Steve Seymour: He's fit in nicely with the Lakeland way

Steve Seymour is a Coeur d'Alene High graduate, but it didn't take long for the longtime Lakeland High girls basketball coach to understand the attitude involved in coaching in Rathdrum.

"It doesn't take very long, being around the Terry Kiefers (longtime football coach) and Lee Liberas, before you start realizing there's a lot of tradition that they don't really talk about," said Seymour, 49. "There's not a history of coaches promoting themselves. It's always been about what's best for kids - expecting them to do the right thing, and when they come up short, being there to try to help them fix that.

Yes, it's nice to win a lot of games, but I guess from those guys that's what you learn. You don't always get the wealth of talent, but that doesn't mean you coach any less."

You might be surprised to learn that this is Seymour's 20th season as Lakeland girls basketball coach. His career record is 249-210, including back-to-back state 3A titles in 2001-02. The Hawks are 5-15 heading into tonight's 4A Region 1 tournament semifinal vs. Moscow, scheduled for 8 p.m. at North Idaho College.

His trusty sidekick for those 20 seasons has been Deana Lange, the Hawks' girls assistant/junior varsity coach the past 21 seasons.

"I'm lucky to coach with someone like him," Lange said. "I obviously think he's probably one of the best coaches around. I could never be a head coach, so watching what he's done year after year has been impressive to me.

"He's one of those people, when you initially meet him, his personality doesn't jump out as "that guy". But he's just got a way with the kids; he's really good ... I don't think a lot of guys could coach girls for as many years as he has, and be as successful as he has.

"I joke with him - that's he's kinda turned into a girl over the years because he has to. He knows how to get kids to do things. He's not a screamer, yeller, until he has to be - and he's effective."

After catching some 60 passes as a senior receiver at Coeur d'Alene in 1983, Seymour played one season of football at Snow Junior College in Ephraim, Utah, before deciding "it wasn't for me."

He transferred to North Idaho College, where he ran track for Mike Bundy, and was primarily a high jumper. After two years, he transferred to Linfield College in McMinnville, Ore., because "Bundy knew the coach there and they needed a mediocre high jumper," Seymour said.

Seymour said Linfield was a "unique experience."

"I liked the culture at Linfield, maybe the first time in my life I really took academics seriously, moreso than athletics."

After graduating from Linfield in 1989 with a degree in English, Seymour got married and they moved south to Klamath Falls, Ore. He taught there for five years, and was also, at various times, an assistant coach in football, track and girls basketball.

In 1994, Seymour was hired as a teacher at Lakeland.

"We started having kids, and it was a long way to come home every vacation, a 10-hour drive (550 miles)," he said. "And so we decided, time to make a decision."

Seymour was the boys JV basketball coach for one season under Mike Bayley. When the Lakeland varsity girls coach, Shelly (Layton) McLean, resigned a year later, Seymour was named varsity girls coach.

What were those first few seasons like at Lakeland?

Interesting. You have people saying, 'Just wait until you have a little more experience,' and you'll understand. Stubbornly, I wanted everything all at once. I wanted to have all that knowledge and to have the good players to establish the program right away. Like everyone seemed to say, it took some time. It didn't make it any easier, but it was a lot of fun, working hard and trying to come up with original stuff.

When did you know in your life that you wanted to be a coach someday?

I don't know. When I was at Linfield, the McMinnville High School track coach recruited college athletes, said we have paying positions for position coaches on the track team. We need a jumps coach. So I coached two years, I was a varsity assistant at McMinnville High coaching long jump, high jump, triple jump and pole vault, of all things.

How did you meet Marci (Long)?

She's a Sandpoint grad (1985). It was kind of weird because, as a Coeur d'Alene grad, you detested Sandpoint. But then you started spending a little time up there, my dad lived up there for a while, and all of a sudden, Sandpoint's a really cool town. I met her through a mutual acquaintance up there.

How is relating to kids different these days than when you started?

I get that all the time as an educator and as a coach. These kids, how do you do it. My response is usually, kids are really good kids for the most part. Some of them are more talented at putting the ball in the hoop than others. Some of them work harder than others. But there's a lot of good kids that sit down in your classroom, or come out on the basketball floor. When I get to the point where I start all of my sentences with, "I can't believe these kids these days," ...

Favorite band?

OK ...

Mine's the Eagles - always has been.

Did I ever tell you I took Glenn Frey fishing? Working as a guide in the summer, I didn't actually, Joe the outfitter I worked for. He was staying at Gozzer, and Joe's a huge Eagles fan too. So I ended up meeting him and taking his dad and his son fishing.

Band? It was all of that '80s rock - Boston, The Who ...

My children have exposed me to a lot of different independent, alternative kinds of rock. I still listen to the classic rock station, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of new play going into that genre.

Can you understand why they listen to what they listen to?

Yeah. At first as a parent you're like, "You're not listening to that. That has profanity in there. But usually the children would say, "but you used to listen to music with profanity in it. Oh, OK. And the more you listen to it, you find yourself tapping your toes ... I like Eminem, or whatever it is.

Coaching in the IML and IEL, you've been on your share of bus trips throughout North Idaho. I imagine by now you know every landmark on U.S. 95 between Sandpoint and Moscow (the other two teams in the 4A Inland Empire League).

Yeah. You know, it's kind of a cool geography ... you have mountains and palouse. Yeah, you're on a yellow school bus, but it's pretty neat if there's still daylight.

You find yourself looking for animals. You drive down 41, and we're one of the unique schools that if you look somewhat closely, you get to see your mascot every day. You see hawks in the field every day.

What was it like coaching your daughter (Madison) on the varsity (for two years, from 2012-14, and was a starter her senior year)?

Interesting. She would say that she really enjoyed it. I could be a little more critical; sometimes she didn't get to make as many mistakes as other kids. It was something I really enjoyed. You talk to other father/coaches, and certainly there's some trying times, and she ended up as a starter (as a senior). But she grew up in the environment where if she played defense and rebounded and made hustle plays and was smart, and she did all those things well, so she had opportunities to play.

I think it was one of the highlights of my career, actually. Not because she started, not because she was a great this or a great that, but just because she was a great kid and I got to see her ... Growing up, everybody else got to coach my kid, and I was a head coach that would never step in or say anything. I just went and watched. Other parent/coaches got to coach them in AAU and little kids' stuff, so yeah, it was a neat experience.

Do you tweet, or are you on Facebook?

I am not. My wife is a Facebook person. I don't have a Twitter account. I'm not much of a social media person.

Do you still have a home phone?

We just had this conversation a couple of days ago - why do we still have a phone? But, growing up in an era, to pull the long cord around the corner and away from your two brothers and sister, in order to have a semi-private conversation. Sometimes the home phone is a difficult thing to give up, just because you grew up with it.

When you're teaching, and you have a really big game that night, is it hard to concentrate at school?

I guess I've always been of the thought, I've been superstitious and believe in karma and all of that stuff. If all I did was show a movie or give a study hall ... so I try to stay busy for part of it. It doesn't give me a lot of time to think. But if there's spare time, if they're working on an assignment, I'm probably back at the monitor, with the film on, looking at out-of-bounds plays or something else.

I may be walking the hall, head down, looking for heads-up pennies. If it's tails, I just walk right by it. I might walk a mile on game day (in the school hallways) trying to find one of those suckers.

Anybody you consider your advisor, role model, someone to bounce ideas off of as a coach?

Libera. I've coached track with him for a number of years. He is so ... blunt, unassuming. He keeps you grounded, keeps you humble when you're really good. He'll always have something smart to say. Same thing, if you're really bad, he'll try to find something positive. And if you start to think that too much of the success is because of decisions you made as a coach, he'll remind you that, well, you're working with talent. Good talent always tends to make good coaches.

Lakeland has always encouraged its students to be multi-sport athletes. Are you finding there are less and less three-sport athletes at Lakeland these days?

We're getting fewer three-sport athletes and maybe more two-sport athletes. And there's still people out there that say, in order for you to be a college scholarship winner ... there are people taking advantage of high school kids and their parents by selling them something that. Every now and then you get kids that, because they paid the money (to play club ball) ... and it just isn't the case.

Can you sum up what Deana has meant to you as a coach?

She's organized, and she's great with the kids. She doses out a lot of tough love. She's not going to coddle anybody. Kids these age, they want the quick pat on the back, but if they fall down, it hurts a little bit. She knows the difference between when it's necessary to get down on the floor with someone who has a serious injury, and when it's time to say, time to get over that.

She's great in that the kids that play for her are loyal, completely to her, and care a good deal about her, because she teaches them how to grow up. And she teaches them that you don't need to make excuses because things didn't go right, and we're not going to listen to those excuses. And sometimes kids figure that out in high school, and she helps them. She's not going to take it easy on them. But she's going to be their biggest fan if, and when, those kids figure it out. She's first and foremost loyal to the program, and so she's very protective of it.

How long do you want to keep doing this?

I don't know, I've already had some people saying, "We know you're retiring next year' and I'm like 'Oh, OK. I didn't know that I was retiring.' I've got 10 more years as a teacher (before he can retire under the Rule of 90). I'll keep coaching as long as I'm having fun, and I feel like we're improving. If I feel like we're better served by somebody else doing it, with more enthusiasm ... I don't want to be that coach that certainly coaches to get more wins. I'm not worried about the wins - it seems pretty obvious over the last three years (laughs).

The Seymour file

Age: 49

Education: Coeur d'Alene High, 1984; North Idaho College, 1987; Linfield College, 1989

Family: Wife, Marci; son, Connor (21); daughter, Madison (18)

Teaching career: English teacher, Klamath Falls, Ore., 1989-'94; English teacher, Lakeland High School, 1994 to present.

Motto you live by as a coach: "No player ever tries to make a mistake."