When Rann Haight was told the odds of becoming a syndicated cartoonist were about the same as playing in the NBA, he didn't break a sweat.

After all, the well-known architect had already done an eight-year stint in the league.

A northern California native, Haight was the lead designer on several high-profile buildings in Sacramento. When the owners of the then-Kansas City Kings began plans to move the NBA team to Sacramento, Haight was chosen to design a temporary stadium that could later be converted into offices.

"The owners told me the team's first game in Sacramento was in 15 months and asked me if I could do it. I said I could," Haight said. "On opening night in '85, the L.A. Clippers were in town and the paint was still wet."

His success with the temporary court earned him the opportunity to design the permanent home for the Sacramento Kings, which began as ARCO Arena and is now called Sleep Train Arena. For eight years, he had an office there.

Twenty years ago, Haight relocated to Coeur d'Alene, where he now primarily works designing homes. Much more recently, he decided to pursue a dream he has had since he graduated from college - becoming a newspaper cartoonist.

"Throughout my career as an architect I just happened to be in the right place at the right time," Haight said. "This is the first time I decided I'm going to make it happen for myself."

Inspiration for his first series of cartoons came when his wife, Samm, purchased her first smartphone. Samm works in human resources, Haight said, and downloaded an application called "National Day Calendar" as a way to keep the people she works with happy and laughing.

One morning, the couple woke up to an alert on Samm's phone. When Haight asked her what it was, she responded, "Did you know today was National Paint Your Nails Day?"

"I'm looking at her going, 'I'm not prepared. Why didn't you tell me that earlier because if I paint my toes now, they'll still be wet by the time I need to leave for work,'" Haight said. "Then I told her that we really need to talk about what tomorrow is."

Haight looked up what the next 30 days were on a national database and began illustrating those days for a cartoon he called "Tomorrow is..." It began running on page A2 of the Coeur d'Alene Press on March 31. Haight, who has developed a strong local following for the family Christmas cards he's been drawing for years, insisted that in the early going at least, his name not be associated with Tomorrow is... He wanted the artwork to stand on its own.

That was OK with Mike Patrick, managing editor of The Press.

"I've been a big fan of Rann's work since I first saw one of his Christmas cards 12 or 13 years ago," Patrick said. "When he floated the idea of 'Tomorrow is...' I could hardly wait to get started. I felt like we were giving readers a little jolt of Rockwell with their morning coffee - a quick trip back to simpler and sometimes better days."

For the first few months his cartoon runs, Haight is using the pseudonym "R.U.S.S.," which stands for "Rann's ultra-secret signature." His goal is to become syndicated and Haight said that even if only one other newspaper pays him $4 per illustration, he'll feel like he made it.

"I think the stuff I've got is as good as anything else in the paper now," Haight said. "What's the worst that can happen - they say 'No?'"

"No" is a word cartoonist Dana Simpson heard all too often during a decade-long quest to become a syndicated cartoonist. Hers is a path that Haight and many other prospective syndicated cartoonists could actually eye with envy.

A Washington native, Simpson drew her first comic strip, called "Boo," when she was 5 years old. By the time she was 11, Simpson said, she was developing a series of strips similar to the ones she saw in the newspaper.

"It was always an art form I was drawn to," Simpson told The Press in a recent phone interview. "I started approaching it as a career possibility when I was 19 and in college. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself and pretty much every option, other than drawing what I wanted to draw, seemed so depressing."

When she first began, Simpson said she had unrealistic expectations about entering the field. She had read an article about "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau being discovered during his freshman year at Yale, and assumed it could happen the same way for her.

"But my road was not as simple as that," Simpson said. "I learned quickly that it's extremely rare for it to happen that way."

For the next decade, Simpson drew the comic "Ozy and Millie" for an Internet audience and hoped that she would garner enough attention to make the big leagues.

"Every few months I would go Xerox a bunch of my strips, add a cover letter, and send it off to the syndicates," Simpson said. "I kept getting rejected. I didn't worry about it too much at first because all writers have those rejection stories."

Her break finally came in 2009, when she beat out more than 5,000 cartoonists and won the "Comic Strip Superstar Contest." Winning the contest earned her a syndication development contract, a book contract, and an online syndication contract.

"Winning that was a pivotal moment," Simpson said.

On March 30, Simpson's comic "Phoebe and Her Unicorn" was printed in 110 national newspapers. It's now a daily staple in The Press.

"She is the exception rather than the norm," said David Mace, Universal UClick associate vice president of sales.

The company initially agreed to give Simpson only a development deal - not because of Simpson, but because of market conditions.

"At that time the newspaper business was under siege and there was not a single paper in the country adding pages for comics," Mace said. "We agreed to a development deal because that allows us and the creator to sort of vet the process and fine-tune it. So when it's go time, they can meet what amounts to a pretty large, highly creative, task."

The process of a development deal is rigorous. Many who earn the rare privilege of making it that far find themselves unable to handle the pressure.

"We're dealing with creative types and some creative types don't necessarily have a real appreciation for criticism," Mace said. "This is their life and this is their work and here's this syndication firm with a little bit of an opinion on it."

Mace told The Press his syndicate turns down thousands of artists every year and that the professional sports analogy is appropriate when describing how rare it is to become a syndicated cartoonist.

"We literally have a 100-yard playing field too in that we've got a fixed amount of space where newspapers run cartoons," Mace said. "If we add something new, something else has to go."

Patrick said he's pulling for Haight to make the syndicated big leagues, and Mace has already put some samples of "Tomorrow is..." in front of Universal UClick editors.

"Rann's definitely got the talent and the temperament," Patrick said. "I'd be mighty proud if The Press became the syndicated launching pad for Rann and 'Tomorrow is...'

"And if we fall short? Then hopefully I'll still be on his Christmas card mailing list."