I wrote the cover story for the Post Register’s 2015 high school football preview. The article was about Mackay High School, a small-town team that won eight state titles in 19 years.

The last state title came in 2005. Ten years later, Mackay can barely field a team.

I investigated the causes of this sharp decline, and I set to find out if the Miners would ever return to their peak.

Here’s the link to the story. This is how my story opens:

The numbers baffle Jack McKelvey.

Mackay High School currently has five boys in the sophomore, junior and senior classes.

Combined.

Three of those boys are on the football team, which McKelvey is coaching for his 24th season. Sophomore Colt Kraczek is one of the two boys foregoing football for academics (“a brilliant mind,” McKelvey called him).

“He could probably help us,” McKelvey said, pausing for a moment. “Anybody could. We need bodies.”

When Mackay opens its football season against Butte County on Sept. 3, nine players will don the red and white. And for the first year in their history, the Miners are playing a JV schedule.

This is a long fall for Mackay, which won eight state titles in 19 years. Coaches, officials and former players say the decline is due to people moving away.

“Our enrollment here at school dropped so rapidly and so low, it’s been hard to hang onto what we had,” McKelvey said. “It’s a numbers game.”

On Aug. 15, I was covering the Idaho Falls Chukars’ home game versus the Helena Brewers. It was a nondescript outing until about 10:30 p.m. MT, when Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel tweeted a link to this story.

Haudricourt’s story broke the news that Helena first baseman David Denson had come out as gay. Denson was batting cleanup that night for Helena.

After the game, I approached Denson, asking for an interview. He agreed at first, but he later asked to wait until the next day. I said that was fine, but I asked if I could get a quote that night. Here’s what he said:

The Associated Press got in touch with me before that, hoping to get some quotes from Denson. I told the AP I could only get one quote, which the editors used. I also told them about an interaction between Denson and a male fan after the game.

“I’m proud of you,” the male said.

“Thank you,” Denson replied.

The AP wrote a story the next day using the quote I got from Denson and the interaction I observed. Here is the link to the AP’s story.

Also, here’s the link to my gamer from the Aug. 15 game, which features a section about Denson at the end. This is what I wrote (the tweet above was added to the story):

Helena outfielder and cleanup hitter David Denson came out as gay, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Saturday night. Denson is the first openly gay player actively playing for a team affiliated with the MLB.

Denson joins former major leaguers Billy Bean and Glenn Burke as the only affiliated baseball players to ever come out, according to the Sentinel. Bean and Burke came out after their careers ended. Bean helped Denson reach out to the Sentinel, the newspaper reported.

Denson isn’t the first professional baseball player to come out. Sean Conroy, a pitcher for the independent Sonoma Stompers, came out in June.

Through Saturday, Denson has a .255 batting average with four home runs in 159 at-bats for the Brewers this season.