Steve Anthony: He served Coeur d'Alene well for four decades

Paula Austin is Recreation Superintendent and has worked for the city of Coeur d’Alene Parks and Cemetery or Recreation division for 33 years, and for Steve Anthony and the recreation department for 26 of those years.

“I can honestly say that he never shows up for work in a bad mood,” Austin said of Anthony, the longtime Coeur d’Alene Recreation Director who is retiring Friday after more than 41 years working for the city of Coeur d’Alene. “Always cheerful and welcoming to anyone that comes in to our office or visits the City Hall in general. He has been a great mentor to all that have worked for him. He treats everyone with respect and dignity, never saying a bad thing about anyone.”

To celebrate his retirement, Austin and some of Anthony’s other coworkers are putting on a reception for him Friday at 5:30 p.m. at the Eagles Lodge in downtown Coeur d’Alene.

“It is funny,” Austin said. “He can forget something I told him a week ago but remembers all the history and has so much knowledge of with the city — and not just to do with the Parks and Recreation department. That has been a priceless invaluable asset for the city.

“When he leaves for lunch he will ask me if I want anything to eat and even though I tell him ‘No, thank you’ — constantly — he still brings back something for me to eat or at least snack on.

“He has been an exceptional, out-of-the-ordinary leader, because he has done it with kindness and compassion and still managed to get so much accomplished. As he leaves the city there is no one that can replace him in loyalty and spirit.”

Naturally, there have been a few light moments over the years.

“Some of the funnier moments we shared ... like the morning I had to inform him that he had two different shoes on when he came in or when he had surgery and I had to tie his shoestrings every morning until he bought slip-ons,” Austin recalled.

“Or the time that he ran out the door in a hurry at our old building and ran head first into the flag pole directly outside the door. We couldn’t stop laughing — at least until we saw the golf ball-sized knot on his forehead.

“All these things just made him more endearing to everyone he worked with. There can be no replacement for him,” Austin said.

Anthony, 63, recently sat down with The Press to discuss his career — and life in Coeur d’Alene.

How did you get into the recreation business?: At that time (at North Idaho College), basically they had two advisers, so if you went to Dexter, he put you into engineering, if you went to Rolly Williams, he put you into education. So I drew Rolly as my adviser, by random luck, so he put me in an education curriculum, and I got an AA degree, and when I went to the University of Idaho, I wanted to see where my credits would transfer for, and parks of recreation was in the college of education, so I was able to transfer all my credits. And I’d worked part-time for the recreation department, and I enjoyed it, and I got to meet Red (Halpern, former Coeur d’Alene Recreation Director), and this was sports-related, and I’d always liked sports, so I thought hey, this is something I could be good at.

In addition to all the years working for the Coeur d’Alene Recreation Department, you’ve also been the state ASA commissioner the past 15 years. How did that come about?: Coeur d’Alene was such a softball community, and Red was the state softball commissioner, so basically, if you worked for the city of Coeur d’Alene rec department, you got involved in ASA softball somehow. I ended up being the tournament director for three or four of our national tournaments, and got to meet some people on the national level. When Red retired, I applied, and it fit with what I was doing with the city, and I got permission from Mayor Bloem then and city administrator Wendy Gabriel to seek the commissionership.

If you hadn’t chose this career, what else would you have done?: You know what, I don’t know. I feel I’ve been blessed … I think everything in life is timing, being in the right place at the right time. And I’d known Red since I was a kid. You grew up with Red, so working there part-time, I was able to develop a relationship with him. Red was a good mentor.

How did what Red did with the recreation department impact what you’ve done since taking over as recreation director (in 1985)?: I think what he did is, you do everything first-class, and he’d always say, especially in the youth baseball program, that little 8-year-old going into that game, he might be playing for Sports Cellar, but that is as important to him as if he was playing for the Yankees. So make the experience positive. He always made a point of doing some games at Memorial. Things have changed so much now; you didn’t have the complexes then. I still have people coming up to me and saying ‘I remember playing at Memorial when I was 9 or 10 years old.’ That was their memory.

There used to be two softball diamonds and a baseball field at McEuen before it was renovated into a park in 2012. When you look out your window at the new McEuen Park these days and don’t see those softball diamonds … ?: I’ll have to admit, it was hard to lose them — a little bit of history. But, I think it’s for the greater good. When you look at it now, my god, how could anybody say anything against McEuen? When you see the kids out there playing … there’s no other better place to play baseball or softball than McEuen for location, but when you see what McEuen is now … even the diehards wouldn’t argue that it’s a beautiful place. … And in a while, it’s just going to be a memory.

What ASA event that you attracted to Coeur d’Alene put this area on the softball map?: Probably would be the very first girls national tournament, would have been 1976, I think, a 15 and under. That’s when you first had teams from Florida, Georgia, Illinois, kids from other parts of the United States. Then, during the Idaho centennial, we had a coed major with 77 teams. And again, you had teams from back east. And so basically we ended up doing a girls nationals about every three years, when it was slowpitch. And then we ended up doing two girls fastpitch (tourneys). We used to have a big national qualifier, and bring in 30-40 teams from California, but it’s the same weekend as Ironman, and there wasn’t enough motel room space. We tried it one year, and between Hoopfest and Ironman, there just wasn’t the lodging. So basically the biggest ones you get now are girls states and regionals.

Is there one tournament that you tried to get and didn’t, that you wish you had?: Not really. Actually, we got everything that we bid on. The other thing too is, you had lots of volunteers, a core of about 30, and as everybody gets old, moves on … The committee had its run of 10-11 years, and eventually lost interest. So now you can do the states and regionals, smaller tournaments that don’t take the big numbers of people.

What is the state of softball in Idaho?: Tournaments aren’t as big as they used to be. The numbers probably peaked in 2013-14, but still, the only other city that has more participants than Coeur d’Alene is Boise. For our city our size, we have more participants than most. More people are playing, it’s just the competitive teams … you have 2 or 3 competitive (adult) teams instead of 10. More people are playing coed. Us and Boise are the only two cities that have more than 10 women’s leagues.

What do you see as the future of softball in the Coeur d’Alene area?: The fields at McEuen, we need one of them replaced. There’s room to put one field at Cherry Hill Park ... continued improvements at Ramsey. But softball was just a miniscule part of what I did. When I look back at it, 90 percent of it was for the city of Coeur d’Alene.

What would you consider your four greatest accomplishments working for the city of Coeur d’Alene?: Number one, and it’s not one person, is being able to work with the (Coeur d’Alene) school district to get the joint use agreements, so we had wood floors in the gyms instead of carpets to save money. We did Fernan, Skyway, Venture and the second gym at Woodland. That not only met the needs of the recreation individuals in Coeur d’Alene, but then the school district got better facilities, and now every gym built is a pretty nice gym. Coeur d’Alene’s kind of spoiled as far as gymnasiums. I was able to work with the school district, the city council, the city administrator and school board to buy into joint sharing gyms. The city contributed money to each gym ... over the four years the city gave the school district close to a million dollars (and in turn, the recreation department was able to use the gyms for its activities).

Number two is developing the specialized needs program, one for kids with needs that weren’t getting the recreation they deserved. I was able to work with a parent group … worked with Post Falls and Rathdrum, and now we have one program. … giving kids a chance to recreate that never had the opportunity. People say kids have Down Syndrome, I call it Up Syndrome, because they’re never down, they’re always happy. So I feel whenever I go to a specialized needs activity, I always get a hug … it just warms your heart.

Number three is probably the restoration of the Jewett House. We’ve been able to take a house and restore it almost completely to the way it was in 1917. The city’s probably put a quarter of a million dollars, through donations … not tax dollars, just donations. One thing people don’t realize about the Jewett House donation — it preserved that part of Sanders Beach, the 125 feet for public access. Because if the Jewett House had ever privately sold, the beach would have went away.

Number four, we’ve never, ever turned away a kid from a program, with our scholarship programs. Everybody has an opportunity to take part in our program. And I’m leaving great people. We have great people in place. I’ve been fortunate to work with very supportive mayors, very supportive city administrators and councils. You can’t do it all yourself; you have to have the political support, and you have to have the staff support. And you’re just kind of the face out there.

And the other thing is to develop what we’ve had with the service clubs.

And probably my last one would be … my years as liason to the arts commission. We’ve developed a lot of art pieces. We probably added over 30 art pieces (around the city).

Whose idea was it to paint the power boxes?: Those are vinyl wraps. They’re a painting, and we digitize the photograph and then go to Cart Wrappers, and they make vinyl and they wrap it. So that actually came out of the arts commission, and we were going to have kids from Sorensen paint the one on 11th Street but it wasn’t safe. So I went to Boise and went to a conference and they vinyl wrapped them, so I came back and presented that to the arts commission … and what we like about it is they’re all local artists. It was an idea that we stole from Boise, but we did it better — because they weren’t wrapping the tops of their boxes. And you don’t have to repaint them. And the shelf life on them is 12 years. So that’s been a big hit.

The city used to run the Junior Tackle program; now you work with a private group which runs it at Person Field. Since acquiring the field from the Coeur d’Alene School District, you’ve put a substantial investment into Person — painting the whole storage house, putting in a sprinkler system. What else would you like to do with Person Field?: We put trees in there, it didn’t have a whole lot of trees, it has the playground. I think with Person, what we’ve found, is the neighborhood kinda likes it the way it is. It needs some additional parking; restrooms need to be upgraded a little bit.

When you’re driving around town, what do you listen to?: So I used to listen to The Herd (Colin Cowherd), but since he got axed (by ESPN), I listen more to Sirius 70s and 80s. … And sometimes, I won’t listen to anything coming in, I’ll just be looking around going, you know, I’m pretty lucky to live here.

The rec department used to be inside McEuen Field, just behind the backstop of the baseball field, until it was moved into the city hall building nearby roughly a dozen years ago. What was it like working there? We liked that building. The nice thing about it was, you were in the hub of activities. So people would stop in, you could go out and look at some of the activities (there used to be tennis courts, among other things). Once you get into City Hall, it’s more professional, but you lost some of what you might call the innocence of a small recreation department. But if you look now, we would have outgrown it anyway. And everybody used to step in thinking we were the chamber of commerce, or the tourism center.

Are you a social media person?: Not really. I’ve got a Facebook page, but all my friends probably think I’m rude because I don’t do a whole lot with it.

Probably now I’ll have time to do it. I’ve just never taken the time to go in and scroll through everything.

What plans do you have once your retirement is official on Friday?: Robin and I are heading to Hawaii for two weeks. We’re going to Maui.

What are you going to do once you get back?: You know, I don’t know if I’ve figured it out yet. I could end up back to work someplace. I still think I have a lot of energy.

Is there a reason you picked this time, right now, to retire?: Maybe the winter months, for someone coming into the department, things are a little slower, not that much, but before summer starts, it’s probably a good time for the transition.

Is there a successor?: That’s not my decision. That’s a decision between the mayor and the city administrator.

Do you still have a home phone?: No. (Gave it up) about 5 years ago. For me it wasn’t hard at all, but my wife liked having our name in the phone book.

What would be one thing people would be surprised to know about you?: Probably be surprised that, I don’t do it enough, but I actually like to fish. I enjoyed in the earlier days, going steelhead fishing with my brother. And never did enough of that. I always had a boat, but it was more of a pleasure craft. I’ve always enjoyed the serenity of fishing on a lake, whether you catch anything or not. And I enjoy the outdoors — the camping part of it.

Any other hobbies?: I bowled for a while, played softball forever — I just had rotator cuff surgery, so my career is done. Hurt it in Portland. I did it batting.

And my wife and I enjoy each other’s company. One of our hobbies is we like to eat out. Travel a little bit.

I have my dad’s old 1970 GMC pickup that he bought brand new. So I’ll work on that a little bit.

You will remain as state ASA commissioner. How will that role change?: I will be able to travel to state a little more (rather than have to deal with many issues via phone). I’m on some national committees in ASA, I’m the national seniors chair on ethics. When you’re the commissioner, you’re the face of Idaho ASA.

What’s the craziest job you’ve ever had?: Probably driving the school bus (prior to landing the job with the city of Coeur d’Alene). I feel sorry for those guys. Kids were angels in the morning and hellions in the afternoon. Because they had all that pent-up energy, and they take it out on the poor school bus driver.

I worked at NIC, and one of the jobs was clipping the ivy around the building, or cleaning the inside of the boiler.

How tough was it to lose Mike Darcy (the longtime city rec employee who died in a hiking accident in 2012)?: Mike was a good guy; it was a shock to all of us. He’s been missed. He was nice steady guy that everybody liked. Very quiet, but very efficient. He had a wry sense of humor — bigger sense of humor than everybody thought. He’s been missed.

In the spirit of Red Halpern, are there things you also try to do to make the rec experience better for the residents?: Not a lot of rec departments will have two officials on a little kids’ game. Our officials always dress nice, they wear official shirts, they don’t wear T-shirts. All our little kids’ shirts have numbers on them, it’s not just a blank T-shirt. All our fields are always lined. And Paula (Austin) and the staff have carried that philosophy on. The AAU tournaments always had good officials, and the softball tournaments, our umpires are as good as anybody. And the state tournaments, we would re-line the fields after every game. It’s nice, when you introduce the field crew people say we’ve never had such good field maintenance. The little things people notice. … and through our partnership with Kootenai (Health), we’ve probably taught more than 2,000 kids how to swim. ... we have an agreement with Kootenai (Health) to use the pool for swim lessons (in their therapy pool).

We’ve always thought the goal of a rec department is to teach a lot of lifetime skills, don’t just focus on one. Our idea isn’t to run year-round basketball, year-round soccer, volleyball. Our philosophy is, let the kids play soccer, volleyball, baseball, flag football, every sport, swimming. give them the lifetime skills that they can still carry on as an adult.

Memorial Field has been around for around 100 years. It was built for baseball — Coeur d’Alene used to have a town team. There were some little kids baseball tournaments a few years ago, but there hasn’t been adult baseball there in a long time. It’s been primarily been softball the last 20 years. What is your hope for the future of the field?: If I’ve heard loud and clear, from everybody over the years, it’s ‘preserve Memorial, save Memorial.’ My philosophy has always been, Memorial is our legacy. You come in now with (the approach on Mullan Avenue) all opened up, Memorial just stands out. So I think the ultimate goal is to restore it, put the restrooms back in, the concessions, maybe a softball hall of fame or a sports hall of fame. … Our first phase was to put a roof on it. so it has a brand new roof. We did that a summer ago. It is structurally safe. A lot of people thought it should be torn down for additional parking, but we feel with the plaza coming in, because you’ll have the carousel there, the memorial plaza for birthday parties, the field itself, there’s a chance to put it back to its old glory. And what a great place for a concert venue. It doesn’t have to be just a softball field. I think you could use that field for some neat things once you had a nice concession stand and nice restrooms.

And probably to field-turf it, because we’ve always had a drainage problem. We’ve tried everything — maybe because it has a lot of clay underneath.

Would you have to tear the bleachers down?: No, just keep the same. Structurally, that building’s fine, we did a lot of repair to the underneath structure a few years ago … maybe it needs new siding. We don’t have a lot of history left. We have St. Thomas Steeple and the Memorial Field grandstand. That’s about it.