Manzardo takes reins of Lake City baseball
<p>GABE GREEN/Press Coach for the Coeur d'Alene All-Stars Paul Manzardo watches players' performance as they practice for the Northwest Regional tournament in San Bernadino, California. Manzardo was announced as Lake City High baseball coach recently, replacing Travis Georgius.</p>
COEUR d’ALENE — As other obligations prevent Travis Georgius a chance to continue coaching the Lake City High baseball team, the school didn’t have to look far for his successor.
He just happened to be the same guy that had been an assistant at the school, as well as provided the law and order during football and basketball games at the school.
Paul Manzardo, who was the head baseball coach at North Idaho College baseball team from 1999-2002, recently accepted the job, taking over for Georgius after three seasons. Last season, Lake City finished 19-12, advancing to its first state 5A tournament since 2008.
“I’m excited about taking over the program and working with these student-athletes,” Manzardo said. “I’m excited to get going.”
Manzardo will be fairly familiar with his roster when the time comes, coaching in the Coeur d’Alene Little League since 2004, including a trip to the Northwest Regional tournament in San Bernardino, Calif., in 2012, when Coeur d’Alene advanced to the regional semifinal in 2013.
Manzardo was the head coach at NIC for four seasons, finishing 91-109. The program was cut following the 2002 season.
“I’m looking forward to coaching this group that includes my son (Kyle), and his friends he grew up with and I coached in Little League,” Manzardo said. “To have the chance to watch them grow, not only as baseball players, but as young, productive citizens is something I’m looking forward to. There’s already great kids in the program and Travis laid a great foundation and I’ve got a great staff to work with.”
Georgius went 41-37 in three years as coach. His assistants — Mike Criswell, Jim Gray and Justin Garza — will also return to the program.
“We’re going to continuing reloading and continue on what they did in previous years,” Manzardo said. “We’re just going to continue to look to build the program in a positive direction.”
Manzardo has been an official for District 1 basketball for the past 22 years, and 17 in football. He is eligible for selection to officiate the state girls basketball tournament Feb. 18-21, but will not miss any practice time with the baseball team.
Georgius, who teaches biology and astronomy at Lake City High, took EMT classes during the fall and will begin classes for his Masters in Education in the spring.
“I signed up for a few classes in the fall and one in the spring,” Georgius said. “I knew there might be a timing issue for what I’d be able to give. Coaching wasn’t something I wanted to do half-hearted, so I kicked the idea around for a month and a half, but knew I needed to step down.”
He will remain and assistant coach for the Coeur d’Alene American Legion Single-A program during the summer.
“As far as classes, it’s just this year,” Georgius said. “We thought about doing a co-coach, but I didn’t think it would be fair to the other assistant coaches or players. I thought as soon as we can get a guy, get them established and working with the program would be great. I’m hoping I can still help out when needed.
“Paul has stuff lined up,” said Georgius, who also played at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston. “Quite a few of the assistants are going to be back. It’s not going to be a complete change, and the younger kids have had a little of both of us as coaches. There’s some familiarity, so it’s not going to be that different.”
Manzardo will be the third new coach in the 5A Inland Empire League, with new coaches also at Coeur d’Alene (Nicholas Mahin) and Lewiston (Davey Steele).
“It’s going to be a fun season,” Manzardo said. “Baseball in this region has been strong going back the last couple of years and is going to continue to get strong,” Manzardo said. “Coeur d’Alene is going to be a good club, Post Falls is going to be good and Lewiston is going to be good. All of them are going to be solid. In 2011, Lewiston took a (Little League) team to San Bernardino, Post Falls in 2012 and us in 2013. In 2014, we went to San Bernardino and last summer we lost to West Valley to advance to regionals. In that time frame, we’ve been in the mix of everything. Youth baseball is what feeds into the high school. There’s a good foundation here and it’s going to be a smooth transition.”