06-07 Varsity Basketball

[Laurie Roberts]

I'm so sorry to hear about the Wildcat losses last night. Let's just hope they'll both make the most of this adversity.

[Laurie Roberts]

The sentimental part of me sort of misses the traditional schedule--boys games mostly on Fridays and Saturdays. But as a female athlete, I did get tired of always having the Tuesday/Thursday games. For either gender the weeknights are tough when so much traveling is involved. Down here our kids think it's a hardship when they have to go to Nampa for a game--a good 30-minute drive.

[Casey Fisher]

Down here our kids think it's a hardship when they have to go to Nampa for a game--a good 30-minute drive.

LOL. I remember one year we had a Bonners Ferry, Moscow trip on back-to-back nights. That was tough even when it was on a Friday & Saturday...

[Laurie Roberts]

Yikes! That would be quite the weekend, Casey. My second year here I coached track, and it dawned on me just before the state meet that I'd gone through the entire season without riding a bus, and that our furthest road trip had been to Meridian! What a vast change from participating in sports in Northern Idaho.

I don't miss the traveling, but I do miss the way the community is more involved in high school sports in small towns. I know that the crowd sizes vary a great deal, based on a variety of things, but when you are one of a couple of dozen high schools within a relatively small area, you pretty much just get the parents of the players. Our neighborhood doesn't really care if our teams are 20-0 or 0-20.

[Jason Spoor]

I don't have a Spokesman account either and I couldn't view the article without logging in.

I'm going to try to get that article on here - maybe even get an account for a day so I can paste the story on here, then cancel the account. It's a great article.

[Casey Fisher]

Yikes! That would be quite the weekend, Casey. My second year here I coached track, and it dawned on me just before the state meet that I'd gone through the entire season without riding a bus, and that our furthest road trip had been to Meridian! What a vast change from participating in sports in Northern Idaho.

I don't miss the traveling, but I do miss the way the community is more involved in high school sports in small towns. I know that the crowd sizes vary a great deal, based on a variety of things, but when you are one of a couple of dozen high schools within a relatively small area, you pretty much just get the parents of the players. Our neighborhood doesn't really care if our teams are 20-0 or 0-20.

What's funny is that us North Idahoans don't have a right to complain compared to my buddies I went to college with in Montana. They had teams in their league where it was 5, 6, or 7 hour bus rides...

Laurie, you have a great point on the community being involved. That is what I love so much about the small towns is that the community takes such pride in it's athletic programs. It has to be because people in town watch these kids grow up and went to school with their grandmother etc., or know their father who works at the hardware store etc. When a KHS team wins at a sporting event, the whole town takes pride in it. Like you said, in the bigger cities this doesn't happen very often. Plus there is way more things to do etc.

[Laurie Roberts]

Just yesterday I heard a student say those immortal words: "There's nothing to do in Boise!" Ah, poor thing.

Small town school spirit really is cool, especially the way it spans the generations. Every time I've seen a Kellogg team participate in a state tournament in this area, going back thirty years, I've seen former Kellogg people show up just to support their old alma mater. I don't think I'll ever experience something like that with Timberline.

[Jason Spoor]

I don't have a Spokesman account either and I couldn't view the article without logging in.

I'm going to try to get that article on here - maybe even get an account for a day so I can paste the story on here, then cancel the account. It's a great article.

Okay Gwen since I know for sure you'd like to read the story please let me know if this link works.

I love the title of the story "Rooftops to high tops"

[Gwen Johnson]

I still can't get in.
I guess I can just go out and buy the issue. Is it in today's SR?
Thanks for trying.

[Casey Fisher]

Small town school spirit really is cool, especially the way it spans the generations. Every time I've seen a Kellogg team participate in a state tournament in this area, going back thirty years, I've seen former Kellogg people show up just to support their old alma mater. I don't think I'll ever experience something like that with Timberline.

You are right... That is what makes Kellogg so special to be from.

[Jason Spoor]

I still can't get in.
I guess I can just go out and buy the issue. Is it in today's SR?
Thanks for trying.

It was in Thursdays - i'll copy the story to here if I can - you just won't be able to see the pics.

[Jason Spoor]

Steve Bourgard is the personification of persistence. Three times Bourgard applied for the head boys basketball job at Kellogg High School, his alma mater. Three times he didn't get the job.

"I was getting tired of being turned down," Bourgard said.

Rejection was difficult to swallow. In his heart, though, Bourgard, an 11-year boys varsity assistant, knew he could be a successful head coach.

He was never told in so many words by school officials, but Bourgard figured he wasn't hired as head coach because he isn't a teacher. He's a roofer by trade.

So Bourgard was pleasantly surprised a year ago last summer when newly hired athletic director Troy Schueller called and asked him to interview for the girls head coaching job. The previous coach, Lisa Cheney, resigned to spend time with a young and expanding family.

"I've watched him coach (at the lower levels)," said Schueller, Kellogg's former head wrestling coach, "and I've always been impressed with how he coaches his bench instead of his players on the floor."

Two days after Bourgard accepted the position, Jeremy Bergquist resigned as head boys coach. The job Bourgard coveted was vacant again.

"I definitely would have hired him for the boys' job," Schueller said. "If he was good enough for the girls, he was good enough for the boys."

Bourgard didn't flinch. He had already met with the returning girls players and given them a four-year commitment.

Looking back this week, Bourgard admits it's as if he were fated to be the girls head coach.

Schueller put some pressure on Bourgard immediately.

"I expected him to get them to state his first year," Schueller said. "I didn't expect them to do anything at state, but I expected him to get them there."

It was a sizeable expectation considering Kellogg hadn't sent a team to state since 1990-91, and the Wildcats were picked to finish fourth in the five-team Intermountain League.

Bourgard, 47, got his team to exceed the expectation. Although they finished the regular season just one victory better than .500 at 11-9, they tied for second with Priest River behind undefeated conference champ Bonners Ferry.

Priest River topped Kellogg in overtime in a district opener and earned the league's lone automatic state berth by upending Bonners Ferry for the district title.

Kellogg won three straight back-to-back, lose-and-you're-done games – including a 48-43 win over Bonners Ferry and a play-in victory – to qualify for state. With the goal achieved, the Wildcats could have shown up at state, played two games and headed home.

Yet two more wins gave the Cinderella Wildcats a date in the Idaho Center. Kellogg's run ended in a respectable 49-44 loss to Shelley in the 3A state final. The Wildcats, who finished 16-11, collected their first state trophy in school history.

It appears that the late-season run from a year ago whet the Wildcats' appetite for a state championship this season. Kellogg opened 16-0, matching its win total from a year ago, before a 30-23 road loss at Bonners Ferry last Saturday

The Wildcats moved atop the 3A state rankings for the first time in school history last week.

"I'd be lying if I thought we'd be undefeated two-thirds of the way through the season," Bourgard said. "We toughened our schedule up this year and I figured we'd be 4-3 in the first seven games."

Bourgard preaches two things to his players: They must play defense and they must play smart.

Kellogg allowed 34.5 points per game last year. Teams are scoring 33.7 against the Wildcats this season.

The Wildcats are averaging eight more points a game this year.

"We're better offensively and we're as good defensively as last year," Bourgard said. "And the girls have a better understanding of the game."

Bourgard isn't surprised by his team's quick success.

"I stepped into a good situation. Lisa (Cheney) did a good job building the program," Bourgard said. "I saw that we had the potential to be very good in a short period."

All of the four boys head coaches that Bourgard assisted knew that he had head coaching ability. Bourgard assisted Tony Kerfoot for six years and Jeremy Bergquist for three.

"He's got an amazing desire to teach the game," said Kerfoot, the head boys coach at Mountain Home. "It's natural for him. He was a tremendous asset to me."

"He knows the game inside and out," said Bergquist, who left Kellogg to become an athletic director at Meridian. "He knows his X's and O's and knows how to communicate. He's got a lot of passion for the game and kids."

Bourgard decided to go back to school last winter to get a degree in English and become a school teacher. He figures his body isn't long for the roofing business. He had to put his education on hold this year, though, because his father was recently diagnosed with cancer.

"I plan on finishing school, but it could be five years," Bourgard said. "I still have to do something to pay the bills."

Although he envisions himself coaching boys some day, he doesn't have the burning desire that he did as recent as a year ago last summer.

"I live and bleed Kellogg purple," Bourgard said. "I've had a passion for basketball since I was eight years old. I remember watching the UCLA Bruins on TV on Saturday afternoons after playing in YBL (Youth Basketball League) games. I think I've had it in me to be a head coach for a long time."

As written by Greg Lee in Thursdays sports page of the Spokesman Review.

enjoy, Gwen

[Gwen Johnson]

Thanks! That is an awesome article.

[Simon Miller]

Good article. When I got out of college, I wanted to help coach basketball because I loved to coach, and I wanted to learn. That was about the time FisherRock was in the KHS program. Bogie and I both came on board at the same time. It is awesome to see how far Coach Bogie has come in that time. I haven't seen a better developer of players in a long time. He also spends a lot of hours studying the Xs and Os.

I remember the day the Boys job opened up after he had just taken the girls job. He never wavered.


Now with all that being said, the girls have lost 2 of their last 3 since all the media hype. Let's hope they can refocus and finish strong. Rankings and newspaper articles are nice, but they mean nothing. Ask Bonners Ferry what it was like to sit home last year after winning the IML and being ranked in the top 5.

These girls better quit reading the newspaper articles and get to work and get back to being a TEAM.

[Jason Spoor]

Great post Coach Miller. I was thinking the same thing about the current 2 game slide - I can almost bet that the girls practices are going to be a little rougher than when they were on the win streak. Coach Bourgard will have those girls forgetting about the media in no time.

[Simon Miller]

I will say this. No one scouts and breaks down a team like Bogie. Come district time, they will be ready. All they have to do is execute and play as a determined TEAM. No individual egos.

[Casey Fisher]

Great article Roop Diddy...

Coach Bogey is the man. Two articles in different papers on the same day!!! He'll have the girls ready for districs. Winning on the road is tough in any sport. They will be on a neutral floor at Districts and will get the job done... I have no doubts and I've never even seen them play. I have these no doubts because of Coach Bogey...

[Simon Miller]

You better make it a point to be at districts Rock and Roops! Represent!

[Casey Fisher]

I can't speak for Roops, but I will do what I can...

The District Title Game is probably on a weekday like we've talked about isn't it? LOL.

[Gwen Johnson]

Tonight was a much better night for KHS Basketball. The girls beat Timberlake by a score of 55-33 and the boys beat Wallace by a score of 52-30.
The boys played much more like a team tonight. Just as in their victory over Bonners Ferry earlier in the year, nearly everyone on the team scored (all but one), but everyone contributed. Unfortunately, I only keep track of my son's stats, but I can tell you he had 8 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists and a block, with no turnovers and no fouls. I was quite proud.

Tuesday will see the girls taking on St. Maries for senior night while the boys travel to Lakeland.