As the bus rolled up to the high school gym on that cold, late-February Saturday night, I cracked my aching joints and unraveled myself from the nonexistent comforts of the third seat behind Russ, the ever-patient driver of Cassia County Joint School District bus number 9. In the seats behind me were my fellow coaches and a dozen of the finest emotionally and physically exhausted girls our little valley had to offer. They were the members of the Oakley High School girls’ basketball team. We were finally at the literal and figurative end of the season’s road. This last road trip had been to our state’s capital city and the state tournament. This team had gone as far as it could possibly go, smashing into the wall mere inches from high school basketball immortality, barely losing in the 1A state championship game in storybook fashion to our archrivals from Raft River, a team we’d beaten twice earlier in the season.
In reaching the championship game, this team, loaded with what could honestly be termed as fair to good but not great small-school basketball talent and oversized heart, achieved the unthinkable when they defeated what most would have described as an unbeatable team in the semifinals. The Lapwai team was the latest iteration of the years-long Lapwai dynasty. Their average margin of victory was nearly 35 points. They were easily one of the top three or four teams in the entire state, regardless of classification, and routinely struck fear in the hearts of teams from schools five times their size. So, when our team of gritty overachievers put a defensive chokehold on Goliath, the entire state was abuzz. Think 1980 Olympics hockey, USA versus USSR. It was a win of that magnitude. As one might imagine, the loss in the championship game the next day was a sour tonic for our girls to swallow.
So, it was with this backdrop that I realized my worlds were once again, much like prior years, just about to collide. Basketball season had ended, and calving season was bearing down on me like a wild blue norther. As much as I would have liked to believe otherwise, I wasn’t quite ready, yet here it was. As a matter of fact, the first calf came the very next night, and as you might predict, the weather reverted back from almost springlike agreeable to downright wicked, bitter cold.
Every year, I know it’s coming, so I’ve learned to steel myself for the onslaught. Still, it takes some getting used to. My outfit is long on chores and short on help, so I switch off on night checks between me and myself. On bad nights, both of those guys get pretty worn down. And despite all the tricks and witchcraft I’ve tried, the heifers with the worst attitudes and the smallest brains always calve at night – and only on cold nights. The first week was brutal. I had to bring several calves in to warm them up and then try to mother them up the next morning. I saved them all, but I paid for my success with my sleep. Though, in the end, the price is worth it, it’s sometimes a ruthless piper who demands the payment.
It’s not really out of the ordinary at this time of the year for me to kind of lose track of what day it is. Nevertheless, at the end of one particularly taxing day (at least I think it was the end, but it could have been in the middle), I was lamenting, mostly to myself, at how ironically long the days were during the short days of late winter when spring should be on the horizon and how they just seemed to drag on at the pace of an old, stifled cow.
It was on that day, as I was in that frame of mind, that I came across a message on my phone with a couple of pictures. The pictures were of my good friend and fellow JV coach Dave, along with some members of our team. In the first picture, Dave and I were kneeling in front of a group of mostly freshman girls after we’d claimed the conference championship. The subjects and the location of the second picture were identical to the first. The only difference was the three years that separated the two connected images.
As I took a few minutes from my never-ending day to reminisce as I looked at the two pictures, I marveled at how quickly the years had gone. My eyes got a little misty and a lump formed in my throat as it struck me that a chapter was closing as the page turned. These exceptional young women, whom I cared for as though they were my own daughters, were, for the most part, fading out of my life after being a cherished part of it for four years. Oh, I might run into them every now and then in the years to come, but time respects no man as it marches on. Though the bonds of those relationships, forged through the long hours of work and sweat and occasional tears, in pursuit of common dreams and perhaps unattainable goals will forever remain, each of those girls will take her individual path through life, and I’ll remain on mine. I can only hope my influence on them will forever remain positive.
Each of us, for better or worse, touches the lives of everyone we meet. The effect we have on those lives, whether the exchange be for one long day or four short years, is mostly a result of what we choose to make of it and how we choose to treat those people. And just maybe, if you play your cards right, you’ll build some memories as fond as the ones I got from the Almost State Champions of 2023.
