New Cd'A gymnasium, timeouts and orange pants

Rather than crowd everybody into two courts in the smallish Jordan Court, Coeur d’Alene High utilized its auxiliary gym as the second court for Friday’s play at the state 5A volleyball tournament.

A little over a year from now, that auxiliary gym will become the main gym.

Early next year, once basketball and wrestling seasons are over, work will begin on the auxiliary gym (named Viking Court), with the hopes they’ll be ready for the 2018-19 basketball and wrestling seasons.

As part of a $35.5 million construction bond passed by voters in March, the “new” gym will seat roughly what Lake City’s gym does (around 2,500), with bleachers upstairs on both sides as well and, like at Post Falls and Lake City, with student seating behind one of the baskets, on the west end of the court.

Other than remodeling the upstairs portion of Jordan Court behind one of the baskets, to create a couple of testing centers, the old gym will remain the same, with seating reduced from 1,600 to 1,200 (because of no more upstairs seating).

“We’ll still use this gym,” Coeur d’Alene High athletic director Mike Lindquist said, noting sub-varsity games can be played there, and wrestling could still use the gym if it preferred. “There’s a lot of history with this court.”

The current wrestling room will be moved downstairs, and the weight room expanded.

Lake City and Post Falls used side-by-side courts for their Friday matches at state, because their gyms are bigger. Downstairs bleachers have to be pushed back a little, but there was plenty of seating upstairs.

That wasn’t possible at Coeur d’Alene — remember how tight a fit it was at the old Post Falls High gym back in the day?

OK, take my word for it.

Five of Friday’s 10 matches were played in Cd’A’s auxiliary gym. Though it was a tight fit seating wise, with bleachers for a few hundred folks on only one side, Lindquist said the teams didn’t mind.

“They liked having their own court,” he said. “No whistles from the other court,” no balls rolling onto their court during play …

T.O. OR not to T.O.? Phil Jackson, who won 11 NBA titles as a coach, was notorious for not calling timeouts when the other team was in the midst of the run. Maybe it was just stubbornness, a way of not admitting the other team was affecting his team. Or maybe he just wanted his team to figure out how to play its way through it.

In last week’s 5A Region 1 championship match against Post Falls, Lake City coach Mike Summers eschewed timeouts whenever the Trojans made a run.

During Friday’s first day of play at state, Summers was a little quicker with the T.O.

“Here’s its all about stopping the momentum,” Summers said after Lake City beat Rocky Mountain of Meridian in the first round on Friday. “In that fifth set we were still up 6 or 7, just reminding the girls what we were trying to do, trying to stop their momentum and make them think about what they want to do.

“Usually that’s me, make the girls try to work it through,” Summers said of his philosophy on timeouts. “But when the stakes are so high, and a lot of weight is on the girls’ shoulders to perform, during those timeouts we’re just taking a mental break. We’re not talking about anything related to volleyball, we’re just, relax, take a break here, let them come back and refocus when they step back on the court.”

Given her ‘druthers, Lake City junior setter Klaire Mitchell said she’d rather take the T.O.

“I would like to have a timeout where we can talk about it and fix what we need to do on our side of the court,” she said.

THOSE PANTS. In last week’s regional title match, as well as during his team’s three matches at state on Friday, Post Falls coach Matt Barkley was rockin’ the orange pants — orange being one of the Trojans’ primary colors.

He found them online at a Dockers site. As orange slacks go, he wears them well.

“I’ve got to credit Greg Cossette. one of our old assistant coaches, he always wore bright orange shoes,” Barkley said. “And for important matches I always try to bring out the orange pants to try to fire (the players) up. It drives my wife nuts sometimes ... just a fun thing for me to do to try to help the girls relax a little bit.”

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.