While sitting at home watching Snowageddon happen outside – I can’t and won’t take credit for that word – I had a chance to do something I haven’t done in a while … read stories. And while there was a lot of disappointment in some of them, there are others that rocked and informed.
Let’s start with the bad … and when I mean bad, I mean bumming … which comes from my old stomping grounds in Colorado, where the high school football world was rocked a bit by two events – Valor Christian was denied entry into a league, and has been forced to go independent, and Mullen High School fired longtime head football coach Dave Logan.
Apparently, both stories have to do with recruiting, and apparently Logan – a former NFL wide receiver and current Denver Broncos play-by-play man – was not named in the school’s report filed with the Colorado High School Activities Association.
There are two reasons I bring this stuff up … for one, being a former coach who was not a teacher at the school, it’s amazing that – according to other reports – Logan was let go so that Mullen could have a faculty member be the head coach, so that they were on campus all of the time, and hopefully keep an eye on things. Whatever happened to the best person for the job? I do get it, but still … something is amiss.
Also, it brings up the whole Private vs. Public school debate in high school sports. Which I could probably do a column on by itself, but thankfully, I haven’t had a reason to go on that tangent … yet. However, the fact that a school, no matter what its reputation is (and Valor has quite a reputation in Colorado for getting good athletes to go there, but also good students who don’t play sports.) is being forced to go independent in all sports is eye-opening.
Good thing we don’t have that stuff happening in Montana … eh?
What is good here? Well, of course, it is basketball season … and there were coaching changes around the state as well – including in Bigfork, as the Vikes head man last season, Paul LaMott, moved on to be on the bench as an assistant for a NCAA program. However, I would consider the Vikings to be a contender for another run at the Class B Boys title. Head coach Kurt Paulson has them on a roll, and their only losses came to Class A schools Columbia Falls and Stevensville by a combined nine points.
Meanwhile, here in the Missoula area, there’s a redhead that can shoot the lights out in a gym, pass the ball – and is taking his skills to Utah State next season. Riley Bradshaw is leading the charge for the Corvallis Blue Devils as they aim for another run at a Class A boys basketball state tournament berth. Bradshaw has not missed a state tournament yet.
Tiffany Kittelson earned All-Tournament Team honors in last season's Class C Girls State Basketball Tournament (photo by Conor Ballantyne)
Staying with hoops, there’s a big clash on Friday (provided Snowageddon doesn’t wipe it out) between a pair of 2-C girls basketball foes in Fairview and Culbertson. The Warriors are led by senior guard Tiffany Kittelson, an all-state and Class C Girls Basketball State All-Tournament Team honoree who is averaging about 15 points per game this season. Kittleson has company in helping with the scoring load, but they face a Cowgirls squad which is balanced and will look to take advantage of their size advantage.
Oddly enough, the only difference between the boys and girls games will be the conference records. Both girls teams are 6-0 in conference. The boys – who will also be playing for the inside track on the top seed in the 2-C – are a little different. Fairview (9-1 overall) is 5-1 in conference, while Culbertson (8-2) is 6-0 in the 2-C.
On the wrestling front, Jorrell Jones will move to the heavyweight class when he moves on to his college stop. Jones, from Chinook, is the defending B-C champ at 215 pounds, and will be aiming for his second title. His teammate, Ben Stroh, if all goes well, will be gunning for a fourth this February in Billings.
We’ll see if the weather improves enough to allow for some Saturday games around here … in the meantime, I’ll be here monitoring games on Friday night and getting the finals to you as soon as possible.
And in the interim … time to learn how to cross-country ski.
I live in Colorado. My son is a football and lacrosse player at Valor Christian High School. I would not wish this week’s events on any school, whether Mullen or Valor…but please do not introduce “facts” where facts exist. Valor has sports where we excel and where we struggle. We are parents working hard to get our kids ready for college and life, just like you guys in Montana. As a college prep school we return several students every year to other high schools due to personal decisions and the difficult classwork. I wish I could point out the “recruiting” that I hear about, so that I could help prevent it in the future. I just don’t see it – after talking with dozens of dads, as to how they arrived here…we all want to support our kids. We got here on our own.
Maybe when we start to define success as something other than ESPN Sports Center moments we will move forward. Stay safe and thanks for the chance to comment!
No problem. I was trying to find a better way to put that (which I thought I did), but I also ran into computer problems last night. The version that I posted was the next-to-last edit. I wanted to give the school its academic props as well … and the edit that is posted now is the one I intended. My point being that people in the know has always been amazed at the kind of athletes Valor has. In looking a little bit more, Valor also has a very good academic reputation (or did when I was working down there). People have a choice and if they decide they want a private education for their kid, they have that opportunity to choose that. It’s those which are successful at any sport that draw a bad rap by people who just don’t understand the whole situation, or want to understand it. What disturbs me is the actual denial by CHSAA’s committee of Valor into not one, but two leagues. I’d get into that more, but quite frankly, we have escaped those problems for the most part up here, so I left that all alone. I think the CHSAA Chairman said it best, basically saying adults were getting too much in the way with their own agendas. It only hurts the kids in the leagues and at Valor.
One other thing, out of curiosity … is lacrosse still a I-25 area dominated sport, or has there been any growth in the state? It’s been a while since I last checked. I used to call lacrosse games and have always enjoyed watching and following it, to explain my curiosity.