NIC’s Athletic Director Al Williams and all of NIC’s coaches held a coaches’ media day last week. Williams was accompanied by all of the head coaches, assistants, some players, members of the media, and others.
The lunch and conference took place at the Coeur d’Alene Resort at 11:30 a.m. Dick Haugen narrated the event.
All of the coaches spoke for about five to seven minutes about themselves and their teams.
Women’s head soccer coach Dan Hogan talked about how his team is willing to work hard and try new things. As of last week, the Lady Cardinals have four players that have scored eight or more goals.
Hogan is in his 14th season and ninth year as head women’s soccer coach. In the 2008 season, his Cardinal team made its first trip to the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) national tournament where the team earned third place.
Men’s head soccer coach Ken Thompson, spoke about having a passion not only for soccer but for school and helping his players to achieve their goals.
Thompson has nearly ten years of coaching experience and played at the collegiate level for Gonzaga University and Seattle Pacific University. He earned a B.A. from Gonzaga University and a J.D. from American University.
Thompson is a Coeur d’Alene native, and as a former Idaho Gatorade Soccer Player of the Year in high school, he has deep roots in the soccer community within and beyond the Inland Northwest. This year the Men’s Soccer team has 17 new players and six returners.
Jared Phay returns for his eighth season as the head coach of the Cardinals Men’s Basketball team and looks to continue to build on his program’s success.
Phay has enjoyed great success in his tenure at NIC, being named Region 18 Coach of the Year three times. Phay has led the Cardinals to three SWAC championships, one as co-champions in the 2005-2006 season and outright conference championships in 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 when his teams posted back-to-back 27-win seasons.
The SWAC conference is considered the toughest junior college conference in the country. Last season, Phay led the Cardinals to the first ever No. 1 national ranking in school history.
Prior to being named head coach at NIC, Phay was an assistant coach for two seasons at NIC under Hugh Watson, who recently retired from coaching.
Phay said NIC basketball standouts Conner White and Jordan McCloud will be key players for the team this year. Both are sophomores this year and will be leaders for the new Cardinal team.
Chris Carlson enters his eighth season as head coach of the NIC’s women’s basketball team and is coming off of an incredible national championship season where he was named the National Coach of the Year.
This was NIC’s third consecutive top ten finish at the NJCAA national championships in Salina, KA. It also makes seven straight seasons of more than 20 wins while capturing the SWAC tournament championship all three seasons.
“The girls are buying in right now and working really hard,” said Carlson. “We’re doing all the little things that we can to get ready so we are really excited. We’re going to do the absolute best we can do every single day, and the rest will take care of itself.”
This year is Pat Whitcomb’s 15th season as NIC wrestling head coach. He enters the year with three national titles under his belt and an NIC career record of 199-36-2.
“It’s not a question of if we’re going to win, it’s how we’re going to go about it,” said Whitcomb.
Whitcomb has been honored as the National Coach of the Year twice and has received the Region 18 Coach of the Year Award seven times.
Whitcomb was instrumental in bringing the 2011 NJCAA national wrestling championships to Spokane, Wash., where the Cardinals captured an exciting second-place finish. The team this year has 45 wrestlers.
Volleyball head coach Kandice Kelly is in her first year at NIC and coached at the University of Montana for three years prior to coming to NIC.
Kelly was the 2002 Montana Gatorade Girls Volleyball Player of the Year and led Roundup High School to four Class B state titles while starring for the Panthers as a setter and outside hitter.
There are only five returners left from the previous year’s volleyball team. Kelly said that this year has been a slow start and going into their first tournament the team had a lot of injuries.
“We have high hopes for this season, said Kelly. “We knew that going into this year our team was much shorter than others teams, so we have had to overcome that height disadvantage.”
Derrick Thompson is in his second season as head men’s and women’s golf coach and his fourth year with the program, having served two years as an assistant coach. He said that this is a year with high expectations.
“We have a lot of depth and I think this year will be interesting,” said Thompson. “So far the competition has been tough.”
The women’s golf team only has two returners from last year. The men’s team only has two returners also, with 11 freshmen.
Softball this year has eight returning players. Coach Don Don Williams talked about her team this year and said that the team is getting better every week.
“It’s going to come to who produces in the circle and who scores the most runs to win a SWAC championship this spring,” said Williams.
