THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Led by former Oregon, NFL QB, Coeur du Christ takes the next step

It started with a need. 

There already was a Catholic school in Coeur d’Alene, for grades K-8. 

But nothing past that. 

Enter Kellen Clemens — the name might ring a bell — and some other like-minded folks in the area, looking to fill that void. 

The result: Coeur du Christ Academy, for boys and girls in grades 9-12, located on Wallace Avenue in downtown Coeur d’Alene. 

“We saw that there was a need for a high school in the area that was centered around our Catholic faith,” Clemens said.  

But don’t call Coeur du Christ a Catholic school. 

“We are a private school in the Catholic tradition,” is how Clemens puts it. 

The Saints fielded teams in volleyball and boys basketball its first two years, as an associate member of the Idaho High School Activities Association, playing regular-season games against public schools and Mountain Christian League schools, but no postseason. 

NOW, ONLY two years after the school opened, Coeur du Christ Academy is adding a football team and ready to take the full plunge into Idaho high school athletics. 

The Saints applied for full membership in the IHSAA effective this school year and were accepted. 

Why now? 

“First of all, we believe in competing,” said Clemens, athletic director at Coeur du Christ. “When you’re an associate member, you can play your games, but you don’t qualify for districts, and you can’t go to state. I want our kids to have a chance to compete, and play, and see how far we can go.” 

Clemens, who grew up on a cattle ranch in tiny Burns, Ore., then starred at Oregon before playing quarterback for 12 seasons in the NFL, is the head football coach at Coeur du Christ. He’s also been the board chair at Coeur du Christ Academy, as well as the AD, since the school opened in 2022. 

In addition, he’s the athletic director at Holy Family Catholic School, which runs through the eighth grade. 

"My wife (Nicole) and I have been part of this from the start,” Clemens said of Coeur du Christ. “This goes all the way back to the spring of 2022, and we made the decision. We saw the need for a school like this in the community, and just went for it. Raised the money, bought the building, hired the teachers, and it’s been a ride.” 

Clemens noted there are a number of athletes on the board of the academy, which is not always the case at other similar schools. 

"There’s a lot of people on our board, and a lot of people on our staff and faculty that either played high school athletics, collegiate athletics, professional athletics,” Clemens said. “And we see the benefits of that for these young men and women. And so we sincerely wanted that to be a part of our offering.” 

WITH SOME 57 students in grades 9-12, Coeur du Christ will be a 1A school, the smallest of the six classifications of Idaho high school athletics. 

Clemens said he has roughly 15 or 16 kids coming out for football — plenty to play 8-man football. 

Three schools who will be 2A in other sports — Lakeside, Wallace and Clark Fork — successfully petitioned down in football, and will be joining Coeur du Christ in a four-team 8-man league in District 1. 

In basketball and volleyball, Coeur du Christ will join other 1A schools Mullan and Kootenai in a three-team North Star League. 

In football, Kootenai is in a co-op with 3A St. Maries. Mullan and St. Regis are continuing their co-op, but instead of playing in Idaho as in recent years, they will play as part of the Montana High School Association this year. 

Of the 57 students at Coeur du Christ, roughly two dozen are girls, Clemens said. 

He said there will be around 13-15 out for volleyball, and up to two dozen for boys basketball, which will have a junior varsity team as well. 

“We’ll add girls basketball as soon as we have the numbers to do so,” Clemens said, adding they “came close” this year. 

Natalie (Stewart) Kiefer, who starred at Coeur d’Alene High and at NAIA Carroll College in Helena, Mont., is in her third year as volleyball coach at Coeur du Christ. Her husband, Chris, will be in his first season as the Saints’ boys basketball coach. 

Clemens said joining the Mountain Christian League instead of the IHSAA was “a consideration ... but the path that we chose was to be able to join a league, and be able to compete for state.” 

The Mountain Christian League season ends with its league tournaments. Clemens said the goal of Coeur du Christ when it opened was to eventually become a full member of the IHSAA. 

The Saints will play their home football games this year on the artificial turf at the Marimn Health Coeur Center in Worley, some 28 miles from the Coeur du Christ campus. 

“One, it’s just an absolutely gorgeous facility,” said Clemens, whose “day job” is in medical sales. “I do a free camp every year down there, and just approached them — ‘Hey, would this be possible?’ We have three home games ... it’s not convenient as it would be to play someplace here. But it’s not a terrible drive for three home games — and a fourth when we play Lakeside at their place (Lakeside, which in the past played its home football games in Plummer, is also playing its home football games at the Marimn Center). We’ve developed a pretty good relationship with those folks down there.” 

The Saints’ volleyball and basketball teams practice at the Prairie Athletic Center in Post Falls, and the school rents gyms in the community for home matches and games.  

The long-term goal is for Coeur du Christ to build its own football field and gymnasium. 

HOW DID Clemens and his family end up in Coeur d’Alene? 

“We’re COVID transplants,” he said. 

His family was living in Walla Walla, and looking to relocate. Then when COVID-19 hit, that expedited the process. 

Kellen and Nicole have been married 19 years, and were familiar with the Coeur d’Alene area. They actually honeymooned in the area — Nicole has an aunt and uncle who live in Hayden. 

“I’ll betcha we’ve spent 14 of the last 19 Fourth of Julys up here in Hayden,” Kellen said. “So we were relatively familiar with the community, or at least the area, but hadn’t dove into the community, and the Catholic community specificially.” 

So just before COVID hit, Kellen and Nicole came up to Coeur d’Alene, went to church, met some of the folks here and decided to move. 

The goal of the five-person board at Coeur du Christ was to start an athletic program at the same time they opened the school. 

“And that’s a tough way to do it, to do it all at once,” said Kellen, 41. “A lot of the private schools we talked to were up and running for several years before introducing athletics. That’s a priority of the culture we’re trying to build. We had kids that were good athletes, and wanted to give them a chance to compete.” 

Kellen and Nicole have four children — one boy and three girls — and two of the kids will attend Coeur du Christ this fall. 

CLEMENS PASSED for a state-record 8,646 yards and 102 touchdowns at Burns High, and was Oregon Gatorade Player of the Year as a senior. 

At Oregon, he started his last three seasons, finishing his career with 7,555 passing yards and 61 touchdowns. 

He was drafted by the New York Jets in the second round of the 2006 draft. He played five years with the Jets, three with the St. Louis Rams and his final four seasons with the Chargers — three in San Diego, one in L.A. 

He threw for 4,053 yards and 16 TDs in the NFL, mostly as a backup quarterback.

“It was a heckuva journey,” Clemens said of college and the NFL. “That world opened a lot of doors for me that I would have never had a chance to walk through. Not all sunshine and rainbows; there was plenty of adversity that comes with it ... broken bones and tough losses and bad games, all of it ... but, it was a great run.” 

He said he enjoyed his time backing up Phillip Rivers with the Chargers, and the friendship that has evolved from that time. 

In 2008, Clemens backed up Brett Favre with the Jets. 

“Now that was awesome,” Clemens said. “He was just coming from Green Bay, and these vets, they have their sayings and their jokes ... and Brett was like in Year 18, so we had 18 years of his best stuff in one year. And it was awesome. It was fantastic.  

“We’d go hunt together, sit together on planes and on bus rides. And he was fantastic as far as a mentor, asking him what did he see, why he did this, why he made this check ... and then the stories ... he was one of a kind.” 

Clemens said he misses the “camaraderie and the brotherhood” that comes from playing football — something he hopes he can instill in the athletes at Coeur du Christ. 

"The key is, we are utilizing athletics as a key component in the development of the whole person,” he said. “I’ve seen changes in our athletes, both physically, spiritually, emotionally ... (and) you can definitely see where athletics is playing a vital role in that development. And I’m really pleased about that, and really excited about the future, in what it is that we are trying to do.” 

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 X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.