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One trophy stands alone
Thirty years later,
the full story is coming.
And we need it from the people who were there.
There is one trophy in Sandpoint High School history that stands alone. One state football championship. One season when a small lake town fought its way through Idaho to a state title. One group of boys, now men in their mid-40s, running businesses on First Avenue, coaching your kids, and sitting three rows up at Barlow Stadium on Friday nights like it never happened.
"Some programs win a title and move on. Sandpoint won one and built a culture on top of it."
1994
1994
Puailoa arrives.
The lights come back on.
1997
Fourth season.
State champions.
2027
Thirty years later.
The full story runs.
HOW IT STARTED
It happened. November 1997. And next season marks thirty years.
We told you how it started. In 1994, a program that had gone quiet got a head coach named Satini Puailoa, a man who did not ease into town so much as arrive like weather. He found two men already there who had refused to let the thing die, John Knowles and Mike McNulty, and a staff of local teachers who loved the game more than the spotlight.
The lights at Memorial Field came back on. The bleachers filled. In his fourth season, Sandpoint was state champion.
The chapter that's still being written
"The Story of 1997
is Yet to Come."
That is where the last chapter ended: "The story of 1997 is yet to come." It is coming. Next year's program will feature it, and we are building it the right way. Not from a box score, but from the people who were standing there.
If you were part of that 1997 run or you watched it, we want your story. A practice. A film session. Something a coach said on a bus that you did not understand until you were 40. A photograph pulled from a shoebox.
That season made plenty of headlines. Bring us the ones nobody wrote.
TEAM PHOTO: A‑1 Division II State Champions · November 1997
The trophy: The state championship trophy, raised above the crowd under the lights.
THE FINAL WHISTLE: Players hoist the banner as the 1997 season comes to a close.
COACHES: Coach Puailoa's staff
"One trophy. One town.
Thirty years of carrying it quietly."
THIS PART IS FROM YOU
Have a story or photograph?
If you played, coached, or watched the 1997 season, we want it in next year's program. Send us what you've got.