Timberlake girls eating best veggies?
LOREN BENOIT/Press Timberlake High girls basketball coach Matt Miller, here talking with Peyton Kronenberg, has the Tigers among the state's best in 3A in his 14th season.
SPIRIT LAKE — Anyone can win.
OK, let’s say almost anybody.
What’s tough is to win again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And…
Well, until there is such a culture of winning that anything else seems out of the question.
De La Salle High in northern California won 151 straight football games, facing all comers from around the nation.
That’s a belief system, not an accident.
There is such an expectation of victory at the very best programs — high school, college, pros — that any sort of defeat is almost a total shock.
That would explain those tears in the locker room at last year’s class 3A girls state tournament.
“It wasn’t a happy place,” said Timberlake coach Matt Miller, after watching his ladies miss shot after shot that they normally bury while losing a semifinal game to Sugar-Salem — the state’s other 3A powerhouse from Sugar City in Madison County.
Idaho, for whatever odd reason, doesn’t seed teams at state, so Timberlake and Sugar-Salem — ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in that order in this year’s final media poll — were absurdly thrown together in a semifinal game.
“It was really like the title game,” Miller said. “Since the brackets can come out in any order, we had to play them in the semis, and obviously we felt disappointed.
“Finishing third at state isn’t a reason to be embarrassed, really, but the girls had another goal.”
THAT OTHER target in question, clearly, was to win it all — as Timberlake had done the previous two seasons.
Needless to say, Miller and his kids will be going back after the big trophy again this time around.
District play starts Wednesday, but that is basically a formality for a program that — one bad day in three years aside — just can’t stop winning.
To put Timberlake’s success in perspective, Miller scheduled five games this year against area 5A teams — and won them all.
The only local scalp Timberlake (18-2) couldn’t claim was 5A heavyweight Lake City.
“We’d love to play them, but so far they haven’t been able to schedule it,” Miller said.
Translation: If you’re Lake City, do you need the aggravation of risking a loss to a school with around 550 students?
Miller is one of those coaches who deflects every ounce of credit for the astounding success Timberlake’s girls have enjoyed during his 14 years running the program.
“We’ve really had some terrific kids come through here,” he said.
Now, wait.
Unless they’re growing some unusual vegetables around Spirit Lake and Athol, there’s got to be more to it than a non-stop parade of gifted players.
WHEN YOU find these incredibly successful programs at schools that have some athletic success but turn out one truly juggernaut program, generally there are some common themes.
So we asked Miller about a few of them…
Q. Are elementary school girls in Timberlake’s catchment area playing serious youth league basketball, and maybe benefitting from camps involving the school’s varsity players?
Yes, and yes.
Timberlake’s stars thus become heroes to plenty of young girls in the area, which simply keeps the wheel turning.
Q. Are the Timberlake B and C teams teaching the same fundamentals and tactics that Miller will use at the varsity level?
Yes, and yes.
In fact, Miller’s wife, Molly, handles the C team and B-team coach Rob Soumas, in his second year, already is part of the culture.
In fact, Soumas was kind enough to bring along three daughters. Sophomore Taryn Soumas will be Miller’s starting point guard at the state tournament.
Q. Is there a complete community buy-in to Timberlake girls basketball?
“That’s maybe the biggest thing,” Miller said. “The parents spend hours and hours getting the girls, even the young ones, to games and tournaments.
“It’s impossible to keep a winning program on track without that community support. You might get one good group of athletes for a couple of years, but to have it continue season after season…
“That means everybody has to contribute — parents, kids, coaches, everybody.”
Oh, and one last person has to be absolutely on top of it.
Miller won’t volunteer it, but he’s the captain of this ship.
And hey, if you’re the captain…
Then you know they didn’t blame a cabin boy when the Titanic went down.
No danger, though.
Miller has this thing afloat and full speed ahead.
Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns for The Press appear on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He also contributes the “Zags Tracker” package on Gonzaga basketball each Tuesday.
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Email: scameron@cdapress.com