THE FRONT ROW WITH BRUCE BOURQUIN: Friday, December 18, 2015

As the tournament director of the Tri-State wrestling tournament since 1997, Pat Whitcomb has seen the tournament featuring high schools from four states evolve to what it is today.

When he was a first-year head coach of the North Idaho College wrestling team until today, Whitcomb has managed teams from Idaho, Washington, Montana and a couple of teams from Oregon.

There will be wrestlers from more than 60 high schools — including 28 full teams — that are planning on coming to Christianson Gym today and Saturday. The first session is scheduled for 10 a.m. today and normally runs late into evening. The semifinals are set for 12:15 p.m. on Saturday and the finals are scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m.

The tournament began in 1969 and continued through today with Whitcomb and several former NIC wrestling coaches. Bill Pecha, who was also a chemistry professor at NIC, started it and he remained the tournament director until he retired from the post in 1999. Les Hogan, who was NIC wrestling coach from 1970 until 1977, and John Owen, who succeeded him, helped run the tournament as well until Whitcomb took over in 1997, and Owen helped Whitcomb for a few years after that.

The amount of wrestlers quite a few teams bring is roughly half of what it was when Whitcomb began as the director.

“The big difference was the Tri-State director,” Whitcomb said. “When I coached at Lake City before I got here, I knew I could bring all 14 of my guys. Now, some of the involved coaches bring their top seven. But there are no inexperienced kids who can then wrestle other inexperienced kids, not some stud wrestler who placed at state the previous year. When everyone brought a full team of 15, that made it tougher. As far as placing, it was tough.”

SOMETIMES IT could be tough as to which teams got in and which did not. But for the most part, the criteria has been pretty straightforward.

“Some teams will have a full team,” Whitcomb said. “Typically, we can get a first-year team in. But, for example, if we are picking between a top-ranked team such as Havre, Mont., and say a team from South Dakota that has no placers, I’m going to let the team from Havre in. We also want the local flavor, there’s got to be spots for local teams. Otherwise, it goes to state champions, state placers. If teams were in the top 28 last year, with a full team, you’ll get in. Some coaches really want to bring a full team, so if they can’t do that here, they’ll go to another tournament going on that same weekend.”

As far as having Hermiston and La Grande from Oregon, Whitcomb has seen no need to change the name of the longest continually running invitational tournament in the Northwest.

“We didn’t want to change the name to Quad-State,” Whitcomb said. “It’s mostly from Idaho, Washington and Montana. It’s why Tri-State has a reputation of being the best tournament in the west.”

DESPITE HAVING been approached by the Spokane Sports Commission to move the tournament from cozy Christianson Gym to the Spokane Convention Center, for now NIC has stayed fiercly loyal to the local community. As a fundraiser for the NIC wrestling team, the tournament is expected to raise $10,000.

“Coeur d’Alene as a city has always been great to us,” Whitcomb said. “NIC owes it the city. The bottom line is this is the best tournament, with the best tradition. We have 14 national titles because of the support of this area. We’ll do our best to help them. The hotel industry around here (in the winter) is not in their prime. A ton of dads and uncles and grandpas come here (from all four states) and quite a few of them have placed or won in this tournament.”

ANOTHER NOTICEABLE improvement has been the computers, three TV screens, and online technology helping make things faster and more efficient.

“The biggest thing was when we went to trackwrestling.com,” Whitcomb said. “Before there were flip scores and hand timers. Now there are TV screens on the stage, in the lobby near the snack bar and upstairs in the wrestling room, where they practice or warm up. Before that, a kid’s name would be announced, he’d have to listen for it and with all the noise, sometimes he’d have a hard time getting to the mat. Now he can look on his cell phone and he’ll know where to be.”

John Owen, who after leaving NIC coached high school wrestling in Spokane before retiring in March, said he’d have to do it the old-fashioned way in the 1990s.

“We were lucky to get the lineups the night before the tournament,” Owen said. “You’d turn in a roster and seed wrestlers. Now what you do when you seed these things is you see (for example), which Washington team won a state title last year. Or a returning state champion in a certain weight class. We did a pretty good job of seeding. One thing is where you have to seed a team or a wrestler from one state versus another. We’d also try to have a team from one state wrestle another, so you don’t have a Washington team wrestling another Washington team that often.”

Owen said Fridays can be very tough at Tri-State, because some wrestlers could potentially wrestle for 12 hours, with a few breaks in between.

“The depth is really strong,” Owen said. “There are six mats in a small gym. Sometimes the coaches are even closer than the officials are. There’s really no out-of-bounds. It’s the granddaddy of the Pacific Northwest, it’s very prestigious.”

A boatload of teams have the opportunity to add to the prestige starting today.

Bruce Bourquin is a sports writer at The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2013, via e-mail at bbourquin@cdapress.com or via Twitter @bourq25