Columbia (Burbank) head coach Ken Idler's daughter Whitney, right, has helped lead the Coyotes to the Class 1A state tournament this year.   SANDY SUMMERS/ Yakima Herald-Republic

Dads, teenagers put aside their
differences on the basketball court

By PAUL SHUGAR
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

Fathers and their teenage daughters are known to have differences of opinion from time to time, especially during the girls' high school years.

To dad, skirts are too short, shirts shouldn't expose the midriff and all outfits worn on dates should be loose enough to work out in. Wait a minute, who is this guy you're dating anyway?

Naturally, the girls believe they should be able to wear whatever they want, date whomever they want and conflict ensues. They're not daddy's little girl anymore, so he should back off and let them live their own lives.

So while high school girls and their dads usually agree to disagree for four years of their lives, two dads at the 1A state basketball tournament in the SunDome this week are not afraid to put their relationships under more potential strain.

Instead of just trying to talk their daughters out of getting a belly-button ring, they also must get them to attack a 2-3 zone defense as their coaches.

"The biggest thing I learned long ago is not to bring the game home for the most part," said Ken Idler, who has coached both of his daughters, Lindsay and Whitney Idler, as an assistant and now as head coach at Burbank. "I leave basketball talk for basketball practice. I don't talk about it the rest of the time unless I'm asked a question."

Ken Idler is not the only girls coach at the SunDome who has players who call him dad. Liberty Bell coach Mike Bourn has two daughters suiting up for the Mountain Lions — Kelsey Bourn is a senior forward and Korrie Bourn is a freshman center. Like the Idlers, they also try to keep basketball separate from their everyday lives.

But they don't claim to be successful at it.

"Sometimes I tell them that I'm their basketball coach, not their dad, during basketball season," Mike Bourn said.

"We don't really keep (basketball separate). We watch videos and review games together. They will want to get (the tape out) out, and of course I'll tell them to put it on and we'll watch it."

Letting basketball into the family worked well for the Bourns and Liberty Bell. The Mountain Lions defeated the Idlers and Burbank 47-44 on Thursday to move into the semifinals where they lost to Freeman 53-43. The Coyotes lost to White Pass 55-53 in the losers' bracket to end their chances of playing for a trophy today.

But maybe Liberty Bell had the advantage on the Idlers because Mike Bourn is used to coaching his daughters. Brooke (Class of 1996) and Beau Bourn (Class of 1998) both played at Liberty Bell and each celebrated fourth-place trophies as their top finishes with their father at the state tournament.

Beau and Brooke also paved the way for an easier life for Kelsey and Korrie. While Mike Bourn admits that he is harder on his daughters than the rest of his players, a friend gave him some good advice when he first started coaching Brooke.

"Lay off, or she's going to quit."

Obviously the level of intensity of his approach is working on and off the court. Kelsey Bourn said they rarely disagree about off-the-court issues like curfew. The only potential hot-button topic is boys, and obviously dad is winning on that one. Neither of the girls have boyfriends.

"Both of them have plenty of time later on for boys," Mike Bourn said. "I know you (Kelsey) don't have a boyfriend. You (Korrie) don't right, right?"

Kelsey Bourn, as only an older sister can, assured her father that Korrie is a freshman and too young to worry about boys yet.

The thing the Bourns tend to disagree about most is the Mountain Lions' practice schedule and what areas the team needs to work on to keep improving. The Idlers take a different approach, avoiding basketball talk as much as possible at home.

"He usually won't talk (about basketball or me) unless it is something positive," said Whitney Idler, who is averaging 11.4 points per game in her senior season at Burbank. "He's never come home and yelled or anything like that. He's not like that. (Basketball and home life are) two different things for him."

Neither the Idlers nor the Bourns will deny that added pressure comes with being the coach's daughter. They must reflect their fathers' team rules and face the tough task of dealing with teammates in the locker room who might not be pleased with their dads after a tough practice or game.

They also must face the sniping from fans and parents who believe the only reason they get playing time is because they are the coach's daughters.

"There's extra pressure on them whether they like it or not," Ken Idler said. "No one questions me with the way (Whitney) performs. If she is not performing, it might not be that way. That's just the added pressure on kids who are coached by their parents."

But none of the daughters seem to struggle with this role. Whitney Idler plays on a team with former AAU teammates who were coached by her father and are used to the hierarchy. The Bourns often help the rest of the team communicate with their father/coach. They will let Mike Bourn know if a teammate is having problems in school or where the team wants to eat dinner on the road.

But in the end, basketball players or not, they are still daddy's little girls. Mike Bourn expects Kelsey to possibly get involved in coaching with her huge love of discussing technical details and looks forward to continuing to work with Korrie the next three years.

"We're just interested in what we need to do to improve and work on," Kelsey Bourn said. "We just watch a lot of film where we break down plays and defenses. We don't really disagree, things are just open to discussion."

And while the basketball dads might get to spend a lot of time with the girls on and around the court, being their coach takes some things away that other fathers in the stands enjoy.

"The one thing that is a negative is you never get to sit back and enjoy your kids' success," Ken Idler said. "When you're a coach, you're not just focused on your own kid because you have to think about the whole game. You never just get to sit back and enjoy their accomplishments."

Still, long hours of breaking down tough losses are probably more fun to deal with than meeting the new boyfriend.