HOW THEY WERE BUILT — Coeur d’Alene High football: From worst to one of the best

It may be hard to believe now, three state championships and seven total appearances in the state title game later, spanning a 23-year coaching stint.

But there was a time when the head football coaching job at Coeur d’Alene High was not the plum job it certainly is today.

“Honestly, several people told me that Coeur d’Alene was a mess when I took it,” Coeur d’Alene High football coach Shawn Amos recalled the other day. “One coach told me, ‘You’ll end your coaching career.’”

But Amos, then 29, took the Viking job in 1997, after two seasons at Kellogg and an 11-5-1 record.

“It was as dysfunctional a program as I’ve ever seen,” Amos said. “My last team at Kellogg would have beat my first team at Coeur d’Alene. I have no doubt about that.”

These days, Coeur d’Alene is among the elite football programs in the state, and has been for the past decade.

Under Amos, the Vikings have won three state titles (2010, ’11 and ’13), and played for the state title a total of seven times, including twice in the last three seasons.

His overall record at Coeur d’Alene is 155-84, including 94-28 since 2009.

But wins and losses haven’t been what the Vikings under Amos have been about.

“Every group of kids, we try to treat them like they have a chance to do something special,” Amos said. “Winning is not necessarily what our end game is — we try to teach them things through the use of football that will be help them be better men. Having a group of coaches that are all focused on that has resulted in success.”

COEUR d’ALENE HAD gone 6-12 the previous two seasons when Amos was hired to coach the Vikings in ’97.

“When we got to Coeur d’Alene High School there was no doubt we were one of the worst teams in the state of Idaho,” Amos recalled. “There was a lot of work that needed to be done when we first got there.”

The kids, he said, weren’t the problem. The expectations of the program were.

“When we first got there, I was shocked that there was no weight program to speak of — the kids just went in the weight room and sat around,” Amos said. “There was no summer program, really. We joke, our first year there, we averaged four kids per day in the summer (workout program) ... we had more coaches than kids (in the summer).”

Amos tried to set the culture immediately with his players. He told them the secret to success was simple — work.

“And to be honest with you, the buy-in was not immediate,” he said. “I believe we lost half our senior class that first year. A lot of those kids thought I was crazy.

“Before I got there, the JV team would practice for 45 minutes. And there was no real expectation to be there in the summer. I walked in and they were like, ‘Who is this guy? He wants us to come in at 7 o’clock in the morning every day in the summer.’ It wasn’t the kids’ fault; they had never been asked to do any of that stuff.”

Amos went 1-8 in each of his first two seasons at Coeur d’Alene. There was turnover among the assistant coaches. Ron Nelson, the Vikings’ offensive coordinator, has been with Amos since Day 1. Most of the rest of the assistant coaches have been on staff for the last 12-15 seasons.

Coeur d’Alene made the playoffs for the first time under Amos in 2000, losing 10-7 at Vallivue of Caldwell in the first round.

Four years later, the Vikings made the playoffs again, advancing to the state 5A title game before losing to Twin Falls at Holt Arena in Pocatello.

It would be six more seasons before Coeur d’Alene made it back to the state title game.

“After the 2004 state title game, I thought we let off the gas a little bit,” Amos said. “I think we started patting ourselves on the back a little too much, and even though we made the playoffs the next couple of years, I didn’t really like where we were at that point, so we kinda regrouped.”

Amos recalled something his football coach at Moscow High, Eric Bjorkman, once told him: “As soon as you think you know everything, then you need to quit coaching.”

Said Amos of reaching the title game in 2004: “We got a taste of it, and we sat back a little too much, and since then ... that won’t happen again.”

DURING THOSE years, Coeur d’Alene was winning games — 8-2 in 2000, 6-3 in 2002 and ’03, 9-3 in ’04, 7-3 in both 2005 and ’06.

But the Vikings lost 11 straight to city rival Lake City from 1997-2003.

Coeur d’Alene beat the Timberwolves twice in 2004, including once in the state quarterfinals. But the Vikings then lost the next seven to Lake City, including state quarterfinal losses in 2005 and ’06 — back when the top two 5A teams in North Idaho would be matched up against each other in the first round of the playoffs.

“Several of those years, we had state trophy teams, but Lake City was just better than we were,” Amos said. “And we couldn’t get out of the first round of the playoffs.”

North Idaho coaches eventually got that changed, and now the top two teams from the North are placed on opposite sides of the bracket.

“That run of not being able to beat Lake City was tough,” Amos recalled. “We were a pretty good football team ... of course, after a while, it became frustrating.

“But I think that’s one of the best things we did — beating Lake City was never our No. 1 goal. Years and years ago, our No. 1 goal was to try to develop better young men. And those years, we felt like we were doing that. I think it’s a mistake to put one game as the defining moment of your program.”

Of course ...

“I’d be lying to you if, losing to them twice a year for six years ... that’s not any fun,” Amos said. “It wasn’t like I was OK with it, but it wasn’t how I was evaluating our program.”

THE VIKINGS were on the verge of a return to the state title game in 2009, but lost to Eagle in the semifinals in the snow at Coeur d’Alene. The biggest play of the game came late in the fourth quarter when a snap slid under the legs of the Eagle quarterback, but the running back picked it up and ran it 46 yards to the Viking 4-yard line. The Mustangs scored the go-ahead touchdown on the next play, and won 25-21.

One year later, Coeur d’Alene won the program’s first state title in 25 seasons as Zach Keiser rushed for 169 yards and two touchdowns and Chad Chalich hooked up with Deon Watson on a pair of TD passes for the Vikings, who beat Centennial 28-7 at the Kibbie Dome in Moscow.

“I told the team we went from the worst team in the state to probably one of the best teams in the state,” Amos was quoted as saying after the game.

In 2011 Chalich, playing with a hairline fracture in his right foot, outdueled future BYU quarterback Tanner Mangum as the Vikings repeated with a 49-28 win over Eagle amid snow flurries at Boise State’s stadium.

Chalich was 20 of 29 for 410 yards and three touchdowns, two to Watson. Mangum was 37 of 53 with two touchdowns and a 5A state title game record 453 yards, but was also picked off four times.

In 2012, Amos’ son Gunnar took over as quarterback, and the Vikings reached the state title game once again, falling to Madison of Rexburg at Holt Arena in Pocatello.

Coeur d’Alene made it four straight trips to the title game in 2013, but Gunnar Amos was lost to a broken ankle early in the playoffs. Sophomore Austin Lee stepped in and the Vikings rallied behind him to beat Highland of Pocatello in the title game at the Kibbie Dome, Lee running for the winning touchdown late in the fourth quarter.

“That is an incredible run; to play in four straight and win three of them is something,” Shawn Amos said. “When I retire, we’ll look back and say ‘Holy cow,’ that’s amazing. That’s incredible. It was the combination of the right coaches — who I still have — and the right kids. Chad Chalich and that group of kids, with a lot of tough, ornery kids who were thirsty to win. And we had my son Gunnar, who had the same group of kids that were hungry. And when your best kids are your hardest workers, that’s when you have a real shot.”

During the middle of that season, Amos had to tell his players he had a form of cancer — Hodgkin’s lymphoma — and had to mix in chemotherapy treatments with his coaching duties.

“2013, I think I should write a book about it,” Amos said. “That could be a movie. That was the best and worst years of my coaching career, to be honest with you. And then watching your son, who had put in the time, and was the undisputed leader, not being able to finish it on the field; it was heartbreaking to watch from my own personal position ... (but) the great joy of those kids rallying together to get it done; it was just a remarkable year. The reason we didn’t miss a beat was because my coaches are the best in the business.”

COEUR d’ALENE HAS made it back to the state title game twice since then, losing to Highland in 2017 and Rigby last year.

That makes six appearances in the title game in the past 10 seasons.

“Don’t get me wrong, we love to play in state title games, but it’s now how we evaluate our program,” Amos said. “No matter what happens from here on out, I will feel good about how we impacted kids’ lives. That’s what will matter when I’m done coaching.”

Whenever that is, no one knows.

Amos says he decides each year after Christmas break if he wants to return as coach.

“It’s been easy, so far. I love it,” he said of is annual decision. “If you talk to my coaches and other people, I don’t have any hobbies. I don’t do anything but coach football. But I just promised myself a long time ago I don’t want to be that guy that they say, ‘He should have quit coaching a couple of years ago, he’s lost the passion for it.’ It’s easy to get fired up about game day. As soon as I’m not fired up about ... after school, and summer weights. If I’m not excited to up at 6:30 in the morning and get to the weightroom, then I’ll be done.

“But right now, I love working with the kids, I love our coaching staff. My coaches are so good, they have allowed me to keep coaching because we all share the work. I basically have six or seven head coaches on our staff ... we all do the work. All of our coaches have a big part in what we do.”