PROGRESS: Breathing new life into Sandpoint High's track & field

SANDPOINT — Before the summer of 2024, the last time any renovations were made to Sandpoint High's track & field complex were in 1993.

David DeMers, one of the many lifeblood's of the school's program, was already in his 10th year of coaching high school track & field at that point. A 1978 graduate of Sandpoint High, DeMers refers to himself as "just another guy", but to Sandpoint and the Lake Pend Oreille School District, most would consider him a legend.

Head coach of Bulldog track & field for 28 years, and a coach in some capacity for 42 years now, DeMers was also a longtime teacher at both Sandpoint High and Sandpoint Middle School as well as the athletic director at SMS. Prior to his coaching career, he was quite the athlete himself, having attended Boise State on a football and track & field scholarship. A 1995 inductee into the Sandpoint Hall of Fame, DeMers has certainly seen a lot in the sports world over the past half century — what he didn't know was that putting his heart and soul into everything he did was going to be commemorated one day.

As previously reported in the Daily Bee, shortly before his retirement in 2018, the track & field complex at Sandpoint High was named after DeMers. What many don't know is that DeMers had no idea that was going to happen.

DeMers, after track practice on random Tuesday night, was told by his wife, Cindy Farmin DeMers, to put on a nice shirt to get ready for a dinner. Before the dinner, however, DeMers was told they had to help move some furniture at Sandpoint Carpet One. When he got there, he was surprised to see colleagues, friends and the entire school board when he walked in.

"I thought, why are all my friends here from teaching?," DeMers said. "They then all said they had a special announcement and started talking about how I had done this and that... I still didn't fathom what was going on. Then they said they were going to name the track after me, David R. DeMers Track & Field, and I was just blown away. It caught me by surprise. For me, it was really emotional, what an honor. I haven't ever felt I did that much, I was just doing what I was doing."

What DeMers and others didn't realize at that time is that in the three years following, the complex would be deemed unfit to host meets on. With uneven bumps, cracks, and holes all around the facility, it was barely usable for practice, teetering the line of nonoperational.

In 2023, the facilities committee, which included DeMers as the chair and upwards of 20 other people representing all sides of the community, the first steps were taken to start an entire remediation of the complex. LPSOD superintendent Dr. Becky Meyer asked DeMers to show the committee and Sandpoint High Athletic Director TJ Clary what exactly needed to be upgraded and why. Clary said it opened up a lot community members' eyes.

"Our facilities group was put together to help assess and prioritize what the community wants," Clary said. "The committee went to all the buildings, not just the track, but the track was apart of the tour and after people got to see it, that's when the ball started rolling."

A short time after, at least in the grand scheme of things, the upgrades were approved. DeMers had a hand in shaping how and what would go into the complex, which includes a new shotput area, long jump pits, pole vault runway, pads for the high jump, a discus cage, and of course, a new color, black with red relay exchange areas. DeMers and longtime track and cross country coach Matt Brass, a 1994 graduate of Sandpoint High, also repainted the storage shed and put up some new and improved record boards.

After all was said and done, there was still another surprise awaiting DeMers, but this time he figured it out before it happened. The finishing touches were being put on the track when DeMers decided to introduce himself to the man painting it.

"I was watching him paint the track and wanted to tell him he was doing a good job," DeMers said. "He was putting down some letters, but I hadn't really noticed it. I said 'Hi, I'm David DeMers' and he said 'oh, you're the guy I'm putting the name of in the middle of track.' ... I kept it a secret that I knew about it... it was really cool."

All-in-all, DeMers, who is now an LPOSD school board trustee, says that everything that came together from the track & field complex stems from people wanting to be a part of something positive.

"The majority of the student-athletes know that it's important for them to have something to run on, something to train on," DeMers said. "A lot of the Lakeland coaches were telling me at our meet earlier this year how this is such a neat upgrade... it makes us a 5A school. There's this intrinsic pride when you get to go out and compete on something equal to everyone else's."

Clary and DeMers both thanked Dr. Becky Meyer for having the vision to want to complete such a project, especially in such a short time frame. Most administration members did not believe the complex upgrades would have been finished this quickly.

"This project was super exciting to be apart of," Clary said. "People gave me praise for being in my first year as an athletic director and we're getting these projects done, but this particular project... it was a mixture of the facilities committee and collaboration between myself, Matt Diel (facilities director), and Brian Wallace, our CFO (chief financial and operations officer). Anytime you can have a good relationship between the athletic director, facilities director, CFO, and make sure the public gets their two cents in... it's like magic. The project went entirely as anticipated and everything came out perfect. We all just went for it and it turned out to be such a good move."

    Sandpoint High’s David R. Demers Track & Field Complex from an aerial view.