THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: ‘He walked toward the roar’: Boys basketball coach Jim Winger is retiring as athletic director, but he meant so much more to Lake City High

While athletes, coaches, administrators and others say they’re going to miss Jim Winger when he retires at the end of this month as longtime athletic director at Lake City High, a farmer in Conrad, Mont., is going to benefit.

One time a few years ago, Jim and his son JJ were pheasant hunting in Montana, when they happened upon the farmer’s land in the small town north of Great Falls, population 2,218 in 2020.

“We knocked on his door in the summer and asked if we could hunt on his land,” Jim recalled. “He kinda looked at me, and I gave him my card and told him what I did for a living and he looks at me and goes, ‘You’re a basketball coach?’

‘Yeah.’

“So we started talking …

“It’s very hard to get on private land. But we’ve become good friends over time — this has been probably four years — we actually stay at his house when we go over so we don’t have to stay in a hotel. He comes over for a game every winter, and takes my family out to dinner. So I plan on going over there quite a bit, and maybe plant some trees and shrubs and try to improve the habitat for hunting on his land. I’ve got keys to all the gates and stuff.

“And he’s become a really good friend. He watches our games religiously (via the NFHS Network). When I come in from a game, and we go into the coaches office before I go out to talk to the team, I have a text from him — “Great job” … “Good win.”

Winger, 57, has reached the Rule of 90 — when age plus years of experience in education in Idaho adds up to 90 — and is retiring as AD after 20 years, but he said he’s staying on as Lake City boys basketball coach for at least one more season — and perhaps longer.

“I think it’s been 47 years I’ve been in the school district as a student, student-teacher, teacher and administrator. I think that’s probably enough,” he said with a laugh, sitting in his office at Lake City High recently, reflecting on his career — to date.

Others might disagree.

“It’s a hard one for me; my biggest cheerleader and supporter in my principalship has been Jim Winger,” said Deanne Clifford, principal at Lake City for the past 12 years. “I just think he’s been one of the most powerful supporters of students in our region. This school is better because of Jim Winger. And I’ve been really grateful and honored to serve with him.”

Winger graduated from Coeur d’Alene High in 1984, graduated from Gonzaga University in 1989, and has been a teacher and/or administrator in the Coeur d’Alene School District ever since.

He was head boys basketball coach at Coeur d’Alene High for two seasons (1992-94), then moved to Lake City when that school opened in 1994.

He was the Timberwolves’ boys basketball coach from 1994-2003, then stepped down to concentrate on his new job as athletic director at Lake City, a role he assumed midway through the 2001-02 school year.

Winger returned as head boys basketball coach in 2008, and has been head coach and athletic director ever since.

“He mentored a lot of kids in a lot of different ways that didn’t have anything to do with sports,” said Harry Amend, superintendent of the Coeur d’Alene School District from 2002-08, and a longtime friend. “As an athletic director in a community like Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, you have to have some skills — you can’t just fall off a turnip truck and do a job like that. And Winger has ‘em. And he was not afraid; he walked toward the roar. If I needed to address an issue that was going on in Coeur d’Alene, in activities or athletics, I’d go right to him, and it would happen. As a superintendent and a boss, that’s incredibly important to have somebody like that on your team.

"I’m glad he’s going to be on the sidelines for at least another year, but they’re going to miss him at that school.”

In 25 seasons as a head boys basketball coach (23 of those at Lake City), Winger has coached more than 600 games, with an overall record of 384-222.

“I tell you what you’ve got to have is, a pretty good wife; make sure Teri gets some credit here too,” said John Brumley, former principal at Coeur d’Alene and then at Lake City. “Because with the hours it takes to be an athletic director is one thing, then you add coaching on top … “

“It’s kinda funny; he and I are kind of the old guys of the league,” said Craig Christensen, athletic director at Post Falls High since 2002. “It’s going to be weird not having him around; it’s always nice to bounce things off him, because he’s been there long enough to see the changes, and remember why we did some things in the past.”

“He is going to be missed,” said St. Maries High athletic director Todd Gilkey, who was AD at Coeur d’Alene from 2007-15. “He’s got such a wealth of knowledge, and he’s seen so many things. I’ve been doing this for a long time, but I’d still call Jim and ask advice. I’m going to miss picking his brain, and being able to vent to him, and him understanding why I’m venting. He’s going to (leave) a big void in our AD world in North Idaho, and across the state.”

“What I liked about Jim was, you knew his thoughts on every issue,” said Tim Cronnelly, who recently retired as Timberlake High athletic director. “He helped me out a ton … he’s been around here forever; he knows everybody — just (with) advice along the way, and hooking us up with games, dealing with issues.”

AND TO think that it almost didn’t happen in Coeur d’Alene.

After graduating from GU, Winger came back to Coeur d’Alene High to work as an assistant under legendary coach Donny Haynes.

But he didn’t have a teaching job.

Winger got a call from Corky Fazio, who was on the school board in Lapwai, asking him if he’d like to coach boys basketball at Lapwai High.

Then Dwight Church, legendary Lewiston baseball coach and athletic director, asked Winger if he’d be interested in coaching JV baseball in Lewiston (Winger was also Coeur d’Alene’s American Legion baseball coach at the time as well).

“But then I got lucky,” Winger said. “John House at Lakes Middle School hired me. I was lucky, right out of college, got a teaching job at Lakes. Worked there for three years, then Donny retired.”

That was in 1992. Haynes recommended Winger to succeed him as head coach. As the story goes, at each of Haynes’ previous stops in his Hall of Fame coaching career, when he left, the assistant got the job.

Except …

Coeur d’Alene’s administration offered the Viking position to a coach from a small school in Oregon, a coach with much more coaching experience than Winger had at the time.

“I was bummed,” Winger recalled.

He was contacted the next day by the athletic director at Priest River High, asking if he’d be interested in coaching the Spartan boys basketball team, which was expected to be very good the next year.

Winger said he was ready to go up to Priest River and meet the players and the parents and the AD, when the phone rang.

It was Brumley, then principal at Coeur d’Alene High.

The coach from Oregon had come up to Coeur d’Alene, met with the players and assistant coaches, saw the high school had just one gym, saw that all the Viking boys and girls basketball teams, and the wrestling teams, had to share that gym, and/or find practice time at the city’s elementary and middle school gyms … and decided not to take the job.

Winger met with Brumley and Doug Cresswell, then the Coeur d’Alene School District superintendent.

They asked if Winger would take the Coeur d’Alene boys basketball job.

“Yes.”

“Well, you weren’t our first choice.”

“I don’t care.”

Thirty years later …

“I feel like I was pretty darn lucky. It worked out great,” Winger said. “I almost went to two different places … I look back, so thankful John House gave me a job right out of college. And John Brumley, taking a chance on me at a young age. Harry Amend, I owe him so much, it’s unbelievable. He is a great man. I still have his rules on my wall over here … he’s still a dear friend. He taught me how to be a leader.”

Winger then turns and recites Harry’s 10 rules …

“Solve it, don’t win it … Preserve dignity, think people first … Treat everyone right … Don’t major in the minor … Don’t look for trouble … Don’t kick a sleeping Doberman … Speak in common language … Use power wisely …

“ … The 95/5 rule, which is a great one, I try to use this with coaches,” Winger said. “Five percent of your staff are screwing it up, deal with the five percent. Leave the 95 that are doing it right alone. It would be like a coach, and somebody’s late, running the whole team. That just irritates the hell out of me. Those kids were on time, why are they running because somebody else was selfish and didn’t get there on time? Run that kid ... That’s good leadership in my book.”

WHEN LAKE City High opened in 1994, folks had the choice of staying at Coeur d’Alene or going to the new school.

Brumley came to Lake City as its first principal. Several coaches, including Winger, also chose to come to the new school.

“I had three or four threatening messages on my answering machine … ‘You traitor’ … ‘You can’t go over there … ‘“ Winger recalled.

“To me, you’re in the same school district,” he said. “You’re in the same school district you went to school in, and you have a chance to do something at a brand-new school … how often do you get that opportunity? So to me, I wasn’t being disloyal … the principal that hired me came here, it was a new school, we get to do all this new stuff … what a thrill.

“And when we built this school, I can remember people saying, ‘What are you doing? That’s too far out there. That’s out in the middle of nowhere. That’s too far out of town.’ Now look at it.

“We were the only thing out here. When I was a kid, Hanley Avenue was my best pheasant hunting, in that ditch … “

Winger coached the T-Wolves for nine seasons, including a runner-up finish at state in 2002, shortly after he’d taken over as athletic director. He coached for one more year before settling in as AD, figuring he was likely done with coaching.

Kris Knowles, who played for Winger and later coached with him, succeeded him as Lake City coach. Two years later, Jim Thacker came on and coached the T-Wolves for three seasons.

“But five years later, Harry Amend and John Brumley called me in and asked me if I’d be interested in coaching again,” Winger said. “I really had not thought about it – not even a little bit.”

But Teri was good with it, and JJ was in middle school at the time — later to become a star 3-point shooter on his dad’s 2014 team that placed third at state. Their other child, Katie, played volleyball at Lake City.

Schools often don’t want their head coaches to also be administrators, in part because of the time demands of both jobs. But after some initial wrangling, Lake City was able to make it work for Winger to be coach and athletic director.

Winger said the dual role can work in the winter, because there are only three sports — boys and girls basketball, and wrestling. Too many sports in the fall and spring, he said.

Just as Lake City has had just two principals (Brumley, then Clifford) in its history, the T-Wolves have had just two ADs, with Winger succeeding Ron Adams.

“You spent a lot of time on the road, supervising games, fundraising, running golf tournaments, being part of auctions,” Winger said. The real hard part of this job, when I first started, my budget was $76,000 or so. Now (because of budget cuts), it’s 34. And we have more sports. So basically our budget pays for officials, and a few other things. The rest of it comes from fundraising, and gate receipts.”

Under Winger as AD, Lake City was one of the first schools to build an indoor hitting facility on campus, to be used by the baseball and softball teams — paid for through donations.

Years ago, there was talk of field turf on Lake City’s and Coeur d’Alene’s football fields. But the recession scuttled those plans … though Coeur d’Alene is currently fundraising to install field turf at Viking Stadium — something Winger said Lake City’s booster club has been made aware of.

FOR YEARS, athletic directors worried mostly about scheduling games, and making sure there were buses to transport their team to said games.

And at most schools, athletic directors are technically vice principals, with additional administrative duties concerning things that have nothing to do with athletics.

Then in recent years, as summer wildfires increased, and crept closer to North Idaho, ADs became amateur air quality experts, adjusting practices and moving games if the air quality was too bad.

And now …

“The COVID thing has been bizarre, almost a no-win situation for a couple of years,” Winger said. “You finally get through COVID, and then … looks like we’ve got to cancel this game because we don’t have bus drivers, and move it to here. But we can’t move it to there because we don’t have umpires on that day, so maybe we move it to there … and the other big problem — officials are huge — but the other big problem that’s going to come, and it’s already here, is we don’t have coaches applying for jobs. On a lot of jobs, especially assistant coaching jobs, you’ve got to go out and find somebody and say, ‘Would you like to apply for this?’ When I first started, for head coach of volleyball or basketball, you’d get 25 applicants. And you’d spend a half-afternoon screening them. Now we get, two?”

Ah yes, the COVID-19 pandemic. After it wiped out the spring sports season in 2020, there were still concerns about trying to safely return to athletics that fall.

“If it weren’t for Jim Winger, our whole region of student-athletes would not have competed during the pandemic,” Clifford said. “He nearly single-handedly convinced all of the superintendents and ADs and principals that the best thing for us to do is to continue to compete in a healthy, safe way. Not only does Jim advocate for kids and care deeply for kids in the Coeur d’Alene School District and at Lake City High School, he truly cares about kids across our region and obviously across our state.

“One of the most profound moments I’ve seen with Jim was on the sidelines of our first home game during the pandemic,” Clifford recalled. “The football players scored their first touchdown, and a bunch of them came over and handed the ball to Jim (standing in his usual spot on the sidelines, near the east end zone). They handed him that ball, and acknowledged that they knew, because of him, we were able to continue to compete.”

“When he was at Coeur d’Alene, and then at Lake City, he cared not only about those kids, but all kids across the region,” Gilkey said. “Jim did what was best for kids, and that sometimes went against the grain for other people. But you look at everything Jim stood for, and it was to benefit kids.

“When softball was coming into play (in the 1990s), Jim was a big advocate for getting the state to sanction fastpitch softball … because he saw what a big deal it was in Coeur d’Alene and the North Idaho area. He knew that was going to be good for girls.”

Before becoming principal, Clifford was vice principal at Lake City for three years, and worked with Winger on the administrative team when he was AD.

“His title was athletic director, but he had a lot of involvement in classroom discipline, student discipline … “ Amend said. “I really valued him as a leader in that school district. I know people ask for his advice from all over the area, including over in the Spokane area. He’s highly respected in Spokane. He’s going to be very, very hard to replace, because most people wouldn’t know all the stuff he does. Things just get done.”

“There’s a lot to be said for a guy when you can just say, he’s done the job well, and you didn’t have to worry about him,” Brumley said. “Jim always got the job done, not only well, but exceptionally well, with all the trimmings. Sometimes that’s important too.

“I just dropped him a note — he’s come a long way from that ninth-grade kid I knew at Lakes Junior High,” Brumley added.

JIM AND TERI have been married for 34 years. Teri, a 1988 GU grad, is an office manager/accountant for an aluminum casting company in Hayden, with a few more years before retirement.

“Thank goodness, as I am not sure she is ready for me to be around a lot more,” Jim said with a laugh. “Best thing to happen to me was meeting and marrying her. A saint.”

Once the summer basketball season is over (this weekend, Winger and his Lake City boys team is in Arizona, playing in a big AAU tournament in the Arizona Cardinals stadium in Glendale), he said they plan to travel — an avid horse racing fan, there’s a few tracks he’d like to visit.

After that, he hopes to find some part-time work to keep busy, and then be ready to coach the T-Wolves when boys basketball practice begins in November.

“My goal is to work for Chris Carper (who played for Winger at Lake City) at Paddy’s, and be a cook for him or something,” Winger said. “I will do something. I will not sit and look at the TV.”

As for a timetable for how long Winger plans to keep coaching?

“Next year for sure,” he said with a laugh, knowing he has a loaded team returning that should challenge for a state title next season. “I think right now, it would be more than that. We just had summer basketball workouts … and we had 40-some kids wanting to play for us, and 20 of them are freshmen, and they’re a pretty good group, and have great attitudes. I don’t know if there’ll be a Blake (Buchanan) or a Kolton (Mitchell; both future college players). But they’re just good, solid high school athletes.

“And next year’s eighth graders that are scheduled to come here are really good. And our little kid camp is going to be huge, so things are going fairly well right now. A lot of that is our players, and little kids love to watch them play. And we’re winning, and we’re fun to watch. One game I think we had 12 dunks.”

When Lake City, the top seed in 5A and coming off a runner-up finish at state in 2021, was stunned by No. 8 seed Centennial in the first round of state in March, “that took a lot out of me. That one stung,” Winger said. “But, we’ve got another chance at it, and we’ll see if we can get it done next year. But they’re a good group, fun to be around. I’ll take it year by year, but I can see going for a while.”

WHAT WILL Winger miss the most about not being AD?

“I like being in the school,” he said. “I like talking to people, just being around your staff, your students, your coaches, being part of a high school. I love the electricity of big games, and being part of the extracurricular part. It just becomes part of your fabric, part of your being. There will be a definite ‘Whoa, I’m not involved in this anymore.’”

He said he’s lucky to have a longtime assistant coach like Kelly Reed, and another veteran coach on his staff like John Astorquia.

He thinks back to when he got the Coeur d’Alene job, in 1992, and the realization he had no assistant coaches yet — and five teams to oversee in his program.

“When I started I was doing everything … I had to prove everyone wrong,” he said. “I’m really lucky. If I had another 30 years, I’d do it again. It’s an interesting voyage.”

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @CdAPressSports.