A Scenic change for Cardinal athletics

A lot of things have changed in the Scenic West Athletic Conference since Al Williams was a player on the North Idaho College men’s basketball team in 1978.

Some 38 years later, it will change again.

From four teams in 1978, to 10 teams in the 90s, and now to five teams as the Cardinals move, for largely financial reasons, to the regional-friendly Northwest Athletic Conference in all sports for the 2016-17 season.

“When I was here, we had four teams in Region 18 — NIC, Treasure Valley, Ricks College and College of Southern Idaho,” Williams said. “And you played them twice a year and bused to each place. Often times on the long bus rides, we’d stop and play four-year schools along the way like Western Montana. You’d gear up to play them because it was a rivalry back then. They were older, bigger, stronger and they had an elevated court that you’d play on.”

When NIC’s basketball teams join the Northwest Athletic Conference this fall, NIC will be reunited with Treasure Valley in the conference’s East Division. NIC, Southern Idaho, Ricks College (now BYU-Idaho) and Treasure Valley were founding members of the Region 18 Conference. Schools from Utah (Snow, Salt Lake, Utah State-Eastern), Nevada and Colorado (Colorado Northwestern) were added in 1984.

“That game was always tough (against Treasure Valley) because that game was always their Super Bowl,” Williams said. “Those games between NIC and CSI, it was such an intense rivalry between (longtime NIC men’s basketball coach) Rolly (Williams) and the coaches they had down there back then (Boyd Grant, Eddie Sutton at that time), Rolly got you pumped up to play that game because he wanted to beat them so bad. We’d usually have tough games and looking back at the record books, they were getting the best of us early on. But as the rivalry grew, we’d look forward to that on the schedule each year. Even in 1978 when I was here, we were focused the entire ride down there.”

It wasn’t always buses and vans for the NIC athletics program on road trips.

“We used to fly, but when the economy went bad, it became too expensive to fly to Utah,” Williams said. “We also had Southern Nevada in the league, so we had a trip to Vegas in there as well, so the conference evolved into one of the strongest in the country with 10 teams to where it is now with six and down to five next year. It’s changed a lot with some schools going from the two-year to a four-year school like Dixie (State), Utah Valley (State) and Ricks going four-year (Ricks became BYU-Idaho, and dropped athletics) and Treasure Valley going to the NWAC, so we were considered to be the strongest conference in the nation, and we backed it up at the national tournament every year.”

Men’s and women’s soccer, as well as softball, made the transition to the new conference for the 2014-15 season. Volleyball also moves to the NWAC this fall.

In the NWAC, they’ll renew some of those rivalries that were present in the 70s.

“It’s going to be fun,” Williams said. “We’ve always played Walla Walla, Spokane and when they had a team, Spokane Falls,” Williams said. “And it was fun to play them. Columbia Basin has always been competitive.”

While at NIC, Williams’ team lost to Walla Walla, a team that had future Milwaukee Buck Ricky Pierce on the roster.

“They were our only loss when we started that season 21-1,” Williams said. “The fans were always up for us. They were always throwing stuff in our hair — like sunflower seeds and popcorn — and we had those big afros back then. Teams were pumped to play us back then because they knew if they beat us, it was a big deal. And those teams were ready for us. They were recruiting nationally like we were back then, and so were the teams in Oregon. Chemeketa was the junior college power back then, and getting to see them on a regular basis is going to be kind of funny.”

Until the decline of the economy, NIC often times flew to road games in Utah (Salt Lake, Snow, Utah State-Eastern), as well as Colorado Northwestern. Just not in the past three years.

“It’s always a little different,” NIC men’s basketball coach Corey Symons said. “With the history of our league, especially in the last couple of years, we started taking those bus rides.”

Unless something changes this year at nationals, only NIC women’s basketball coach Chris Carlson has won a national title.

“I’m really sad about them leaving,” said Salt Lake women’s basketball coach Betsy Specketer after a 75-54 win over NIC in Coeur d’Alene on Jan. 9. “I love this place. And believe me, I’ve been on the losing side of that 20 points before and I still love it here. I’m way disappointed. Just with how well this team is coached by Chris and (assistant coach) Carey (Carlson), just the program that’s been established up here. It’s going to hurt us without a quality program like this in our conference. I love this area, and love coming up here. It’s always, always a tough game and you know you’re going to get your monies worth.”

“Joel (Bate, CSI athletic director) gave us a great compliment before our final game at CSI,” Carlson said. “He had a nice little tribute to us, and we were thinking it could be a little bit of a distraction, but it was a heartfelt note. The coaches around the league know that we won it all a few years ago, but it still feels like we’ve got a little bit of a target on our back. There’s definitely something there and has been for a long time. It’s always been a challenge, it always has, and I don’t think that has left. We’ve definitely felt it in recent years. It was so many times to whatever power. It was a tough thing to beat down.”

The school’s last regular-season trip to Twin Falls (Jan. 16) also brought back memories of that 2011 season, when NIC beat Salt Lake in the Region 18 title game, then went on to a 32-3 finish with a national title a few weeks later in Salina, Kan.

“That’s where the champs won the region and that’s a tough place to win anyway,” Carlson said. “Let alone that weekend, I can still think back to so many different scenerios and some great games. Just playing against CSI, the best memories I have are against CSI my second year when we had to beat them on back-to-back nights. They were eighth in the nation and we had to beat them on Friday and Saturday to win a championship, and we did that. We brought the regional tournament up here. The double overtime game vs. Eastern Utah was another great one.

“We’ve had so many great games with Southern Idaho,” Carlson said. “The fans down there, they really support that program. It’s a great basketball venue, and I just love going in there and competing against (coach) Randy (Rogers) and his crew. We’ve had so many great games, I’ll be thinking about each one of them. That year we won the national title, the toughest wins we had to get were against CSI and Salt Lake in the (regional) championship game, as well as the four at nationals. Our league prepares each other for nationals for sure.”

For its final conference road trip to Colorado Northwestern in Rangely and Utah State-Eastern in Ephraim, Utah, in late Februry, the team boarded a bus at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday and traveled all night to Salt Lake City, then another few hours to Colorado, where they played Colorado Northwestern on Thursday.

“They’re brutal, but with this group and this team, it’s actually fun to do it,” Symons said of the long bus rides. “They’re a fun group and they get along really well with the women’s team. Other years, it’s been a tough trip, but we look forward to it. It’s never fun to try to sleep on the bus — and that’s definitely one thing we won’t miss — but there’s quite a few I won’t miss as much. When Southwest was $99 to fly anywhere, we could fly to all of our games. But that’s the tough thing to do and go all those years, and with budget cuts and busing, but I really don’t mind it.”

“We used to have some long trips down through Vegas,” Carlson said. “You heard about how strong the league was and powerful it was, and it’s not like it used to be. To be able to put together a group of girls that are good enough to go back and win a national title was great. That was a blessing and an amazing year.”

Symons doesn’t mind the overnight bus trips.

“I like how we do things now,” Symons said. “I like leaving in the evening and busing all night. If we left in the morning, my guys would stay up all night with the intent on sleeping on the bus. We just leave at night and sleep on the bus. It’s not good sleep, but it’s sleep.”

Then again, sometimes those bus rides are pretty eventful.

“The nice thing about chartering a bus is that they’re driven by professionals,” Symons said. “Some of those trips, we drove ourselves. One year, we went to Treasure Valley and drove ourselves in vans. When you’re going over the Blue Mountains, it’s a little scary when I’m the one responsible for all those kids in the back of the van. The charter companies usually give us good drivers. On the way to Williston (N.D.) a few years ago, we hit an elk on the way. We saw it coming and it jumped right out in front of us. You could see the whole thing coming, and that’s been a bad trip for us. The road T’d, and the driver was coming over the hill and didn’t realize the road was going to T and power slid the bus. There’s some fun things about it, and welcome to JUCO sports. A good friend of mine played professional baseball (Kevin Pickford, who is now a real estate agent at Keller-Williams in Coeur d’Alene) and we always joke about it and how it takes him back to his minor league days, and you just bus everywhere.”

There is a few trips that Carlson won’t miss on the road however.

“Driving through old dinosaur country on the last few hours of that trip (to Ephraim, Utah), and I’ve taken all my kids on that trip,” Carlson said. “That one, I’m not going to miss as much. This time, we got the longest leg out of the way the first night (Tuesday night and into Wednesday). And you don’t know how that’s going to affect your team. We came out on Saturday, and we didn’t have a lot of pop in our step. It’s a good thing that our defense was rocking all day, because we didn’t have it on offense. Sometimes, I think it’s that trip. All other teams, they’ve just got to make that long trip up here once, maybe twice a year, where we go down there about four times.”

While they’re not on the schedule for conference play, Specketer added that she’d like to continue the series in some form.

“I’d love to,” Specketer said. “Consider them good friends of mine and hope that we stay in touch. We maybe not be friendly between the lines when we play each other, but I really like them.”

When it came to the rivalry with CSI, Williams also had a lot more to gain than wins and losses.

“Going down to Twin Falls, we’ve always had the bet that whatever team lost, the athletic director would buy dinner (when the rival ADs went out after the game,” Williams said. “My favorite place to eat down there is Jakers, and it’s always nice to get there after the game. If you ever lost, it always seemed like they were there early and had appetizers on the table. We had a good run down there where we’d beaten them eight times in a row, so Joel (Bate) was buying a lot of calamari back then. They take care of us pretty well down there.”

Rogers, the CSI women’s coach, and men’s coach Jared Phay — who coached at NIC for 10 years before leaving in 2014, shared similar thoughts on the move following the team’s Feb. 6 game in Coeur d’Alene, the final regular season game between the in-state rivals.

“(NIC women’s coaches) Chris and Carey (Carlson) have always been really classy,” Rogers said. “And I’m going to try and find ways to get back up here again and play some tournament games. I tell people about the atmosphere up here and the closeness to the floor. From the fans, the band, it’s one of the unique places in junior college basketball, and I’m going to miss it.”

When the team arrived in Spokane the day before the game, that’s when things sunk in for Rogers.

“It kind of hit me that I might not be back here except to visit and vacation up here,” Rogers said. “But if Chris invites us up here for a tournament or something, we’ll do it. They’re going to be one of the best teams in the NWAC and they’re still the only team in our conference to win a national championship, so they’re taking a lot of high praise away from this conference. I know Chris doesn’t like to talk about it, but I’m going to miss it. I’m going to miss that relationship we have and the people up here and the coaches.”

Phay won three conference titles while at NIC — in 2009, ’10 and ’13.

“The three times we won the conference (at NIC) — to be able to walk around with that championship, it’s a great feeling,” Phay said. “It’s such a good conference in that regard.”

One game in particular that jumped out to Phay was a matchup against CSI when Melvin Jones hit a 75-foot shot at the buzzer for a 69-66 win at NIC’s Rolly Williams Court.

“It was a great shot, although it was against the school I’m at now,” Phay said. “It’s kind of weird, but an exciting game.”

Phay’s departure helped open the door for Symons to take over as coach after 10 years as an assistant.

“I loved it here, but felt it might be time for a change in my career,” Phay said. “I wanted to try something different, and knowing that Corey could get the job, and he deserved it. He’d been sitting on that bench next to me for a long time and it was time to let him out of his cage and see what he can do. There’s mixed emotions and they think that’s the right decision (to leave the SWAC for the NWAC), then I guess it is what it is. But you really hate to see this game end.”

During the annual Bigfoot-Cardinal Classic, NIC’s men beat Whatcom, Big Bend and Everett.

“It was all NWAC teams except us,” Williams said. “We played a championship game against Everett that was a very competitive game with both teams (NIC won 108-100) in the 100’s. It was up and down the floor, and neither team had more than a six- or eight-point lead. Big Bend, who we beat in the semifinals — and brought a bunch of fans over from Moses Lake — went down and played in a tournament in Arizona (The Fiesta Bowl Shootout in Mesa, Ariz.) and played in the championship game against some really good schools. They’ve got some quality programs in that conference. Spokane was the No. 1 team in their rankings over there for a while and got knocked off in our tournament by Everett. I thought we were going to play them, and we’ve seen some quality teams that we thought were going to test us. We’re going to get some athletes that were overlooked by the bigger schools, and next thing you know, they’re going Division I. It’s not going to be that big of a dropoff in talent, but it’s not going to have the depth throughout the roster.”

Even the inaugural Coeur d’Alene Inn-vitational featuring college teams was a bit of a challenge for the Cardinal men.

“You’re going to see some quality teams come in here,” Williams said. “The championship game (of the Inn-vitational) against Highline was a competitive game, and they knocked off the team from California (San Jose City College) to get to the championship. I don’t think it’s going to be a walk in the park for us when we do join the NWAC. There’s going to be some teams that are going to test us. We played Spokane in a tournament and only beat them by four points. Now, they’re going to gear for us, and now that we’re in the same league as them, they’re going to shoot for us even more.”

Instead of regional tournaments being held on campus sites rotated yearly in the SWAC, the NWAC will host tournaments at pre-determined sites. The men’s and women’s basketball tournament will be held on the campus of Everett Community College, which is hosting the event from 2015-’17.

“Now, our fans can go to it too,” Williams said. “Part of the main reason for wanting to go to the NWAC was so that our fans could go to the championship tournaments and be closer to home. For the next three years, it will be in Everett after being in the Tri-Cities previously. And we may come back here in a few years, but the good thing is that those tournaments are going to be at a set site, and fans can go to those games.”

In the SWAC, NIC will join Spokane, Big Bend, Columbia Basin, Yakima Valley, Walla Walla, Wenatchee Valley and Blue Mountain in the East Region.

“Every team in the East Region, with the exception of Treasure Valley, is within a four-hour drive,” Williams said. “Most of the teams in the North Region, you can drive over, have lunch, watch a doubleheader, and you’re home by night. The kids won’t miss much time in the classroom and some kids will see others they played against in high school. These teams have always recruited northern Idaho for their rosters as well. Even kids from southern Idaho, you’ll see them on the roster at Big Bend or Treasure Valley. It will be nice to see some of those old rivalries renewed. Spokane always has had kids from eastern Washington and northern Idaho that want to come over here and play against us and some of their old teammates. Some of these coaches have also been around for a while and they want to come over and play us in a game and see how they fare here.”

The NIC women’s basketball team played in the Lower Columbia Holiday tournament, as well as tournament in Bellevue, winning both this season.

“We played Spokane earlier this year in a women’s game, and it was a very competitive game,” Williams said. “Blue Mountain has a kid that’s going to Oregon next year. We played in that NWAC tournament (The Lower Columbia Holiday Classic in Longview, Wash.) every year, and Chris’ team lost in the championship game two years ago. It’s still going to be a high level of basketball. You may not see the roster we had where we had eight Division I kids, but we’ll still be able to recruit high level kids and see them throughout the league.”

When it comes to longevity in the Scenic West men’s basketball, Symons is matched by only Phay.

“The funny thing about that is the two guys that have been in the league the most are Phay and I,” Symons said. “We’re in our 12th year now, and we’ve seen a lot of coaches come through in a lot of different programs. Some move on, some get out of the business. But it’s a great league. It’s a good group of people and we’ve developed a lot of good relationships. Obviously, we’ll try to keep those things going, but it’s not going to happen as much. We’re still going to try to get some of those teams to come up and play us, but with the NWAC schedule, they don’t give you a lot of chances for out-of-conference games that aren’t pre-determined.”

And who knows, maybe NIC will be able to add some sports long overdue to return.

“We’ve talked about bringing back baseball for sure because we’ve got a strong interest locally,” Williams said. “Baseball in this region is so good, that it’s been in the back of my mind for several years actually. And we’ve got a chance to bring it back in the NWAC because it’s a bus league and you can be at your regional rivals in a day’s drive. Bringing that back would also mean women’s cross country and track and field for Title IX reasons. In those sports as well, we were competitive until 2000 when we dropped it. I’ve talked with (NIC) president Joe (Dunlap) and he’s been supportive of that and knows of the interest that it brings locally for baseball. We’ve talked about bringing baseball back as soon as 2017.”

NIC built a science building on the site of the previous baseball field, and likely could play home games at Thorco Field in Coeur d’Alene.

“I’ve walked the field out there with some local coaches and talked about how it compares to others in the league,” Williams said. “We’re not that far off as far as the facilities go there, but would have to make some changes,” Williams said. “Even (Coeur d’Alene) mayor (Steve) Widymer talked about the possibility of our own green wall out in left field because it’s a shorter left field fence, but have something with a higher wall so that it’s not so much of a launching pad. The field here (at NIC), it was always a short field because of the dike road, so I think it will be neat to have a non-traditional field to play on. It will be a nice place to start conference play and see where it evolves. The first thing is to get a team, but there’s been a lot of talk of that for years.”

As far as the postseason goes, there won’t be anymore 14- to 16-hour bus rides to a Region 18 tournament location, but a pre-determined site instead.

“The Region 18 tournament is such a high-powered tournament that if you can win the Region 18 tournament, you know you’re a national contender,” Williams said. “And that’s what was so competitive. You knew down to the sixth-place team, anyone could upset you. Last year, we had to play Eastern Utah, and they took us down to the wire. There’s no such thing as an off night in the SWAC, and that’s what made it so fun. Even Colorado Northwestern, they’re not going to win a lot of games, but they’re going to battle you to the end of the game. They get up for those games. Everyone has a Division I player that might have a career night. Eastern Utah, Snow, they’ve taken some teams to the wire. This league is so tough, it prepares you to play every night. And that’s what I’ll miss, but the regional championships, the fans that would come from Salt Lake and CSI, and they’d come to the gyms for the rivalries between the schools.”

In volleyball this past fall, NIC finished 10th in the nation with CSI winning a national title, the program’s 10th.

“You’ve got to beat the No. 1 and No. 5 team in the nation just to get to nationals,” Williams said. “And that’s what made it so great is we were so prepared for nationals because we had to get through them. You’ve already been tested, and I’ll miss that because we’ll miss out on that ultimate prize of playing for a national championship.”

Or will they?

“That’s the thing about the NWAC, they may have thoughts about some national competition,” Williams said. “Everything can change, and you never say never, you just prepare your team for whatever happens. At some point, your budgets change, your team changes. We’ll have all our programs intact, and didn’t have to cut any programs. I don’t look at this as a bad situation, but you think about a 38-team conference, that’s a pretty good conference. You get to play in Seattle, Tri-Cities, Vancouver and Portland, and those are nice places to visit, as well as play in — as long as the pass is good. It’s going to be a fun league. If you want to be the best, you’ve got to play the best, and (Williams’ former teammate Kenny Owens) gets Walla Walla fired up to play us. It’s a different environment and they’ll have to come up to our level, but they’re looking forward to that. We’re kind of raising the bar in that conference, and that’s why they’re letting us come in.”

In the NWAC, Carlson believes with more home games, it will give a chance to see more high quality athletes.

“They’ve been learning how to play against some of the best teams at the junior college level,” Carlson said. “The NWAC has gotten better and better, there’s no doubt. The guard that was at Blue Mountain last year (Mar’Shay Moore) is playing for Kelly Graves at Oregon now. There’s another kid that played at Lower Columbia that went onto Oregon State. “We’ve seen some very good teams and I think the NWAC is figuring out how to recruit better players as well. It’s going to be very competitive. Spokane has always been a big game for us. Now we’ll get them twice.”

NIC leaving the SWAC, not only in basketball, but volleyball, will be a huge hole in the conference with the Cardinals advancing to nationals in five of the last six seasons, finishing 10th in 2015.

“NIC has always been a contender in the SWAC and will be missed,” Salt Lake volleyball coach Sue Dulaney said. “Our trips to Cd’A have always been long, but filled with other adventures. We’ve toured the area, hiked, visited the falls and jumped in the lake numerous times.”

In 2009, Salt Lake began a tradition where if the Bruins beat NIC, the coaching staff jumped into Lake Coeur d’Alene following the match.

“We’d do it no matter what kind of weather or time of the day,” Dulaney said. “Most times, the players would opt out, but usually half of the team would want to jump in the lake as well. It was a bonding moment for us and an incentive for our players to see their coaches get wet and cold. It was a small sacrifice for the coaching staff, as we would always take an on-the-road victory as well and get wet.”