The distance from Inchelium to Seattle may not quite be measurable in light years, but "it's a long, long way from that reservation to here," says a coach of the newest state Class B-8 high school football champions.
The Hornets from Eastern Washington survived a weekend journey to the state's largest city despite some strange encounters with obstacles ranging from international law regarding chartered buses to big-city "freakos."
And there's nothing on the 3.2 million Colville Indian Reservation to match a Space Needle meeting with two rabid, "blitzed-out" football fans from Dallas, said Inchelium seniors Lonnie Simpson and Joe Bear Swan.
"It's been a neat experience," Simpson said before his record-setting performance in the Hornets' championship-game victory over Wishkah Valley, a school similar to the size of Aberdeen. "It's exciting. There's a lot more people, a lot more things to see."
SIMPSON TUCKED most of his money inside a Bible in his downtown motel room before heading out to see the big city sights after the team's arrival Thursday night.
Most of the youths got little sleep that night, some playing poker until nearly sunrise, they said later. Coach Duane Gatlin's 9 p.m. lights-out curfew did not go into effect until Friday.
Gatlin scratched a squad practice Thursday evening at Mercer Island High School because of the team's bus troubles and took the squad to the Islanders' gymnasium for a basketball jamboree.
The Hornets gulped, he said, when they saw the size of the Mercer Island band, practicing for Kingbowl VII.
"They have more kids in that band than we have in our whole school, and that's in grades 1 through 12," said Gatlin.
INCHELIUM'S student body in grades 9 through 12 numbers 57. Twenty-four boys, including an eighth-grader, suited up for the Kingbowl game. The 25th, quarterback Gary Tonasket, watched on crutches after being hurt in a quarterfinal game.
Sophomore Tracy Flugel filled in at quarterback admirably, saying later that "I wasn't nearly as nervous as I thought I would be."
About 80 percent of the students at Inchelium school are American Indians. The name, pronounced IN-che-LEE-um, means "surrounded by water."
The water around Inchelium consists of the San Poil River, Hall and Stranger Creeks and Lake Roosevelt — the one time river behind Grand Coulee Dam.
"Inchelium is a very close, very tight community, and not just because of the cultural heritage," said Don Fox, an assistant football coach, head basketball coach and instructor of all science classes for grades 7 through 12.
"In a way it's a good thing, but there's something that draws them back after they graduate — they really feel secure there on the reservation."
SWAN said he felt anything but secure during his first television interview.
"It was breathtaking," he said after the lights were turned off. "You choke up a lot."
Principal Dean Rose nearly choked after the squad journeyed to a restaurant near Green Lake for lunch Saturday.
The steaks, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, salads, desserts and the rest came to $327.36. Drinks were free. When Rose went to pay the tab, he learned some players were just beginning to order more food.
"I must have eaten 400 cookies on the way down here," one player revealed the previous evening. That was right after Rose picked up a similar bill for supper, then watched several of the gridders head across the street to a supermarket to buy more food.
The big eaters made Gatlin late for a Kingbowl press conference Friday, but reporters got the small-town quotes they were after when he arrived.
"We have one grocery store, one tavern, one gas station and that's about it," the coach said, noting that Kingdome ticket sales in Inchelium exceeded the town's population by about 300 to 200.
"Totally awesome," Gatlin told the reporters, speaking of his players' reaction to the Kingdome.
"JUST THINK, I just sat on the same toilet that some of the pros have sat on," one of the Hornets said before Friday's workout. Another wondered if his locker would be used today by the Cowboys' Ed "Too Tall" Jones.
Gatlin said this was not his first big city trip in seven years at the school.
"We took a team to Walla Walla about five years ago for a game against Touchet," he said. "Unfortunately, a good volleyball team was staying int he same motel. The guys were OK, but the girls pestered 'em half the night."
A rumor of "naked women" in the motel sauna enlivened the players' Seattle conversation one evening. Like Gatlin, the team's unofficial chaplain, Father Pat Twohy of St. Michael's Seminary, displayed an uncanny knack for showing up at the right time and helping the lads keep their principal mission in mind.
The priest wore logging boots to the game and said he shared in the team's first quarter agony and postgame ecstasy.
"Congratulations," he said, shaking hands with a bewildered-looking girl outside the Hornets' lockerroom after the victory. Then, perhaps remembering she had made no first downs, he confided: "I'm still in a state of shock."
FLUGEL SENT a momentary shockwave through the nervous coaching staff before the game when he whimsically announced he had left his football pads in his motel room.
One player did forget pads on a road trip to Pateros earlier this season. The Hornets won 84-0. That was the biggest sting in a string of scores that included 55-14 over Coulee-Hartline, 58-6 over Sprague, 60-0 over Wellpinit, 63-0 over Almira, 69-6 over Lind and 78-12 over Harrington.
"From what we can find out," Gatlin said, "Inchelium and Wishkah are the two smallest schools in the state playing eight-man football."
Just how small are they? Well, before the game, the head coach, reminding his players that anyone needing nervous relief should make a last-minute trip to the latrine, put it this way:
"Remember, we're in the Kingdome," he said. "There are no trees or buildings to run behind while the game's going on over here."
Rose, a round-faced educator who took off his necktie and put on his away from school sense of humor as the bus rolled into Seattle, said the state-championship trip had thrown the school into a bit of turmoil.
"There was not much education going on last week,' he said. "Next week, it's going to be wild, I'm afraid."
Not as wild, however, as some of the postgame celebrating.
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