THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: 'He put his mark on it right away’: Mike McLean winding down his 18-year career as Post Falls High boys basketball coach

Family, farming and coaching. 

Perhaps in that order. 

In sports circles, Post Falls High boys basketball coach Mike McLean is regarded as one of the top coaches in the area. 

But his wife, Jessica, and sons Blake, Caden and Trenton, are equally important. 

As is the McLean Cattle Company, co-owned by Mike and Jessica. 

It’s one reason the 1995 Post Falls High grad got into the teaching/coaching business in the first place. 

“I’ve always valued my own time, and teaching gives you that time,” McLean said. “I wanted to have a family, and being a teacher is great because I have the same schedule as my kids growing up. To me, spending time with my family, and sharing experiences with my kids and my wife was always more important than chasing the almighty dollar.” 

That explains his 18 seasons as head coach of the Post Falls High boys basketball team. A stint that has produced 11 trips to state, two state championships, and an 288-151 overall record, including a 14-6 record this season, 6-1 in the Inland Empire League. 

That also explains why, at still a youngish 48, this is his final season as Trojans coach. The third of his three sons — who all played for him — is graduating this year, and it’s time for even more attention to be paid to the family and farming part of the triangle. 

“I’m giving this up because I want to, but also ... no one’s been a bigger influence on my coaching career than Jessica,” McLean said. “She has had to sacrifice, like all coaches’ wives do, so much, basically from November to March, even when we’re out doing non-basketball things, me daydreaming about something else. ... It’s my time to be more for her.” 

“I think he’s one of the best coaches in the Pacific Northwest,” longtime Post Falls athletic director Craig Christensen said. “How we never lost him to a college position is amazing.” 

Part of it was the family ranch and cattle business. 

“That’s probably saved us from losing him, because he would have been successful wherever he went,” Christensen said. 

“Family’s so important to him,” said Brian Carlson, who has been on McLean’s coaching staff for all 18 seasons at Post Falls. “When we first started going to state, he wanted our families on the bus. I don’t think most teams travel that way. That’s made it so nice for me as my daughter grows up. I remember in 2012 or ‘13 my wife was pregnant, and we had to stop the bus a couple times so she could walk. 

“Mike’s style of coaching is very, very intense, and when the kids get to see him be a dad or a husband ... he’s just an ordinary guy. But when he steps between the lines, he’s super intense.” 

MIKE McLEAN graduated from Post Falls High in 1995, then played basketball at NAIA Eastern Oregon University in La Grande, graduating in 2000. 

He was an assistant under Post Falls boys basketball coach Dave Stockwell for one season.  

Then he was hired as junior varsity boys coach at Coeur d’Alene High, working with head coach Larry Bieber and assistant John Astorquia. He coached four years under the next head coach, Kent Leiss — the final two as varsity assistant. 

He also coached football for a few seasons at Coeur d’Alene, on the staff of head coach Shawn Amos. 

“I learned a ton from Shawn,” Mike said. “Even though it was football, I picked up some ideas. I was very fortunate to be part of Amos’ staff when we started to turn that tide ... working in the offseason ... building relationships with kids, pushing kids ... and just the camaraderie with the coaching staff.  

“I learned a lot from those guys — coaching's important, but the relationship with kids and coaching staff ... I took some of those ideas and brought them with me.” 

McLean also coached football for a year at Post Falls under Jerry Lee, learned the value of individual work from Leiss, and enjoyed sitting in the bleachers with Astorquia, talking basketball and picking the longtime coach’s brain. 

In 2007, he was hired as head boys basketball coach at Post Falls High. 

“I’m not going to lie to you, I took some hits from people,” Christensen said of hiring McLean. “Everybody wants to hire a name — an ex-college coach here, or varsity coach there. I took a few hits for hiring a JV coach at Coeur d’Alene — but the committee thought he was the best pick, and I thought he was the best pick.” 

McLean didn’t take long making Post Falls one of the top basketball programs in the state, in the state’s largest classification. 

After going 8-14 his first season, the Trojans went to state 11 times in 12 years. They reached the state title game four times, winning in 2010 and 2015. Post Falls also won a consolation title in 2011 and a third-place trophy in 2019. 

“He put his mark on it right away,” Christensen said of the program. “Everybody he worked for was high on him. You know when you talk to people ... this guy’s going to be good.” 

ROUGHLY HALF the time he’s coached at Post Falls, Mike McLean has coached one of his sons. 

Blake graduated in 2016, Caden in 2021 and Trenton will graduate this year. 

“It would have been easier for me if they were all the same kind of player and kid,” Mike said. “All three of our boys were so different, their skill sets and styles were different. It has been at times the most challenging part of my job, coaching your own kids, because I’ve never given them an inch. They have to earn it and prove it. It would be a complete disservice to them, with me as the head coach, to treat them any different than anyone else. In fact, I’ve always held them to a higher standard.   

“Trenton is probably the most like me, in a way. He burns kinda hot. Trenton’s the kind of player, his teammates love him, and I’m not sure his opponents love him at all. That’s the way I played, and probably the way I coach.” 

The transition to coach at practice to dad after practice took a few years while coaching his sons. 

“I don’t bring it home,” Mike McLean says now. “Blake took the brunt of that. When I got home, I wasn’t coach, but over-the-top dad. 

“With Caden, I did a better job of being coach, and then dad at home. With Trenton, when he’s bringing all his intensity, I turn into dad, I’m parenting him and not coaching him.  

“I think I’ve gotten better,” Mike said. “I’m sure each of them think they’re the victim, but I’ve tried to be better. I’ve never coached just for my kids, but it’s been extremely cool to experience the ups and the downs, even though the downs are really hard. Those are memories I’ll never forget.” 

CARLSON WAS a friend of Mike’s younger brother, Jeremy, when both attended North Idaho College, so he knew Mike. A high school basketball official for some 15 years, Brian reffed some games when Mike coached with Leiss at Coeur d’Alene. 

A Kellogg High grad, Carlson was getting lunch in Pinehurst when McLean called and offered him a job coaching the Post Falls freshmen boys. Carlson coached the freshmen for a few years, then moved up to the JV team, then a few years ago became McLean’s varsity assistant. 

“As much as he looks like that tough guy on the outside, he is so receptive to his assistant coaches,” said Carlson, in his 20th year as a teacher at Post Falls Middle School. “I think that’s a huge part of his success, too — he trusts the people around him. He always listens to what the other coaches have to say. It makes you feel wanted, as an assistant coach." 

McLean’s coaching was not limited to the basketball court. Carlson recalls the day of the 2010 state title game, hours before Post Falls would win McLean’s first state title at the school, McLean got wind that some of the players were “screwing around” in the elevator at the hotel that morning. 

“He ran them in the parking lot in the pouring rain before the game,” Carlson recalled. “We were dodging cars ... “ 

In 2015, another season that would end with a state title, Post Falls played a regular-season game in Moscow, and stopped off at a grocery store in Moscow for something to eat before the game.  

Word got back to McLean that some freshmen were bouncing some bouncy balls in the store. 

“We got up to the school, and I bet Mike had all the kids doing lunges up and down the street — because the freshmen were throwing bouncy balls.” Carlson remembered. 

“That was really important; he did not want his program to embarrass the community of Post Falls,” Carlson said. “The community means a lot, and the community has been so important to him.” 

Back to the basketball court ... 

“Part of what makes Mike an amazing high school coach, too, is he adapts his offenses to his kids,” Carlson said. “When we won the 2010 state title, the next year Mike revamped his whole offense. What we ran in 2010 is totally different than what we’re running today. Mike is amazing at tailoring offenses to his kids ... some coaches teach it holistically, Mike breaks it down phenomenally ... the way he teaches offense is simply remarkable, honestly.” 

IT WAS a few years ago, even before Trenton began high school and eventually made the varsity as a sophomore, that Mike McLean made it publicly known — when Trenton graduated, Mike was done coaching. 

So Christensen has known for years that he was going to have to hire a new head boys basketball coach for the 2025-26 season. 

“I hate to lose him, but I get it ... the coaching world is changing,” Christensen said. “I think one of his goals is to be an administrator ... he’d be a great athletic director, I know that much. 

“I feel very blessed that we had him as many years as we did. He’s one of my top hires in my tenure here.”

What will Mike McLean do next year? 

Mike and Jessica plan to expand their cattle business on the Rathdrum Prairie, a business which sells beef to private customers, mostly through word of mouth. 

“It’s the new change,” he said. “How do I build the perfect steak? How do I genetically make the best product for our customers? It’s not that much different than coaching; the strategy ... the competitiveness there is ... how perfect of a steak can I grow?” 

A few years ago, shortly after McLean had guided Post Falls to its second state title, he received an offer from a college in the region — come to our school as an assistant, and eventually become head coach. 

He thought about the time he sat in a coffee shop in Post Falls with Jeff Hironaka and Ken Bone, both longtime college basketball coaches.  

The message — if you want to coach in college, get used to moving around. 

McLean turned down the college offer. 

“I really, really want to spend time with my wife and my kids, and college coaching, that’s a really hard job,” McLean said. “You miss a lot of time with your family. And it’s not getting easier, because now you have to re-recruit your own kids, and you have to recruit kids in general. 

“It was very flattering,” he said of the offer. But he wouldn’t be able to help much on the ranch while he was off coaching. 

“It wouldn’t have been fair to my family,” he said. “Why would I want to move my kids from Post Falls, where they’ve gotten to play in front of their grandparents, and aunts and uncles ... to me, it was too selfish of a move to make. That would have been all about Mike, and not about Jessica and Blake and Caden and Trenton.” 

Mike is department head for P.E. and health at Post Falls High, with some nine years before hitting the Rule of 90 for retirement.  

Nearly two decades later, what will Mike McLean miss the most about coaching high school boys basketball at Post Falls? 

"Without a doubt I’m going to miss ... fourth quarters against Coeur d’Alene, against Lake City, all hell breaking loose, band’s rocking, timeout, it’s getting intense,” he said. “We’ve got to get a basket, what are we going to do? How are we going to stop this team? Just being in that huddle with high school boys, just being able to will them into something ... just impose your will onto your players so they impose their will onto their opponents.  

“That’s what I’m going to miss, and it’s not even close.” 

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. 

    MARK NELKE/Press Post Falls High assistant boys basketball coach Brian Carlson, seated at left, has been on Mike McLean's staff for each of his 18 seasons as head coach at Post Falls.