THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Learning from wise coaches about collapsible rims, and other things

One of the cool things about my early days in the sportswriting business — meaning, in high school and college — was getting one-on-one time with the coaches at my school.

At Mead High, I freelanced — emphasis on “free” — for a paper called the Tri-County Tribune, based in nearby Deer Park, which is home, of course, to the Deer Park Stags.

I still remember the headline in that paper, over a story noting that game film from the local high school football team’s recent game was going to be shown at the following week’s booster club meeting:

“Stag films to be shown.”

Imagine the turnout to the booster club meeting that week!

ANYWAY, AT Mead, I was blessed to have one-on-one time with the likes of Duane Hartman and Dwight Pool.

Hartman, of course, went on to be a legendary cross country coach in the Northwest. But at that time, around Mead, he was just Coach Hartman, P.E. teacher and cool guy.

Pool, at that time, was coming off a stint as football coach at Spokane Falls Community College, where he started the Spartans’ program in 1967.

One week in 1976, he gave me the lowdown on Mead’s game at Sandpoint — a place, little did I know, that would become near and dear to my heart just six years later.

He mentioned a kickoff that Sandpoint returned for a touchdown, and noted that “there were about eight clips on the play.”

At Spokane Falls, I chatted with Bob Everson about Spartan football, Jerry Skaife about men’s basketball … and a tennis coach named Mary Jo Tracy, who would become Mary Jo Lambert and, years later, coach volleyball in Sandpoint.

Everson would take the time to tell me about his team’s most recent game, against Walla Walla Community College or Olympic or the University of Washington JV, or whoever.

One year — around 1979 or ‘80 — SFCC had a spring football game, or maybe a preseason scrimmage.

In any event, the Spartans weren’t executing the plays properly and after one screw-up Everson brought the thing to a halt and barked:

“Ah, we’re going to hell in a basket here.”

AT EASTERN Washington University, as sports editor at The Easterner, I remember some early morning visits with football coach Dick Zornes, and men’s basketball coach Jerry Krause.

Certainly Zornes had better things to do at that time — like trying to figure out how to beat Central Washington, or watch film on another team the Eags were going to play that year, as part of their transition from NAIA to NCAA Division I-AA — the Montana Grizzlies.

But he was always gracious with his time with me.

Same with Krause.

At that time, Eastern got Gonzaga to come out to Cheney to play the Eagles, and league games vs. the likes of Alaska-Anchorage.

Krause was a member of the NCAA Basketball Rules Committee, and during one of our weekly visits, he casually mentioned this newfangled thing that was likely coming soon to basketball — the collapsible rim.

It was also referred to as a breakaway rim — either way, the rim had a spring mechanism and would coil downward when players dunked, then recoil to its normal position.

Before that, standard rims would bend downward, or backboards would shatter — both of which would delay or postpone a game.

(Imagine the damage guys like Blake Buchanan, Zach Johnson and Nathan Hocking of Lake City would have done to the old rims had those been in use the past 3-4 years.)

I don’t remember much else from those early morning visits with Krause, who won 262 games in 17 seasons as Eastern's coach, but I remember him mentioning the collapsible rim. Dunking had been re-allowed in college basketball for a few years by then, and was becoming quite popular.

With more players dunking these days, and with more ferocity, those old rims would have never stood a chance.

Krause, who went on to work in operations roles at Gonzaga for some two decades, died last week at age 87, which got me to thinking again about collapsible rims.

I thought back to our early morning visits during the 1981-82 season when I was still trying to wake up, and memories being what they are, I wondered … did Jerry Krause invent the collapsible rim?

AS IT turns out, Krause didn’t invent the collapsible rim — but he did play a role in its invention.

The Smithsonian Institution recognizes another man as the inventor — and he and another man have their names on patent documents.

The collapsible rim was used at the 1978 Final Four, and was adopted by the NBA in the 1981-82 season.

A 2008 story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer said Chuck Randall, who attended Central Valley High in Spokane Valley and later Eastern Washington State College before a long career as coach at Western Washington, is widely considered the inventor of the collapsible rim.

That’s where Krause comes in.

According to stories in the P-I and The Easterner, Krause took his Eastern team to Bellingham to play Western Washington late in the 1974-75 season.

Western won 61-60, as a late Eastern shot that would have won the game rolled off the rim.

After the game, Krause brought Randall out onto the court, and showed him that the rim was noticeably bent downward, which likely prevented that last-second shot from going in the basket.

That inspired Randall to create his version of the collapsible rim.

With an assist from Krause.

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.