THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Saturday, Aug. 20, 2016
This weekend, as thousands hit the streets of downtown Coeur d’Alene and its surrounding beaches to watch Ironman Coeur d’Alene, those in attendance will have the North Idaho College women’s soccer team to thank for the beaches looking as good as possible on Sunday morning.
MEMBERS OF the NIC team will be picking up around the beach starting this morning at 8 a.m.
All volunteer, all just to give back to the community that gives to them.
“I thought it was cool that they wanted to instigate something like this,” NIC assistant women’s soccer coach Becky Thompson said. “I took down some things that we wanted to do as a group to give back to the community and they wanted to do more community service activities. They chose to clean up the areas around campus, and with Ironman being this weekend, I kind of took it and ran with it.”
The team will split up in groups and be picking up garbage and cleaning up from the Dike Road around the NIC campus to Independence Point.
“I’m proud of them honestly,” said Thompson, a former player and later coach at Post Falls High. “I’m totally proud of them. Strong, good young women, that’s what I wanted to coach. I’d think I was dealing with kids, but this is a pretty adult thing to do.”
“One of the things we wanted to start on more is getting these girls out in the community,” NIC head women’s soccer coach Dan Hogan said. “We wanted to do something that wasn’t necessarily a fundraiser and provide a service back to the community. If it’s as simple as cleaning up the beach before Ironman, then that’s what we’ll do.”
AS WE wind into the fall sports season, I’ve got to admit, I was a little happy to see that Mullan High was going to field a football team in 2016 after having to sit on the sidelines in 2015 after failing to come up with enough players to field a team.
Well, unfortunately that won’t happen, at least at the eight-man level.
Mullan had to drop out of the White Star League in football due to low numbers, but has managed to keep its season alive by scheduling at least five six-man games.
According to athletic director and football coach Stetson Spooner, the school had nine players to start the season, but had two leave the program this week, leaving them with seven. Mullan has 12 boys in grades 9-12.
Those six-game games will be against Timberline High of Weippe, Lewis County, St. Regis (Mont.), Kootenai (Sept. 16 at John Drager Field in Mullan) and Clark Fork. The matchup with St. Regis was already scheduled as a six-man game.
Traditonally, six-man football is played on a field that is 80 yards long and 40 yards wide. Teams need to go at least 15 yards to get a first down and all six players eligible to be receivers.
On offense, three linemen are required on the line of scrimmage to start the play. The player who the ball is snapped to cannot run past the line of scrimmage, but if the ball is tossed to another player, that player can run or throw the ball and the player to whom the ball was snapped is still an eligible receiver.
Spooner said they’d likely have to re-line the field for games.
Granted, it’s not a perfect situation, but if nothing else it might be worth watching.
If not, there’s a better chance it goes away sooner than later.
Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d’Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JEPressSports.