Fresh blood on the bench

Five of Lake County’s six prep girls basketball teams have new head coaches this year.

You can count them: Polson, Two Eagle River, Ronan, Mission and Arlee’s sidelines will all be sporting new faces when their girls take the court.

Charlo’s Bret Thompson, entering his 28th season, is the only returning skipper.

Several of the faces aren’t exactly new, though. They’re just entering new positions. Shelly Buhr has been an assistant coach at Ronan for years. Jay Krantz coached Polson’s boys years ago before moving to the girls side of the spectrum to coach the 8th grade team. Bill Stockton was an assistant for Arlee’s boys in the past.

“I don’t know if there’s a reason why things have changed so much,” Buhr said. “I think it was just a year where a lot of things happened.”

And she’s right.

Her predecessor, Clayton Curley, took the head football job at Corvallis. Long-time coaches Les Rice (Mission) and Richard Bachmeier (Arlee) decided to hang up the clipboard and whistle, and Polson’s Randy Kelley, with his kids out of school, did the same.

“Coaching, especially head coaching, takes a toll on you,” said Krantz, who knows a thing or two about it. The Ronan native coached Noxon’s girls for 15 years before moving back to the Mission Valley.

Stockton and first-year Mission coach Hayley Carr will be replacing local legends.

“Whenever you replace a coach that has that kind of record and state championships, there’s some pressure,” Stockton said. “I tried to play as many summer games as I could so the girls would know me and know what to expect.”

Carr, a 2007 graduate of Charlo who is student-teaching this semester at Mission, thinks fresh blood is a good omen for the livelihood of athletics around the valley.

“I’m guessing that all of us had some great experiences from coaches … and just want to share their experiences,” she said. “The valley is a great place to be a part of a sport. I think when the opportunity arises, you’ve got to jump on it.”

So when it comes to filling the shoes of a veteran coach like Rice, she’s not sweating bullets.

“There’s always a challenge when there’s turnover, especially when somebody has been coaching as long as Les had,” Carr said. “But the girls are all excited about basketball, so that’s good.”

The Mission girls aren’t the only ones excited about basketball.

After all, I’m relatively new to the Mission Valley, too, so I’ll feel right at home with the new faces on the bench.