THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE, Sept. 4, 2014
They kid about people marrying someone out of their league.
Mary Gentry took some good-natured (?) flak for marrying someone IN her league.
Mary Gentry is in her first year as head volleyball coach at Kootenai High.
The former Mary Kolar played high school ball at Lakeside, graduating in 2000. When she was there, Lakeside was in the North Star League, then moved up to the Central Idaho League, and is now back in the North Star League.
So not only did she graduate from one school with North Star League ties, and is currently coaching at another school in that league, she married a Kootenai High grad, Billy Gentry, who played football and basketball for the Warriors in the mid-1990s.
Imagine how that went over in Plummer.
"My brother came back from Georgia, and he said I was a traitor," Gentry said with a laugh. "The first time I saw (Ron) Miller (longtime Lakeside coach, athletic director and just about everything else at the school), he gave me a funny look."
Adding to the intrigue, Gentry said her sister has a daughter who is a sophomore at Lakeside.
Gentry's Kootenai volleyball team doesn't play at Lakeside until Oct. 14, near the end of the regular season. But she's had to deal with taking her teams back to her alma mater to play in the past - the last three years, she coached junior high volleyball and basketball at Kootenai.
"It's the only game my dad has been quiet at," Gentry said.
Gentry's daughter is a freshman. When the Kootenai volleyball job came open, Gentry talked it over with her daughter. Her daughter gave her blessing for mom to coach volleyball at the varsity level. But not basketball.
"She said I was too intense to coach basketball," Gentry said.
* Highland game now under the lights: Coeur d'Alene's home football game with Highland of Pocatello has been rescheduled from Saturday afternoon, Sept. 27, to Friday night, Sept. 26.
Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m., or following a 4:30 p.m. junior varsity game.
Highland requested the switch. The Rams are scheduled to play at Idaho Falls in a conference game the following Thursday, and didn't want an already-short week of preparation to be any shorter.
Coeur d'Alene defeated Highland in last year's state 5A title game. Both won their season openers last week. The Vikings won 26-13 at Skyline of Idaho Falls on Friday. The next day, Highland defeated Orem (Utah) 42-36 in the finale of the Rocky Mountain Rumble at Holt Arena in Pocatello.
* From there to here: Tera Armstrong, in her first year as head volleyball coach at Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy, played high school ball at tiny Cambridge High in southern Idaho, some 30 miles north of Weiser on U.S. 95.
She was a middle blocker on teams that finished in the top three in each of her three seasons at what was then the state A-4 tournament - first in 1994, third in 1995 and second in 1996.
She graduated in 1997, then went on to play at Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario, Ore. Armstrong was assistant coach at Charter for four seasons before taking over as head coach this year.
These days, Cambridge and Midvale schools combined to form one athletic program, called Tri-Valley.
Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.