There was no Basketball team at RMA man. Who the fuck did they play? The Bonners Ferry High team? Even if there was a team and it was semi-organized, you still couldn't call it a "Team." It was just a bunch of dudes getting together to play basketball against one another, and maybe play BCA. No way you played in the Idaho High School basketball league. So you're wrong, there was no official "Team." As far as baseball teams were concerned, I know there weren't any of those either. Yeah, we had a baseball diamond at NWA, but there but no team. Like I said earlier, the only official "Team" that I ever knew about was the NWA soccer team who played in an official Sandpoint adult league. Yes, we did play in an adult league. I played on the fucking team, so don't go telling me what I know and what I don't know asshole. You played tournaments in Canada? What sport?!
There were never any high school caliber sports teams at any of the Idaho schools ever. Even the NWA soccer team that played with Sandpoint people wasn't a "Real" soprts team. It was more of a club sport than anything else.
My point still stands. BCA was the joke of the Idaho schools. You guys had all the weirdest kids there and did all the weirdest things. Weren't you not allowed to have ice cubes at one point. God what a bunch of candy asses you were.
Actually, I was on the first RMA soccer team back in 1984. Technically we were not a team till 1985. We had about six serious players who wanted to play soccer who all played before or after raps, on weekends, whenever we could. We played in the snow, on ice. Then in Spring of 85, Ray Kreiter and Brian Bates (Brian having played semi-pro soccer as a goal tender) agreed to allow us to form a team. Not in a league or anything, just form up, practice together and play nobody.
So we arrived in Bonners Ferry one afternoon to practice using a local field at a park. We practiced for a couple of hours and were packing up to leave when some local kids showed up. We thought they wanted to "rumble" because they were calling it "their field" and said we couldn't use it. But they were apparently the Bonners Ferry 16-18 year old soccer team. Ray Kreiter spoke to their coach, we decided to scrimmage. Final score was RMA 11, BF 0. They thought we were amazing, asked us how long we'd been together as a team and when we said two hours, they were taken aback. We asked how long they'd been together and they said since age 7. Apparently up there the kids advance through the divisions together, gaining or losing a kid here and there as people move away or whatever. So they'd been playing together for at least nine years and we stomped them. So they invited us to join the Pacific Northwest League. RMA had to consider that because they weren't used to letting us out of our cages very often, but they agreed. So we were in the league.
League play had already started a week before so we were automatically down one game since we didn't play. But we went on to beat every team in the area, taking down Sandpoint, Couer d'alene, Green River, and some others. The only team we could not beat was Spokane. Spokane sucked, but they had the most amazing goalie in the league. I don't think any team scored off him in 1985. At the end of the game the score was 0-0. But we had the coolest guy playing goalie for us, but he was also unfortunate the worst goalie in the league. So at the end we had a shoot-off and we were doomed. Spokane beat us.
But we played again in 1986 and kicked ass then as well. I would say all told there were probably 8 to 10 teams in the league. One was from Calgary I believe so we played over the border as well, though we never traveled up there to play. But I do remember in 1986 we tried to form a scrimmage against a team so we could hone our skills before the season began. So Ray called around and got hold of a team up in Calgary. There was a language barrier. Ray was saying we wanted to play a local team, they said okay, Ray said for boys, they took this to mean men, so one day this bus arrives and these men stumble out, with beards, wedding rings, none looking younger than 25, some looking forty'ish. And we were like...um... you guys aren't 16-18. But they had traveled so damn far to play they said, who cares, let's play soccer. So we did. We got stomped but it was fun. They were a semi-pro team, with guys whose names were like Lars and Hans and Werner. Score was 7-2. So RMA was good enough to score two goals on a semi-pro team.
There was no basketball team there in the years I was at RMA, or a baseball team, but I can testify that we had a soccer team that played in a real league against real teams. And not teams representing high schools, but the actual team for the cities they represented. And it was fun. About the most fun I had in Idaho.
