I was in high school.
Today, Stu and I marveled that the CdA Viking team that mopped up their new gym with us on December 1, 1970 did not win the Idaho state tournament. Neither of us could imagine them losing to anyone. That's how much we admired them. But, indeed, the Vikings lost to Skyline High School of Idaho Falls. Skyline won the tournament and CdA won their consolation game to finish the tournament in third place. (By the way, I verified that the next year CdA lost in the state championship game to Moscow and the next year they won the state title -- quite a run.)
Later in the day, JoJo informed me that not long after the Vikings drubbed us, they lost a game to Central Valley of Spokane. I was stunned. I marveled at how good that CV team must have been to beat the Vikings. I remembered CV was coached by the legendary Ray Thatcher and I found some box scores from later in the season and read names of players on that team, but didn't recognize any of them. I do know that CV won the Washington State Border League, defeating University High late in the season to snap a tie at the top between the two squads. I have more research ahead of me to find out how Central Valley performed in the state tournament.
I also read write ups about what a phenomenal scorer Dave Wood of Rogers High was in the Spokane City League.
By the way, I think I figured out the starting five for the 1970-71 Vikings, and I'm open to correction. But a perusal of some line scores leads me to believe they started Duffy Taylor, Nick Nead, Scott Stern, Brice Bemis, and Dick Schaffer. Bench players included Dick Fields, Mike Spenser, and Jim Lee. (My apologies if I spelled any of these last names wrong.)
2. On Wednesday, Cd'A First Presbyterian Church held a memorial service for Brice Bemis. Byrdman attended the service and afterward he had some beers at Midtown Pub with some stellar ballplayers from Kootenai County: Coeur d'Alene's Bob Ehrlich and Craig Plumlee and Mike Guindon of Post Falls. I would have really enjoyed talking with these guys, especially when Craig Plumlee and Byrdman continued the session at Daft Badger and Craig got to talking about the basketball rivalries between Coeur d'Alene, Lewiston, Moscow, and Kellogg our senior year in 1971-72. I would have loved to have heard Craig's memories and analysis of these teams and I would have added Sandpoint to the mix and would have wondered if, like me, Craig thought John Andrews was one of the best all around athletes anywhere.
Maybe another day. Maybe at Corby's. We'll see. Maybe, for me, moving the North Idaho and meeting up with Byrdman and Stu and Lars and Jake and others in the greater CdA-Post Falls area might also include running into or meeting up with some of my CdA peers whom I never knew off the court, but against whom Byrdman played a lot of rec ball as an adult. I know that one of my best days in the summer of 2017 was when Byrdman and I ran into Tim Terrell and Jack Morris at Midtown Pub and had a great talk about when we all played ball.
There was no bragging. No exaggerations. No fabrications. We just talked facts about who played, what happened, and what we remembered. I mean, we talk about the present, too -- retirement, kids, jobs we've had, when to retire, and so on. But it's really fun to talk with these guys I knew only as teen age star athletes and enjoy what good guys they are in their sixties, all these years later.
3. I was driving the Deke and me home from the Diazes and had a classic East Coast experience. I hit a pothole that damaged our right rear tire. I pulled off onto the shoulder and we called AAA and the man who put the spare on was named Jumiel. He is from the U.S. Virgin Islands. While doing his job, he immediately began talking to us about Hurricane Irma, how his parents were in the U.S. Virgin Islands and he couldn't reach them yet and how worried he was. We could do little but thank him for changing our tire and tell him we'd hold him and his family in our prayers.
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