The local West Plains high school football fields over the past few years might best be considered fallow.
That means having been “plowed and left unseeded for a season or more.”
In other words, wins have not at all been plentiful.
Consider that over the past five seasons, Cheney has but one winning season. That came in 2019, the Blackhawks’ final campaign in the 2A Great Northern League and prior to their elevation to 3A play in the Greater Spokane League with former coach Bobby Byrd.
The drought has been much longer over at Medical Lake where the 2012 Cardinals under Wes Hobbs finished 6-3 and made the 1A playoffs. But in the past decade Medical Lake averaged just a win a season and has endured five winless campaigns along the way.
The Cardinals, however, gave now third-year head coach Nick Puzycki, his first win at ML, 22-6 in a cross-over game at Cascade of Leavenworth last November.
Both programs try to get – or keep — moving in different directions and have opening kickoffs, Friday, Sept. 6.
Cheney opens the John Graham era vs. Lewis and Clark at ONE Spokane Stadium. Medical Lake entertains Warden, but only having had a “dress rehearsal” in a jamboree at Chewelah, Aug. 31.
The biggest step to change that sparse crop of victories came at Cheney came with the hiring of former veteran college coach Graham back in February.
How that shakes out depends on Graham, who as defensive coordinator was part of Eastern Washington’s 2010 national championship, bridging the gap between college and high school athletes.
It’s not as if he hasn’t been there, but it’s been a while.
Graham’s first job out of college at Central Washington in 1992 was a short stint as an assistant at Kent-Meridian and then two seasons as head coach at Class B power, DeSales of Walla Walla. By 1995 Graham returned to Central where he began traveling a long college coaching road.
In some ways that time in Ellensburg gave Graham some insight into the chore ahead in Cheney. The move to the monster GSL presents challenges many Blackhawks coaches echo.
“We kind of went through the same thing at Central (Washington) when we moved from NAIA to Division II,” Graham said in a February Cheney Free Press story. “It took us a couple of years to get our feet on the ground and realize what we were.”
What the Wildcats became were champions, winning the 1995 NCAA D-II national title, the first year of Graham’s dozen on the CWU staff before coming to EWU in 2008.
Graham is starting fresh after having not had a coach’s whistle hanging from his neck since 2017. And as far as he’s concerned the field is ripe for planting.
“I told the kids when I got here, ‘Nobody’s a starter,’” Graham said, adding in essence, “We have zero returning starters on offense or defense.”
This is not to say Graham does not value what returnees bring to the field.
“There’s some kids that played a lot of football last year that are going to be some of the guys we’re really going to lean on,” he said.
One thing that has not diminished from 2023 to 2024 is interest. Despite the 0-10 finish it mirrors last year with 115 vying for spots on either varsity, JV or freshmen teams.
“Kids will get to play a ton of football,” Graham said.
A very much a new landscape greeted Graham’s crop of Cheney football players.
There are just two holdovers from Byrd’s staff and “Brand new terminology on both sides (of the ball),” Graham said.
Of the new hires as assistants, there’s one who’s very special.
Graham’s son, Ty — a Blackhawks’ alum — will take what he learned in a college career split between the University of Idaho and EWU and enters the “family business” in his role as the Blackhawks’ defensive coordinator.
“It’s been awesome,” John Graham said of getting to work alongside his son. “It’s probably one of the coolest things I did.”
While there’s so much new for Cheney football under its new head coach, there’s a very basic expectation.
“Our point of emphasis is to line up and play hard every single down no matter what the situation is; the goal is to play hard for 48 minutes,” Graham said.
Paul Delaney is a Free Press Publishing sports reporter. Email him at [email protected].
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