Big Bend women's basketball is in good hands

Tracing back the footsteps of the Big Bend Community College women’s basketball coaches over the past 30 years is intriguing to say the least.

It’s really quite an impressive list of guys that got their start right here in Moses Lake and either moved on to bigger and brighter stages or are continuing the commitment to excellence.

Kelly Graves is now a Pac 12 legend at Oregon. He set the foundation at Big Bend from 1989 to 1992 on his way to greatness. His career record here was 45-40.

Chris Carlson, who’s in his 14th season at North Idaho College over in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, followed Graves from 1992 through 2000, posting a 117-98 record.

And of course, current coach Preston Wilks is in his 11th season. Wilks (145-152) became the all-time winningest women's basketball coach in Big Bend history in 2015-2016 when he surpassed Carlson (117 career wins).

To borrow a line from the Grateful Dead, “... Lately, it occurred to me, what a long, strange trip it’s been …”

“Big Bend was my first head coaching job. We got the first regular-season conference championship and I’m very proud of that,” Carlson told me last year when he returned to DeVries Activity Center for the first time since leaving. “I met my wife Carey here. That’s the big story right there.”

Carlson’s Cardinals beat Big Bend that night in the first meeting at DeVries since North Idaho joined the Northwest Athletic Conference.

Past met the present once again last week on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Wilks’ Lady Vikes got one for the home team. Miranda Johnson’s lay-up with 18 seconds left proved to be the game-winning shot and the Lady Vikes beat the Cardinals for the first time since NIC joined the NWAC in 2016-17. The win proved to be Wilks’ first win against Carlson, who was the NWAC Eastern Region coach of the year in 1999.

And the beat goes on, Graves is currently the head coach at the University of Oregon where his 2016-17 team had the most successful season in Ducks’ history, advancing to the Elite 8. He has it going again going this year. Oregon's Sabrina Ionescu recently set an NCAA record with her eighth career triple-double to lead No. 10 Oregon to a victory over Washington.

“Coach told me with my seven turnovers, I almost had a quadruple-double,” Ionescu told the press after the game. I’d love to work with a guy that thinks up stuff like that.

Graves (1989-92) took over a struggling Big Bend women’s program and led the Vikings to their first winning season in school history in his first year. The second season, they won 23 games (the program’s first 20-plus win season) and finished fourth at the NWAC tournament.

Carlson picked up the torch (1992-2000) and logged 117 wins in his tenure and was named the NWAC Eastern Region coach of the year in 1999. He later was an assistant coach at Eastern Washington University (2001-2004) and an assistant at University of Idaho (2000-2001). He’s now in his 14th season as the head coach at North Idaho where he’s compiled 11-of-13 20-plus win seasons, including the NJCAA national championship.

Wilks’ team is currently 14-5 and riding the NWAC tournament-qualifying bubble in fourth place in the NWAC East standings. In his 11th season, the program’s winningest coach is directing a talented group of players to what very well could be the best finish in recent history.

Three decades later, the circle remains unbroken as the Lady Vikes march on in the 21st century toward bigger and better things.

Rodney Harwood is a sports writer a the Columbia Basin Herald and can be reached at rharwood@columbiabasinherald.com