THE FRONT ROW WITH BRUCE BOURQUIN: Friday, Nov. 11, 2016

A funny thing happened this past week that has never occurred in my 10-year career as a sports columnist and 15 years as a sports reporter for three different daily newspapers.

When I interviewed Coeur d’Alene High junior swimmer Emily Deitz and her mother Sue Deitz recently over my trusty Apple iPhone 4s, her mother was about to board for a plane from Oakland, Calif., after she had business at an office in Berkeley, Calif., to Spokane one evening. Talk about timing and coincidence.

Last Saturday Emily, 16, won a state championship in the 100-yard backstroke at the Boise Aquatics Center. She has a 3.5 grade-point average, is an honor roll student while taking an Advanced Placement course in English and an Advanced Learning Placement class in physics. She likes drawing faces and taking photos for fun. She will turn 17 next Saturday.

Sue works out of her home in Coeur d’Alene and is the regional vice president at National Rural Accountable Care Organization Consortium, which helps manage health in rural populations and is based out of Beaverton, Ore. She travels often, about eight to 12 days per month, yet has found time to attend all of her daughter’s swim meets. Her stepfather Steven Deitz is a certified public accountant who works out of Bonners Ferry. The Deitzes married when Emily was 8.

“I was born in Chicago,” Emily said. “My mom went to college at the University of Illinois at Chicago. We moved to Sandpoint when I was 3 years old and I grew up there.”

SWIMMERS AND their coaches couldn’t have asked for much more than Deitz provided at the state meet ‘down south’ in Boise. In the finals, the 5-foot-3 junior broke her own Viking school record in the 100 back with a time of 58.71 seconds. Her record last season was 59.48 seconds, which broke Nicole Rozier’s record set in 2014 (59.91). Rozier now swims at LSU.

Sidney Anderson of Boise came in second in the 100 back (59.3). Boise won the boys and girls state team titles, while Coeur d’Alene’s girls team finished fifth.

“She’s always been one of our better swimmers,” Coeur d’Alene coach Rich Swoboda said. “It was just a matter of her getting stronger, faster, more mature.”

Deitz helped the Vikings tack on a fourth-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay (1:53.81) and her split was a 28.19 in the backstroke. Plus she finished sixth in the 50 freestyle (25.02).

“In her race she led the whole time,” Swoboda said of Deitz’s state title in the backstroke. “We were hoping she’d hold on, keep her legs going on the last lap. She had a great all-around meet.”

Of course, Emily was a little nervous before the state meet. Staying at a hotel within walking distance of the state meet, she woke up at 6:30 the morning of the competition. She was going to wake up at 8, before the state meet began at 9.

“I calmed myself down before the meet,” Emily said. “I had a teammate, Riley Fowler, who’s also a junior. She talked to me, explained I’d already been working so hard and I just had to do my best. I was extremely happy, I channeled my energy into something positive. It was a great moment.”

Emily also credited her Coeur d’Alene Swim Team coaches, Bob Wood and David Dolphan, for helping her improve her already-strong backstroke skills.

“I learned my power with my dolphin kick underwater and power through my arms,” Emily said. “They worked with me on technique work.”

Sue was there with Steven in the stands at state.

“She’s amazing, I’m really proud of her,” Sue said. “We took a double take when we knew about her time. We’re proud of her being in the 58s.”

THERE WERE definitely job reasons why the Deitz family moved from Sandpoint to Coeur d’Alene a year ago, two months before Emily turned 15. Sue Deitz wanted to be closer to the Spokane Airport and moving cut her drive time in half. For the past 10 years before working at her current job, Sue worked as the executive director for the Critical Access Hospital Network, which helps provide leadership to a network of critical access hospitals. She’s worked in the health care industry for more than 20 years.

In August 2015, just before her sophomore year, Deitz’s family moved and Emily transferred from Sandpoint to Coeur d’Alene. So Deitz was not required to sit out a year last season, since the Deitz family notified the school of their plans.

“I knew one week ahead of time,” Sandpoint High and Sandpoint club coach Mike Brosnahan said. “It was a legitimate transfer. When they moved, they made it perfectly clear she’d move. Sue went up and told me, ‘Our house is for sale.’ She called three hours later saying her house was on the market. One day later, they moved.”

Last season, with Emily swimming the backstroke as a sophomore, Coeur d’Alene eclipsed the state record of 1:51.21 in the girls 200-yard medley relay, with a second-place finish in 1:48.76. Boise won it in 1:47.23.

Before her family’s decision to move to Coeur d’Alene, Brosnahan was looking at Emily and a current Sandpoint swimmer named Payton Bokowy, who swam with Deitz back in 2014, as the Bulldogs’ top two swimmers. At this year’s state meet, Bokowy finished third in both the 50 and 100 freestyle. In 2014, the two teamed up to help the Bulldog girls finish second, with Bokowy winning state titles in both the 50- and 100-free for the second year in a row. Deitz finished fourth in the 100 back at that same meet.

“Growing up in Sandpoint was great,” Emily said. “I liked the small-town feel, it’s like one big community. ”

DON’T THINK the Coeur d’Alene swimming coaches didn’t appreciate Sue’s decision.

“Her parents wanted to move closer to the Spokane Airport,” Coeur d’Alene coach Rich Swoboda said. “We were benefactors of that.”

At the state meet, Swoboda said the College of Idaho talked to him about Emily. He added “multiple colleges” will probably be interested in recruiting her this spring, especially since they know her times at state.

Deitz was already elected a team captain by her teammates.

“It’s definitely a huge honor,” Deitz said. “That was sweet of my teammates.”

Emily said she’s enjoyed her time as a Viking and the fun hasn’t ended just yet as she’s looking forward to next season.

“Rich is an absolutely great coach,” Emily said. “Making the transition went really smooth; he was very welcome. I already knew a lot of the swimmers at Coeur d’Alene, I competed against them at Sandpoint.”

Bruce Bourquin is a sports writer at The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2013, via e-mail at bbourquin@cdapress.com or via Twitter @BruceCdAPress