The game after the game - and other bus stories (Part 3)

Part of a series

This bus story was not from a basketball road trip, but it’s still quite entertaining.

Ron Miller coached football and girls basketball at Lakeside for years (and even at Plummer, before Plummer and Worley merged to form Lakeside). These days, he’s still in administration at Lakeside, and the basketball court at Lakeside is named after him.

“Many years ago, before the cell phone, we had a football game in Kooskia during a full moon,” Miller recalled. “During the course of the game we had a player taken by ambulance to the hospital in Orofino. We sent the cheerleading adviser with the player. Minutes later we had another injury and sent a second player, which I rode with in the ambulance, also to Orofino. The game ended and the team headed to pick up the players.

“Meanwhile the cheerleading adviser and I were asked to wait in an empty room — normally not a big deal except the room contained a stretcher with a full body bag,” Miller said. “When the bus arrived we were still waiting as two attendants came in and wheeled the cart out past the bus full of students. Needless to say this caused a small uproar on the bus.

“The injured players were OK’d to travel by the doctor and eventually we were back on the road,” Miller continued. “We fed the team in Lewiston and headed north to Plummer. A few miles out of town the bus slammed into an elk, which pushed the radiator and fan into the engine, disabling the bus and sending up clouds of steam. The elk was mortally wounded, but continued trying to get up. A wrecker eventually arrived and the driver attempted to dispatch the elk with a sawed-off shotgun. Three shots and many cheerleader screams later, the elk was dead. Eventually we were picked up and brought to school. Parents were called and the last player left the school as the sun was coming up around 6 a.m.

“With order restored, the adults decided to change into hunting clothes and go for a morning hunt,” Miller said.

IN ADDITION to being girls basketball coach at Post Falls High, Marc Allert is also an assistant track and field coach.

“Had a little tiny older lady named Helga as a driver to state track one year who was really into riding Harleys,” Allert recalled. “Sang us a song she wrote about herself. I can still remember the chorus ... ‘I’m a motorcycle momma and I travel down the road ... ’

“She was quite the character — can’t remember the whole story, but she bought a cow at one of the stops on the way home,” Allert said.

And on another road trip ...

“We had a charter bus driver who was a little too comfortable driving — leaned back, foot propped up on the dash, driving with one hand,” Allert remembered. “We came over a little rise in the freeway and cars were at a dead stop in front of us due to an accident. He didn’t have time to stop so he headed to the shoulder of the road and we passed cars who were not moving, going about 50 miles an hour. We were lucky to not rear end a whole line of cars — it could have been really ugly. The driver was a little more attentive the rest of the trip.

“So was Dennis Amende (another Post Falls coach), who was riding in the front seat of the bus.”

ONE TIME in the 1980s, the Clark Fork boys and girls basketball teams played in Eureka, Mont.

It was late at night, and on the way home, well, nature called.

“Between Eureka and Libby is, must be 60 miles, and of course, in a snowstorm, what do you do?” recalled Lewis Speelmon, the Wampus Cats boys basketball coach at the time.

So the players filed off the bus — girls heading to one side of the bus, boys to the other.

“Tim Ross (Clark Fork girls basketball coach) and I, we don’t observe, we just make sure nobody goes around the bus either way,” Speelmon noted.

OF COURSE John Drager would have more than just a few bus stories, after driving Mullan football and boys basketball teams (as well as other teams) around for some 40 years.

“We were going to St. Maries one time, and you go along the St. Joe River, I was driving the bus and a logging truck was coming this way, toward Coeur d’Alene, and we hit mirrors,” Drager recalled. “God, that was scary. Ripped the mirrors right off the bus.”

He said he’s probably hit 8-10 deer with a bus over the years.

Did it ever cause an accident?

“Naw,” Drager said. “Sometimes they’d be stuck under the bus, and we’d stop and pull them out.”

Then there was the time after a basketball game at Plummer.

“All the kids here?”

“Yeah, we’re all here.”

“I’m driving, we get to Coeur d’Alene, and we had a kid from Plummer that had gotten on the bus — he’d fallen asleep,” Drager recalled. “Our kids didn’t say anything; they thought it was funny. We got to Coeur d’Alene and he was on the bus.

“I think I called down there (to Plummer) and somebody came and got him.”

One more story ...

“We left a kid in Sandpoint one time,” Drager said. “We’d played Clark Fork, and we stopped in Sandpoint to get something to eat.

“‘Everybody here?’

‘Yeah, everybody’s here.’

“We got to Coeur d’Alene, we’d left a kid in Sandpoint,” Drager said. “I think I called up to the police and I think they brought him down.”

COACHES: If you are a current or former basketball coach in North Idaho, and have stories you’d like to share of crazy bus trips, humorous encounters with referees or bizarre occurences during games, feel free to email me at mnelke@cdapress.com

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