Coach Doug Cox

That was a lot of years ago, but it seems memories of Boundary County live long.

Doug moved from Bonners Ferry a long time ago, but his love of the game is strong as ever, and his memories of his early days coaching and befriending young Badger athletes remains strong.

To this day, Coach Knox is still on the sidelines, still coaching his son, Mike, a four-year linebacker at the University of Idaho, where he played for coach Dennis Erickson, and who is now in his third year as linebacker coach for the Washington Huskies, having build a strong resume coaching at Michigan State, Utah State, Louisville, Idaho State and the St. Louis Rams.

Until now, they were memories he shared only with his family. He thought often about sharing them with others, but he wasn’t sure. His wife, Sandi, often encouraged him, but she had reservations, too, and so the stories stayed in the family.

On December 10, 2010, Sandi lost her battle with cancer and Doug lost the love of his life. Before her passing, one of the things they talked about, he said, were the memories they shared, particularly those they shared of their halcyon days in Bonners Ferry.

“One of the things we talked about before she passed was she wanted me to share my stories,” he said. “So it really because of her I started putting them on Facebook.”

Unfortunately, only his friends can see what he’s written since he began writing in mid-February, so not many people are privileged to some rich and varied insights into that part of this county’s history he was part of.

One of the people who did notice, however, was Linda Alt, who earlier this week brought in to the courthouse a rollicking excerpt about how one of Doug’s young star quarterbacks, exquisitely trained and prepared for the rarely called special play, executed it perfectly … and later admitted to Doug that he’d totally forgotten the calls.

When Boundary County Commissioner Dan Dinning read it, his roar of laughter echoed through all three floors of the courthouse.

Afterward, I became one of Doug’s Facebook friends, and asked his permission to reprint his words to a wider audience, and he graciously accepted. Evoking Linda’s name, I introduced myself and my journalistic credentials by saying, “I came here to build a clip file and move on to bigger and better things, but this place grabbed and held me, and despite offers, I’ve found that I can never leave.”

“Mike, I completely understand what you mean by not wanting to leave Bonners Ferry,” he wrote back. “We had to make a big decision ourselves when we moved. One of the first people that I met in Bonners Ferry was Linda’s husband, John. We go back a long time. They are good people.”

What follows is the first part of what will be an on-going series of Doug’s Facebook series, “Coaching in North Idaho.” You can find it by clicking here.

Coaching in North Idaho

By Doug Cox

In 1969, I was hired as head football coach at Bonners Ferry High School in Bonners Ferry, Idaho.

The administration asked me to try and do something about the problem with alcohol consumption by the football players especially during the season. I was more concerned with winning games, but I promised to look into the problem.

In the spring before school was out for the summer, I called a meeting for all returning football players and anyone else who wanted to turn out. We met and I covered the goals for the summer workouts, and the offensive and defensive systems that we would be using. Then I got into the drinking problem.

To make a point, I asked all of the players who had consumed some form of alcohol beverage during the past season to stand up. I promised that this information would stay in the room.

Of the 38 returning players in the room, 36 stood up.

Wow, I could not believe it.

The two players who remained seated were brothers.

Well, I told everyone to look around. I said that we definitely had a problem. I told them that next fall, I would enforce the athletic policy. Get caught drinking and you will be dropped from the team. We finished the meeting and everyone left except the two brothers who had not stood up. The oldest brother tells me that they both had taken part in drinking alcoholic drinks but he said that they belonged to the Mormon church and they just couldn't admit to breaking the rules in public.

Well that made a perfect 100%. The administrators were right. I told the brothers not to worry about it, that I understood and I would tell no one. I did not tell anyone until now.

For some reason, the next season, we did not have to drop any players from the team for drinking. Not to say they didn't drink, we just did not catch them!

The second year that I was head football coach in Bonners Ferry, the new high school had been built, but we had to practice downtown at the fairgrounds. The field at the new high school was not ready so we had to bus the kid's downtown.

It was the Monday before our first game of the season with Sandpoint High. We had started practice and one of the football managers came up and told me that he thought he could see someone up on the hill in the bushes, looking at us with binoculars.

I gave the manager the keys to my car, and told him to drive up and check it out. About 20 minutes later, he came back. He had a distributor cap in his hand. He said that when he got to the top of the hill, he saw a car parked where cars usually did not park, and it had a Sandpoint license plate, 7B. So he opened the hood and took off the distributor cap.

Practice ended, and we headed to school. When I got to the top of the hill, I recognized a Sandpoint coach standing by his car. I held the distributor cap up, and drove past him and smiled. I stopped about a block away, making sure he could see me, and threw the cap onto the sidewalk. Every time I saw that coach after that, I just grinned at him.

The same year that we had the "spy" problem, my second year as head coach at Bonners, I experienced a very strange football practice. Dick, an assistant coach, drove the bus that took the players to and from practice. I had driven down to practice as usual, and Pete, another coach, rode with me. When we got out of the car, the team was running a warm-lap around the football field, and Coach Dick was standing at the other end, watching the team run. Coach Pete had a football in his hand. We were walking towards Dick. Pete tells me to watch, he was going to wake Dick up.

He threw the ball towards Dick. I thought that Dick was looking at us but as we found out he wasn't. The ball hit Dick in his face, broke his glasses, and knocked him to the ground.

We ran over.

He wasn't knocked out but he was plenty woozy! We helped him up. I told him that we were going to take him to the hospital. Dick said that he was okay and ready to start practice. So we took a towel, cleaned the blood off of his face, taped his glasses, and he was ready. So we started practice.

About 30 minutes later, I heard a commotion at the other end of the field. Dick and some other guy were arguing with each other, and the players were standing around whooping it up. I ran down and got between the two of them. They were starting to push and shove each other. I recognized Warren as the other guy.

Warren was an insurance agent in town and his company carried the insurance that players needed to have in order to play football. With the help of another coach, I grabbed Warren and started him towards his car. I asked him what was the problem and he just got into his car and left. We finally finish practice. When we got back to the high school, I sat down with Dick.

Evidently, that day before practice, Dick had called Warren and told him that an Indian kid would be needing football insurance. Warren asked Dick who would be paying for the insurance and Dick told him that it was none of his business. I suspected that Dick, who had a big heart was the one that was going to pay for the insurance so that the kid could play football. Anyway, that is why Warren showed up at practice to confront Dick.

Wow what a day!

During the first couple of years that I coached at Bonners Ferry, we had a big, good natured player named Brad. When he was a sophomore, and since he was so big, we decided to start him on the varsity team at tackle.

One day during practice, we were running a scrimmage and Brad missed a blocking assignment. Our running back got clobbered by the guy that Brad was supposed to block.

I got into Brad's face. I really chewed him out. When I finished, I told him to get out of the drill and go stand off to the side. Brad walked over to one of the assistant coaches and said something. After practice, I asked the coach what Brad had said. He said that Brad wanted to know if it was okay to chew gum at practice.

A couple of days later, we were starting to begin practice. I was walking out of the locker room and as I approached the football field, Brad was running around screaming "I found one!”

He came up to me and told me, with a big grin on his face, "Coach, I just found a four leaf clover!” I patted him on the helmet, congratulated him and we started practice.

One final story about Brad. It was Brad's junior year and I had an assistant coach suggest that we put Brad deep on kickoff returns. I was very dubious about this. We were talking about a young man who was 6 foot 3 inches tall and weighed north of 220 pounds.

He had worked on his speed during the summer, and was getting faster. Finally, about the middle of the season, the assistant coach convinced me to at least give him a try at returning kick offs in practice. We lined the kick off teams up, put Brad deep and kicked the ball to Brad. He took the kickoff at the 10 yard line, ran up the middle. He must have ran over eight guys. He goes down and scores.

He was so excited that he took a victory lap around the track.

Our next game is at Lakeland High school. We win the toss and elect to receive. We put Brad deep. The kicker kicks the ball and Brad catches it about the 20 yard line. He did not move.

He was frozen in place. About three or four Lakeland players hit him and he went down. I thought he was probably hurt, so after the whistle, I ran on the field. He was still down.

He looked up at me when I got to him and he asked me what time we would be getting home. He said that he was really hungry. We got him up and that was his last test at returning kickoffs.

In the early 1970's there were no state football championships in the state of Idaho. We did have state rankings that were determined by sportswriters in the various towns.

In 1974 we were chosen state champions by this method. We had established a playoff game in North Idaho between the winner of the Intermountain League and the Central Idaho League.

The Intermountain League was made up of Bonners Ferry, Wallace, St. Maries, Post Falls, Lakeland, Priest River and Kellogg. The Central Idaho League was made up of Orofino, Lapwai, Grangeville, Kamiah, Timberline, etc.

The winner of each league played each other at the end of the regular season. In 1972 we lost to Orofino, and in 1973 we beat Lapwai, and then in 1974 we beat Grangeville.

The Lapwai game in 1973 was a game that I will never forget.

Lapwai had a great team. Their coach, Coach Wilson, had been there for quite a while, and they had a reputation of being a tough football program. They ran the single wing offense. One thing that helped us was that we had played there once before and we got out butts kicked.

Well, the playoff game was also there at their home field. There are many stories about this game, but my favorite was the play that decided the outcome of the game in our favor. It happened at the end of the first half.

After the play was over, a fight broke out between Chris, our junior defensive tackle, and Lapwai's star running back. The referees kicked both players out of the game. Chris was a good defensive lineman but we made some adjustments and replaced him. Their running back was not replaceable. We went on to win the game 21- 20. I gave the game ball to Chris.

One of my favorite stories of coaching in Bonners Ferry concerned our oldest son, Mike.

When he was 9 or 10 years old, he started going to football practice with me. Mom and I talked it over, and we decided that he could probably handle being a manager or ball boy.

He was a very good helper. He did whatever we needed done. Chase footballs around the field, haul equipment to where we needed it, all that kind of thing. I thought the team was okay with him being there.

We had reached the Monday of our last week of the season. After practice, as usual, I was in the coach's office in the locker room with the rest of the coaches. We heard a commotion in the locker room.

Most of the team was back at the toilet area of the locker room. When I got back there, I saw that tjree seniors had Mike by feet upside down. They were sticking his head into the toilet, but keeping his head out of the water. They saw me and put him down. I took Mike into the office. After he calmed down, I told him to go out into the gym and wait for me. I called the seniors in that had grabbed Mike.

They were all team co-captains. I asked them what was going on? They said that Mike had been getting pretty cocky with them and had been mouthing off. I told them that I understood, but next time, bring him to me and not the toilet.

I then asked if there was a name for what they were doing to him. They said it was called a "swirly.” I told them that we would just forget it. The seniors left, and the other coaches in the room had held it in too long, and we all had a good laugh. Everything was fine until I got home.

Mom was upset at me. Especially when I told her that it had taught Mike a valuable lesson. She did not agree. The next day, after we had got to practice, the three senior co-captains discovered that someone had loaded their jocks up with red hot balm.

Hum, I have no idea who could have done that!

Tim Mercer was one of the best high school football players that I have ever had a chance to coach or to be around.

Tim was a starting running back at BFHS in his sophmore and junior years. Unfortunately, Tim was killed in a car wreck the summer before his senior year (1974).

In my opinion, he was the best running back in the state of Idaho at the time.

He wasn't very big. 5 feet nine or ten inches and 160-65 pounds. But, without a doubt, he was the most fearless football player that I have ever seen. He went 100% all of the time.

When he was a junior, he won the state 100 yard dash by diving across the finish line.

One of my favorite stories of Tim happened during his junior year. He had developed a habit of trying to jump over tacklers. I warned him to stop doing it before he broke his neck. I told him that he was bound to get hurt. He just smiled at me. Well, we are playing Wallace at home, and I called an option play towards our sidelines. The ball was at midfield.

The quarterback pitched the ball to Tim and he started to turn the corner and three tacklers were there ready to tackle him. He tried to jump over all three but they all hit him in mid air. He ends up on the ground, underneath all three players.

This all happens in front of our bench. The whistle blows and I ran onto the field. I knew that he had to be hurt.

Finally they unpiled and I got down to Tim. He looked up at me smiled, held up two fingers, and said "Coach, Peace Brother, I am okay!"

Tim Mercer was not only a great athlete, he was a great kid and a good friend. I will never forget the last time that I saw him. I was playing golf in Bonners Ferry. We were on hole five, which runs next to the old highway. I was in the middle of the fairway, (which was unusual for me) and I heard a loud muffler on a car on the highway.

I looked up and saw that it was Tim. He saw me and pulled the car over to the side of the road. He got out and jumped the fence and came over. He had a big grin on his face. He asked me how I liked his new car. It was a 1955 Chevy. I told him that I really like it. I said that my first car had been a 1951 Chevy. He said that he was really ready to start football in a couple of weeks.

We talked for a little while and I told him that I was leaving for Boise the next day for the state coaches clinic and I would see him when I got back. I added that he should be careful driving his "new" car and to get the muffler fixed.

He just smiled and left.

The next day we left for Boise. The next night my brother in law, Bill Mackey, called and said that Tim had been killed in a single car wreck in Paradise Valley.

We went home the next morning. I went over and visited with Tim's parents. They were having a tough time. I tried to comfort them. I tried to comfort a lot of people who were upset with Tim's death. Tim's funeral was attended by almost everybody in town. I didn't recognize until later what an affect Tim's death had on me.

At some point, I made a decision that I would never get as close to the players that I coached, as I had been with Tim. I have had to alter that decision at times, but for the most part, I changed as a coach. I still think about Tim.

One of the most embarrassing thing to happen to me as a coach concerned my nephew Don.

Don was a good high school basketball player. I thought that I could make him a quarterback in football.

It was Don's senior year and we were just finishing two a day practices. It was a Friday night before our first game and we were having a game scrimmage between the first and second units. Don was the quarterback on the second unit. We had just started the scrimmage and Don was running an option play. He kept the ball and got hit and tackled.

After everybody unpiled, Don stayed on the ground. I walked over and told him to get up. He said that he was hurt and couldn't get up. I told him that he wasn't hurt and that I thought he was faking it. He stayed on the ground. Finally, they got him up and took him to the sidelines. After the scrimmage, his Dad took him to the hospital. He had a broken ankle.

It was a might cool around my sister's house for a while.

One of my favorite stories about preparing and planning to win high school football games came from a situation that happened in a League championship game against Lakeland High School.

It was one of the last games of the regular season. I coached the offense and I thought we were prepared for anything. We had practiced the two-minute drill all season but had not had to use it.

We had the "check with me" call from the quarterback that let the offense know that we would not huddle but go to the line of scrimmage immediately after the play was over.

The qb would then make a series of color calls and number calls. Red was run, blue was pass. The numbers indicated who handled the ball and which hole to run into. The numbers also indicated designated receivers and pass routes.

Well, in the Lakeland game, we were losing by four points. We had the ball at their eight yard line with less than 20 seconds to play.

We had no times outs. Dan, our quarterback, called "check with me.” The offense lined up at the line of scrimmage, and Dan made his calls.

I couldn't hear what he was saying.

The clock was down to five seconds when the center snapped the ball. Dan took one step back and threw a perfect slant pass to Tim Foust, our split end, for the game winning, league winning touchdown. I was so excited. I was telling anyone who wanted to hear that our preparation for the "check with me" call had worked beautifully.

Later in the locker room, I was talking with Dan Dinning, our quarterback. He told me that when they lined up for the "check with me call,” he panicked and couldn't think of any numbers or colors. So he called out "Pass to Foust on Down!”

Oh Well.