THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Standing tall in St. Maries — St. Maries AD Gilkey has touched the lives of many — athletes, coaches, fellow ADs and more

It might take several people to replace Todd Gilkey, the St. Maries High athletic director who is retiring at the end of the school year after a 31-year career in education.

Yes, his current “job” is part-time AD and teacher of three weight training classes.

But also …

• He’s an occasional bus driver for the district.

• He’s currently also serving as an interim middle school principal.

• He helps out the current high school principal with discipline, because he earned his master’s degree in educational administration.

• He coached nearly every sport there was at St. Maries — football, volleyball, girls basketball, JV boys basketball, softball — in his early years there.

• His experience makes him a valuable resource for younger ADs, not only in the region, but statewide as well.

• Except for the few occasions his high school obligations don’t allow it, he’s the official scorekeeper for the Spokane Indians minor-league baseball team. Or sometimes the press box manager. Or sometimes, the pitch clock operator.

NOW, HE’S decided it’s time to step away from those duties — well, most of them, anyway — and do something else.

At age 59, he’s reached the “Rule of 90” in Idaho — age plus years in education — to qualify for retirement.

“I’m ready for a change,” Gilkey said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I’m going to treat this summer like I was going to go back to school in the fall … and go do something. I don’t know what that something is. … go drive school bus for Randy Russell at Freeman, I don’t know.

“I’m just ready for a change, and I’m just tired. I’m going to miss the kids; I love being around the kids. I’m going to miss the staff at St. Maries High School.”

Gilkey started his teaching career at St. Maries, and was AD his last seven years before going to Coeur d’Alene High as AD for eight years. He returned to St. Maries eight years ago and is finishing up his 23rd year as an AD.

“You didn’t know how good Todd was until Todd wasn’t there,” said John Cordell, who was principal at St. Maries for 23 years, and twice hired Gilkey as AD there. “Todd and I worked together for 15 years. When he transferred to Coeur d’Alene, and we cycled bodies through (the AD job), you realized how much stuff Todd did behind the scenes that we didn’t know. And I was an athletic director before (at Wahluke High in Mattawa, Wash.), and I had no clue how much time and energy Todd really spent to make everything work well.”

“Todd has been a cornerstone for St. Maries athletics,” said Bryan Chase, who currently coaches boys basketball and golf at St. Maries, and previously coached girls basketball. “His guidance and leadership will be greatly missed. Not only is Todd a great leader, but he is extremely organized. In all of my years coaching, I can’t think of any mixups in the schedule with other teams or refs.”

GILKEY GRADUATED from Moscow High in 1982, spent a couple of years at North Idaho College, then finished up at Idaho, where he was student manager for the Vandal football team one season, and the men’s basketball team for one season.

That basketball team included Orlando Lightfoot, Leonard Perry and Deon Watson Sr. Years later, when Gilkey was AD at Coeur d’Alene High, one of the Viking athletes was Deon Watson Jr.

Jerry Bayley, then principal at St. Maries, hired Gilkey for his first teaching job. He was head softball coach the first couple years after softball went to fastpitch in Idaho. He was also head girls basketball coach for a couple years.

Todd and his wife, KayDee, will celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary in July. When they married, KayDee worked in Spokane, so they lived in Fairfield, Wash. (population of roughly 600), so each of them had roughly the same distance to drive to work.

Todd’s drive to St. Maries is 36 miles, one way.

(When he worked at Coeur d’Alene High, his drive to work was 37 miles, one way.)

KayDee now does PR work for the Washington Wheat Growers Association, and formerly was the mayor of Fairfield for eight years.

Their son, Eli, 18, graduated on Saturday from Liberty High in Spangle, Wash.

Gilkey said it wasn’t always the plan to eventually go into administration. But while he was coaching girls basketball, word got out that Curt Carr was leaving St. Maries to take the AD job at Lakeland.

“I thought it would be something different to do, but still be involved in sports, be involved in all sports instead of being focused on the sports you’re coaching,” Gilkey said. “That’s why I went into it, for professional growth, but also thinking I could help make a difference in more kids’ lives across the spectrum of athletics, instead of just the sports that I was coaching.”

Gilkey has been named Athletic Director of the Year six times by the Idaho Athletic Administrators Association — in 3A at St. Maries in 2006, in 5A at Coeur d’Alene in 2009 and ‘13, in 2A at St. Maries in 2017, ‘19 and ‘20.

“He couldn’t change programs as a coach. He could impact programs as an athletic director,” Cordell said. “He’s unbelievably organized. He’s the most organized guy I have ever seen.”

A few weeks ago, the North Idaho Officials Association made Gilkey the first recipient of their NIOA AD of the Year award, honoring an administrator for their help and cooperation with officials.

At Coeur d’Alene, where he was a full-time AD, Gilkey oversaw more sports, more coaches, more athletes than at St. Maries.

“But to me, it’s always about building relationships,” he said. “If you can build positive relationships with anybody at any school, you can solve a lot of problems by just having those relationships with people.

“If you have a good relationship with somebody, you can have a tough conversation with them, and they don’t take it personally. It was a little overwhelming at first to go to Coeur d’Alene, but by the time I left, to me, it was just like being at St. Maries — the longer you’re there, the easier things become for you.”

LIKE ALL ADs, Gilkey said he always worried about his teams getting home on a snowy night.

“One of my big fears is having buses pass each other — Priest River coming to St. Maries, and I have a bus going to Priest River,” he said. “Or, we had an assembly (last week), and we always do the pledge of allegiance or national anthem. I put the flag down (the one that unfurls from the ceiling). One of my big fears — the damn thing won’t go up after the national anthem before a game.”

Ever have buses pass each other?

No, Gilkey said.

“Every Friday I had a group email and would send out next week’s schedule, to whoever we were playing next week … to all the ADs we were playing that week,” he said. “I would send it to our staff, the middle school staff, the bus garage, so we could all be on the same page, asking people to check for errors.

“And there were some that got caught, on my end, on their end. But it was a way to keep from having issues.”

Last year, with the district facing a shortage of bus drivers, Gilkey and three of his coaches got certified as bus drivers, picking up before- and after-school routes.

One of them, Chase, drove the golf team to each of its matches this season.

Gilkey said he’s driven a few teams to events this year, but with the district “collapsing” some school bus routes, fewer extra drivers were needed.

Naturally, watching one of his teams win a state championship is a rewarding feeling for an AD.

But also …

“Watching kids improve,” Gilkey said. “Watching when they start out as a freshman, look like a baby giraffe out there on the basketball floor, can’t run, legs are flailing everywhere. And by the time they’re a senior, they’re an all-state player.

“And not only in athletics,” said Gilkey, who oversees all extracurricular activities, not just sports. “Going to a concert, watching a kid trying to blow his trumpet, and barely being able to squeak a note out … and by the time they graduate, ‘I could listen to you play a lot.’

“To me, it’s just watching kids improve and develop and mature. I just like to watch them grow.”

When Gilkey was in his first stint as AD at St. Maries, the Lumberjacks built an on-campus facility for football and track and fields. Formerly, those were in town, down the hill from St. Maries City Park.

Now, Gilkey said, in conjunction with the booster club, St. Maries hopes to have on-campus baseball, softball and soccer fields by the 2024-25 school year.

For years, those teams have had to troop into town as well to play.

“I would like to give a huge thank you to John Cordell. He took a chance on me by hiring me not once but twice at St. Maries, and to Randy Russell and Harry Amend for the opportunity to work at Coeur d’Alene High School,” Gilkey said. “These three gentlemen made a huge impact on my career and the opportunities this led me to. They pushed me to become involved at the local, state and national level in the AD associations. I am proud to call these three gentlemen my friends and mentors.”

THE ONE job Gilkey said he’ll likely keep is the one with the Indians.

He is in his 11th season (would have been 12th if not for COVID-19 in 2020) as the team’s official scorekeeper, making the 27-mile drive to Avista Stadium.

Last week for three games, the regular pitch-clock operator was gone for a few days, so Gilkey did those duties instead.

You hear stories of major leaguers calling the press box to complain when what they thought was a hit was ruled an error by the official scorekeeper.

Gilkey doesn’t get those calls — partly because they can’t call the press box from the dugout at Avista.

“After the game I take the box score to both clubhouses and give the official box scores to the managers, and if there’s any questions, we will talk about it,” Gilkey said. “I will admit, sometimes after talking to them, I’ll call New York (headquarters) and make a change … and other times I’ll explain how I made the call I did … and they understand why I did.”

When Gilkey started with the Indians, Tug Hulett was the Spokane skipper.

“When I first met him, I told him my background was in high school,” Gilkey said. “Tug goes, ‘Well, this isn’t Little League; not everything’s a hit. Todd, this is professional baseball. These kids have to learn that not everything’s a hit, not everything’s a strikeout, not everything’s an error if you’re a pitcher, you call it the way you see it, and if you and I disagree, then we’ll talk about it. But these guys are professional baseball players, treat them as such — professionals.’

“And that has always resonated with me. That has always stuck in the back of my mind when I was making a decision — can a high school kid make this play? Probably not? It might be a hit. But a professional baseball player? They should have made that play. I’ll give them an error.”

BEING A former coach helped Gilkey as an AD, where one of his roles is coaching the coaches.

“I go to practices and watch, but I don’t go every day. I don’t want to feel like I’m micro-managing,” he said. “But I want to have enough background where if I need to have a conversation, I can have that conversation.”

It’s a fine line to walk …

“And you’ve got to know your coaches, too,” he said. “Some coaches, you could come to every practice and it wouldn’t bother them one bit. Other coaches, especially younger coaches, they might get a little nervous.

“If you have relationships, you can get through a lot of things.”

Once, Chase had the idea of leading his basketball team out on the court with a chainsaw for the Brawl for the Ball spirit game with Kellogg. Another time, he wanted to start all seven seniors on senior night.

“Todd was a good boss that let us do our job,” Chase said. “Occasionally I had some crazy ideas and Todd was always good at talking me out of them.”

When Gilkey first started as an AD, he said veteran ADs like Larry Schwenke (Coeur d’Alene) and Vern Bengtson (Lakeland) were resources, and mentors.

“Larry said ‘Don’t reinvent the wheel. If you have a question, give somebody a call, because one of us has probably gone through it. And if I don’t know the answer, I bet you I can find somebody who does,’” Gilkey said. “I took that to heart. I made a lot of phone calls, I asked a lot of questions … and now I’ve got people calling me, asking me those questions.”

One of those people will likely be Dakota Wickard, who was named to replace Gilkey as AD at St. Maries. Most recently, Wickard was the Lumberjacks’ head girls basketball coach, and assistant softball coach.

Gilkey said he’s told his soon-to-be-former colleagues that his phone will always be on.

“I want what’s best for kids,” he said. “I want what’s best for St. Maries kids, but also want what’s best for Kellogg and Priest River kids, and all those kids. I’ll do what I can to help anybody I can.”

Cordell said even those eight years Gilkey was AD at Coeur d’Alene, “he was part of the St. Maries community. A lot of people thought he was still part of the St. Maries community. He still came to St. Maries events. … though a lot of the time he was wearing Coeur d’Alene blue, which pissed us off.”

On nights where the Vikings didn’t have an event which required him to be there as an administrator, he would call Cordell and if St. Maries had a home game, he often would show up to help — working on the chain gang, helping in some way.

“I think Todd will always have a spot to help St. Maries,” Cordell said.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @CdAPressSports.