HIVELIGHTS W/ MAX OSWALD: Corrections, local connections, and more

It was nice chatting with Sandpoint High head football coach Ryan Knowles and former Daily Bee publisher David Keyes on KSPT/KBFI 97.1 FM’s North Idaho Thursday show the other day. For my schedule, I enjoyed the noon hour. I often appear on KRFY’s 88.5 FM North Idaho News of the Week to talk sports on select Fridays at 8 a.m. with Jack Peterson and Sandpoint High head girls basketball coach Will Love. Despite it being “early” I still love doing it because it gives me an excuse to get a coffee. At 24 years old, I’m already trying to limit my caffeine intake.

A fun fact about coach Knowles and I is that we have a connection to my hometown of Orwigsburg, Pa. Before moving back to Sandpoint, Knowles was a defensive line coach and special teams coordinator at Colgate University (NCAA Division 1) in Hamilton, N.Y., for 12 years. He recruited a very talented kicker from my high school (Blue Mountain) and even did a house visit with him in my small hometown of 3,000 people. Knowles remembered this kicker well, and I knew the family well, having even gone to prom with this particular kicker's sister. The head coach of Colgate, Dan Skatosky, graduated from Marion Catholic High in my home county of Schuylkill, so needless to say Knowles knows a lot more about coal region football than anyone else in North Idaho, except maybe me. Crazy connection.

To top it all off, on Thursday’s radio show I mentioned that I attended and graduated from DeSales University near Hellertown, Pa., about 20 minutes from the New Jersey border. Producer Pat Murphy said he often visits Hellertown because that’s where his wife is from — what in the world! This is a small town of 6,000 people, so it’s just hard to wrap my head around.

Talking with seasoned locals has made a tremendous impact on my ability to report what Daily Bee sports readers want to see most. Not originally being from the area, my historical knowledge of past teams, championship runs, and league standings isn’t the best, but I have been doing tons of research and compilations. Just the other day, CDA Press and former Daily Bee Sports Editor Mark Nelke sent me the handwritten by pencil, faded, Clark Fork High boys and girls basketball as well as football records and notes from the 1982-2003 seasons. I’m confident in saying that these are the only detailed records of these years in existence. It’s things like these that get us sports reporters excited.

If you were able to read the Daily Bee Fall Sports Preview, I was able to add in notes about former Sandpoint/Clark Fork High star players, who now happen to be the coaches of our great local teams. A large majority of our schools’ coaches are former graduates, and I tried to highlight that in the team photos with the coaches' graduation years. I believe I made one error — sorry Scott Albertson, you graduated in 1986, not 1987. I also made an error regarding some other things … Gavan Miles of Sandpoint boys’ soccer is a senior, not a junior; it’s Calie Bailey of Sandpoint girls volleyball, not Callie; and Clark Fork now competes in the 2A Scenic Idaho Conference in volleyball (with the same teams mentioned in the preview), not the North Star League. These things may seem small to some but are big to me. When you write for a living, you want it to be perfect every single time.

When I mentioned these errors the other day, David Keyes said something along the lines of “with the more information you put into something like that, the more likely that is to happen … you have to look at it as if it’s 99.9% correct."

This made me feel better, but then in yesterday’s paper, I had the Sandpoint-Coeur d’Alene volleyball score backward, contrary to the write-up, which was correct. I also said that Priest River was in the 3A Intermountain League, which used to be true, but they are in fact in the 3A Central Idaho League now, which was previously the 2A Central Idaho League …

Idaho is pretty unique in terms of classifications and leagues, and for someone “newer” to the high school sports scene, the petitioning down, up, and the constant changing of things has been confusing to say the least, but I’ll continue to do my best with whatever the Idaho High School Activities Association decides next.

Whether it’s talking about Idaho high school sports or something else, I challenge everyone who has made it this far to go out and connect with others today. Whether it's a seasoned local or a newcomer, you never know what you may have a common with your neighbors.