A little gratitude every day
Coeur d'Alene Press | UPDATED 9 years, 6 months AGO
Mark “Coach” Halverson sat with a small group of men and asked them to pray for Jeff Hinz.
Halverson, a former football coach and all-around good guy who sells cars for Parker Toyota, is among the legion of North Idahoans who have been rooting fervently for the popular Post Falls High football coach.
Halverson marveled at the courage of Hinz battling cancer for two and a half years with determination and without blame. He admired Hinz as a father, saying Hinz reared his stepchildren like they were his own flesh and blood. And of course, he lauded the way the man coached football — not just for his acumen on the practice field and sidelines, but for the way Hinz instilled in his players passion for the greater games in life.
Of course, Halverson also reminded his listeners of the magnetism of Jeff Hinz; his ability to forge friendships where adversarial relationships usually reside. He pointed out that during this newspaper’s NFL All-Star Pigskin Prognosticators contest last season, Hinz’s “rival” coaches at Coeur d’Alene and Lake City high schools both targeted their charitable winnings to Hinz’s cancer fight.
Halverson was holding informal court just days after hundreds of Post Falls residents gathered under candlelight to honor and lament the loss of two high school students taken before their time. Among the multitude of comments posted on social media was a broad chorus of one theme: What an extraordinary place to live, where people care for one another this much.
We’ve said it many times before and we’ll say it again.
Please do not take for granted your greatest asset: your health.
Be grateful for every day you walk North Idaho streets and breathe North Idaho air. Our community isn’t perfect, but there simply aren’t many places that can compare. And why is that? Our gorgeous mountains? Our pristine lakes and rivers? Four splendid seasons?
Sorry, no.
It’s the people. People like Coach Hinz. Like Mark Halverson. Like the 650 or so men, women and children who wept together last week while they clung tightly to one another, bathed in tragic candlelight.
People like you.