COEUR d’ALENE — You can call him Bobcat Ben, but don’t call him a traitor.

When Kootenai County Sheriff Ben Wolfinger showed up at Thursday’s fundraising luncheon for Tesh, Inc., a local nonprofit that helps people with disabilities reach their full potential, he was sporting a snazzy but out of place T-shirt bearing bobcat paw prints.

Bobcat Ben had some ‘splainin’ to do.

So he did.

It seems that when the Madison High School Bobcats hosted Lake City High School in this year’s football season opener, Sheriff Ben and his Madison County counterpart, Sheriff Rick Henry, made a bet: Whoever’s team loses, that sheriff must wear the winning team’s T-shirt.

At a public event.

In front of lots of people.

As Ben’s T-shirt proclaimed to a packed house at the Tesh luncheon, Madison edged Lake City 21-19 after the Bobcats scored in the final seconds of a game Lake City had almost certainly wrapped up.

Bad outcome.

Good sport.