The Front Row with MARK NELKE April 12, 2012

In 1978, Dave Fealko took the job as head coach of the Coeur d’Alene High girls basketball team, figuring it would be a way to stay in the game until the job he really wanted — boys basketball coach — came open.

That never happened, but sometimes things have a way of working out anyway.

Five state championships later — four at Coeur d’Alene, and one at Lake City when a second high school opened in the city — and Fealko had established himself as one of the most decorated girls basketball coaches in Idaho, and elevated the level of basketball in the city to among the best in the state.

“I enjoyed the girls so much, I just stuck around for a while,” said Fealko, who on Saturday night will be among five people inducted into the Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame, at the North Idaho Sports Banquet at the Best Western Coeur d’Alene Inn. “It worked out for me to stay where I was.”

In 18 seasons as a girls basketball coach — 16 at Coeur d’Alene, two at Lake City — Fealko compiled a career record of 320-125 (.719), including 283-115 at Coeur d’Alene. He took 12 teams to state, winning state titles in 1984, ’91, ’93 and ’94 at Coeur d’Alene, and 1995 at Lake City. He also had one state runner-up, two third-place finishes and one consolation title at Coeur d’Alene.

AFTER HELPING Mullan High win a state boys basketball title in 1965 (playing with his cousins, Kirby and Art Krulitz, and coached by Norm Walker), Fealko walked on at Idaho, and played one year on the freshman team.

After graduating in 1970, he landed a job at Palouse (Wash.) High, and coached boys basketball for three seasons before getting a teaching job in Coeur d’Alene. He coached two years at the Mid-High and two years at Lakes Middle School, then was named Viking girls coach in ’78.

Back in those days, Fealko was also refereeing high school football and high school boys and girls basketball.

“Most officials, when they got their schedules they’d say, ‘Oh, god, there’s a girls game,’” he said. “You knew you were going to go be involved in a 32-30 game with a bunch of jump balls and a whole lot of violations....that was my feeling from the officiating standpoint.”

The Vikings had had a girls program for a few years — and had been to state — before Fealko took over.

“I didn’t look at it as a game of females in a male game,” Fealko said. “I looked at it as a game of basketball; you don’t need to change things, why don’t girls play the game like boys do?

“So my stress was on fundamentals. I stressed presses and girls shooting jump shots. A lot of people said ‘Oh, they’re not strong enough, blah, blah ...’”

Turns out they were, and the rest is history.

“And once I got involved in the girls, I enjoyed coaching the girls a lot more than the boys, really,” said Fealko, who was a math teacher. “They listened, they showed more emotion when they were playing, and they didn’t have the big egos back then, and it was just much more rewarding.”

WHEN FEALKO took over, Sandpoint was a girls basketball power in North Idaho, with many of the same athletes from its powerhouse volleyball program. Fealko remembers telling Coeur d’Alene’s volleyball coach that “one of us has got to start beating them,” and finally the Viking girls basketball program broke through in the 1982-83 season, the first year Fealko took them to state.

The following year, Coeur d’Alene beat Sandpoint in that epic 1984 state title game before an overflow crowd at Viking Gym, and Coeur d’Alene has been among the top girls basketball teams in the North ever since.

“I always said we’ve just got to get these girls to state one time,” Fealko said. “They got a feel for what it was like, and that was pretty much a start, and we were pretty much a fixture going from then on.”

FEALKO STILL reffed basketball for a year or two after taking over the Viking girls program — he remembers rushing from a girls practice to ref a high school boys game — before giving up officiating because of the time constraints of his coaching job.

He still reffed football, off and on, for a total of some 15 years.

He was inducted into the North Idaho Officials Hall of Fame, making him one of the few people in a hall of fame as a coach and an official.

He likes to refer to accomplishing the “sporting trifecta” — playing on a state championship team, refereed in a state championship game, and coached a state championship team.

He last coached in the 1998-99 season, and retired from teaching in 2005. But Fealko, now 65, can still often be seen at area high school basketball games.

Back in the day, Fealko’s teams were also known for their suffocating full-court press, one he learned from watching UCLA’s teams under coach John Wooden.

Girls handle the ball much better these days, so perhaps his press wouldn’t be as effective these days, it was suggested.

“Yeah, but they never faced our press,” Fealko said. “I tell you, we’d have those guards in your face, and they may beat you for a little bit, but if you go for it for 32 minutes, eventually ... you get nothing for a while, then you run off 10 in a row.”

“Kids are stronger and faster and their skills are better, but we had some pretty skilled players when I was coaching too,” he said. “Any of my teams back then would hold their own against any of the good ones around here now.”

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached by phone at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.