New Mead stadium could impact teams in North Idaho

A few memories surfaced with the recent news that the old Mead Junior High, a building that has stood since at least the 1950s, was scheduled to be torn down this fall.

I only went to school there for about four months, after moving up to Spokane from Salt Lake City in February 1974. I was in the ninth grade.

Yes, I’m old.

I REMEMBER the building seemed old even then. It used to be the high school, before the current Mead High was built on Hastings Road in the early 1970s, and the old building, on the corner of Farwell Road and Market Street, became the junior high.

Anyway, one of my first classes was a typing class — apparently my dad, who signed me up for school, thought I might need that skill someday.

I remember a floor hockey game where someone got “boarded” — and their arm went through a door window.

I remember a teachers’ strike in late April which lasted a few days. Instead of classes, I think we just B.S.-ed with the substitute teachers, or those that crossed the picket line. That might have been more educational than actual classes.

One of the things we did in P.E. class in the spring was hit golf balls. Our “driving range” was the football field, which ran parallel to Farwell — which becomes Hastings as you get closer to the “new” Mead High.

Not that it ever happened, but imagine the damage if someone accidentally sliced the ball onto the roadway, into the path of an oncoming car ...

Reading about the demise of the old building, I learned that will be the site of the football stadium that the Mead School District is building for Mead and Mt. Spokane high schools to play their home football games.

The complex is scheduled to be completed by October 2020.

HOW DOES this affect North Idaho teams?

Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls play Mead in football on a regular basis, and Lake City has played the Panthers in the past.

So when the schools schedule future home-and-homes, instead of Mead’s “home” game being played at Albi Stadium in Spokane or at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, it could be played in the heart of downtown Mead.

If memory serves, the last time Mead would have played a true “home” game would have been in 1975, when the Panthers were still in the “original” Border League with Central Valley, University and Coeur d’Alene.

Even after the new high school was built, Mead played its home football games at the junior high.

Since Mead joined the Greater Spokane League in 1976, most of its “home” and “away” games have been at Albi.

Anyway, good for Mead and Mt. Spokane to look out for themselves — especially after Spokane botched the possibility of building a downtown football stadium to replace aging Albi in the northwest part of town.

Instead, voters chose to rebuild on the current site.

If not, Mead and Mt. Spokane — on the far north side of the city — would have had to troop all the way downtown to play “home” games. Soon, they’ll only have to mosey a few miles down the road.

And where, particularly in Mead’s case, the visiting team could very well come from North Idaho.

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.