THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: ‘I just feel very grateful’ — Jim Winger’s road to the Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame includes a bus ride, some chances taken, a perfect season ... and a supportive wife
It was on a bus ride home, sometime in the early 1990s, after a tough loss to Kellogg.
Near the front of the bus was Donny Haynes, then the Coeur d’Alene High head boys basketball coach.
Seated near him was a young Jim Winger, then the Vikings’ sophomore coach.
Seated near him was Teri Winger, Jim’s young wife, who kept the scorebook during Coeur d’Alene varsity boys games.
Donny turned to Jim.
“Hey, I don’t know how much longer I’m going to do this ... maybe it’s time to retire, and move on,” Donny said. “And when I do, I’m going to recommend you to get the job.”
Jim's response was to remind the veteran coach that he was still only in his mid-20s.
“Yeah, but in this day and age, if you’re going to be a head coach, I would recommend you because your wife will let you be a head coach,” Donny said.
“What does that mean?” Jim replied.
“She’s on the bus right now, keeping scorebook,” the veteran coach said. “Right now, it’s open gyms, it’s almost year-round, and it’s going to be worse. And if you’re going to do it right, you’re going to be doing it all the time, and it’s not the best world for a young wife.”
Interesting, Jim thought, not putting a lot of thought into it at the time.
But now ...
“He was right,” Jim said, “because especially when you start having kids, and you’re scouting, summer league games, fall league games, open gym, going to middle school games ..."
AS IT turned out, Donny Haynes was indeed right.
Winger succeeded Haynes as Coeur d’Alene High boys coach, guiding the Vikings for two seasons before moving to Lake City to start the boys basketball program there when that school opened in 1994.
He coached Lake City for 24 seasons over two stints. In his final season in 2022-23, guiding what would be considered one of the greatest teams in Idaho history, the Timberwolves finished 26-0 and brought home the program’s first state championship. Counting his two seasons at Coeur d’Alene, his overall record was 410-222.
He was athletic director at Lake City for 19 years (2003-22), serving in the dual role of head coach and AD for 14 of those years.
This coming weekend, Jim Winger will be inducted into the Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame — at the hall of fame banquet on Friday night, and recognized at the North Idaho Sports Banquet on Saturday, both at The Coeur d’Alene Resort.
Just as noteworthy, Jim and Teri Winger will celebrate their 37th wedding anniversary this year.
"When we first got married, I wasn’t sure that’s where we were headed,” Teri recalled of the coach/wife of a coach lifestyle. “But when he got the Legion job, and he got the job at Coeur d’Alene ... OK, that’s where we’re headed ... which was fine, because I had been a sports fanatic forever. I was fully invested in that.”
“It’s worked out great.”
ONE REASON it worked out great — the former Teri Briggs also came from a sports background.
Teri played slowpitch softball growing up, going to national tournaments. She was part of Coeur d’Alene High’s early “state” slowpitch championship teams.
At Gonzaga, her work-study job was keeping track of minutes played at the Zags’ men’s basketball home games — no easy feat, as coach Dan Fitzgerald often liked to sub in four players at a time.
“It was a nightmare,” Teri recalled. “But I loved that job; it was a great work-study job.”
Teri worked for Coeur d’Alene parks and rec, keeping book for softball and baseball games, and men’s basketball games.
When their son JJ started playing baseball, mom kept book at Little League games.
So she was well-prepared for the life of a coach’s wife.
“I kinda knew the ins and outs of that, which was nice,” Teri said. “Some ladies come in, and they don’t know anything about what their husband’s doing.
“If he wanted my opinion, which wasn’t too often, I would offer my two cents ... most of the time he knew what he was doing.”
JIM WINGER graduated from Coeur d’Alene High in 1984. He pitched for two years at North Idaho College, then two more at Gonzaga.
Prior to his longtime stints as boys basketball coach and athletic director, Winger coached some freshman football at Coeur d’Alene and Lake City, coached American Legion baseball and volunteered as a high school baseball assistant, and also coached softball and golf.
For a time in his younger days, he was an accomplished baseball umpire.
Jim said being a North Idaho native makes this honor even more meaningful, as he’s joining a hall of fame where “a lot of these people are my idols,” he said.
He remembers being a little kid (along with his brother, Mike) in a basketball camp at North Idaho College run by NIC coach Rolly Williams and Coeur d’Alene High coach Dean Lundblad in the late 1970s.
“I just feel very grateful,” Winger said of the hall of fame honor. “To my parents, for being so supportive, and athletic-minded people. Coeur d’Alene High was awesome to me, with the coaches, coach Lundblad and coach (Ted) Page, ... great experience at North Idaho College with coach (Jack) Bloxom and coach (Jim) Headley, and off to Gonzaga for a couple of years.
“Fortunate to get the head coaching job (at Coeur d’Alene High) at 26, fortunate for John House to hire me, and John Brumley and Ron Adams to give me a chance as a young coach. To be able to go to Lake City ... if I could do it all over again, I’d do it. It’s just been awesome; I just feel so grateful and fortunate.”
Winger readily admits that with all the talent on his final team at Lake City — which included two Division 1 basketball players, one D-I football player and two others who went on to play basketball in college — yeah, the T-Wolves should have won a state title.
But, sports happens. You still have to make the necessary moves to get the job done.
“When I look back at that year, the biggest thing we did was simplify it,” Winger said. “When I first started, trying to do everything, make sure we had all of these set plays, all of these types of defenses ... sometimes, there is a part of coaching where you get the hell out of their way. If you sit there with this type of team, and put them in a situation that isn’t comfortable for them, things can backfire on you.
“Especially with what happened the year before (a shocking first-round loss at state). The whole thing was to have fun, loosen up the mood, and realize what an opportunity you have, and what a unique situation you had of talent on this team ... you’ve got to enjoy it, and have fun together.”
AFTER WINGER resigned as athletic director, he ended up working half-time at the school the following year — his final year as coach.
He is wrapping up his second year of full retirement.
“I really enjoy retirement,” Winger said. “John House has a great line — ‘I really enjoyed and loved what I did, and I really enjoy and love that I don’t do it anymore.’”
Retirement includes traveling and bird hunting, and walks around his neighborhood.
Of course, he’s not totally removed from Lake City. This school year and last, he has been mowing the sports fields in the summer and fall.
“I have to tell you; that’s the greatest job,” Winger said. “You wake up, go from 30 years of people in your ear, and phone ringing off the hook ... you pull into the parking lot, open the door, see your mower, and go, ‘Well, let’s see, I think I’ll mow the football field THIS way today.’ You put your little noise-canceling headphones on, and off you go ... it’s awesome.”
JIM AND TERI went to Borah Elementary School together, and they were in the same sixth-grade class at Borah.
Their families lived on opposite sides of Best Ave., the dividing line, so in seventh grade Jim then went to Lakes, and Teri to Canfield.
They went to high school together at Coeur d’Alene.
“I had a crush on him in sixth grade,” Teri recalled.
They kept in touch through the years, but it wasn’t until Jim was finishing up at NIC that he asked Teri on a date.
“And it kinda snowballed from there,” Teri recalled.
Which begs the question ... what took so long?
“Too shy and dumb,” Jim says now.
“She is more than a saint,” Jim said of his wife, and mother of their two children, Katie and JJ. “That worked out really well.”
Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 1205, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.
Courtesy photo Jim Winger and his wife, Teri.
Courtesy photo Jim and Teri Winger, on their wedding day in 1988.