Sandpoint just misses landing Thielbahr

By ERIC PLUMMER

Sports editor

SANDPOINT — Most fisherman have a story about the big one that got away.

Sandpoint athletic director Kris Knowles now has one as well, only his involves nearly landing one of the top high school football coaches in the Northwest, if not the country, and a Sandpoint alumni at that.

As of last Thursday, Knowles was preparing to send out a press release announcing that former Sandpoint and Washington State football standout Jeremy Thielbahr would be the new Bulldog head football coach on Friday.

Then the big one got away, as Thielbahr, who has coached football power Eastside Catholic of Seattle to the past two Washington 3A state titles as well as several top 25 national rankings, called Thursday night to let Knowles know he wasn’t taking the Sandpoint job after all.

“We did everything we could do. At the end of the day, Jeremy was a great candidate,” lamented Knowles, who said Thielbahr changed his mind after meeting with the private school’s board of directors. “He decided to stay, and you can’t fault the guy. As an athletic director, you have to adjust and go make the next play.”

It would have been both a sentimental and splashy hire for Sandpoint, had Thielbahr taken the reins of the program from great friend and coaching mentor Satini Puailoa. Thielbahr ran for 2,169 yards and scored 27 touchdowns as a senior running back playing for Puailoa, averaging a whopping 10 yards per carry.

From there he landed a scholarship to Washington State, where he was a backup fullback and special teams captain, eventually landing a three year graduate assistant coaching gig under then coach Mike Price. He would go on to coach at the University of Idaho and Montana State, before a most recent four-year stint at football powerhouse Eastside Catholic, where his team played on ESPN and gained national prominence by beating Bellevue the past two season.

But it was the allure of returning to Sandpoint, and taking over a burgeoning program from his mentor, that made Thielbahr consider leaving such a great post in the first place. He told the Issaquah Reporter upon taking the job at Eastside that his favorite memory wasn’t running out onto the field in the Rose Bowl in 1997, but rather running for an 80 yard touchdown in high school and seeing his parents and community in the iconic stands of Barlow Stadium.

The last minute reversal stunned both Knowles and Puailoa, who were both thrilled at landing such a strong candidate. The position will now be re-opened for applications and the whole hiring process started over.

“We had a candidate accept the position, then pull out. We figured the best thing to do was open up the position and try and find someone who wants to be a Bulldog,” said Knowles of what is a fairly coveted job around the state. “We felt we should re-open it and take a fresh look. It’s all about trying to get the next candidate.”

One person Thielbahr beat out in the final interviews, David Joyce, a head coach at Mountain Home, Arkansas, has since pulled his name from consideration.

Originally, the position drew interest from a couple of current college coordinators and a bevy of high school head coaches alike. All of the original four candidates interviewing for the position owned high school state football titles.

The program is on extremely sound footing, with a JV team that was a poor half of football away from going undefeated last year ready to step up and help the Bulldogs make another run at a title after last year’s second place finish.

Should the new search fail to materialize the right coach to take the program forward, there is still the possibility Puailoa could stick around for another year. There are also purportedly a couple of intriguing names expressing interest in the job, so the story is far from over.