Two weekends ago, I covered the first rodeo in my journalism career. I had a blast.

The rodeo was the 105th War Bonnet Roundup held in Idaho Falls. I covered it on Friday, Aug. 5 and Saturday, Aug. 6. My story from Aug. 6 (the final day of the rodeo) focused on brothers Joe and Josh Frost, two of the most successful bull riders in the region.

My story revolved around their bull rides that Saturday night, but I also touched on their upbringing, their success and their relation to rodeo legend Lane Frost.

My story was republished on the Wrangler Network’s website. That link can be found here, and the full text of the story is below:

Joe and Josh Frost showed the crowd how it’s done.

Bull rider after bull rider got bucked off before eight seconds elapsed. Two riders had qualified for the money with two remaining late Saturday night at the War Bonnet Roundup. The final two were the Frost brothers.

Josh’s free hand nearly grazed his bull, American Sniper, and he was nearly bucked twice before the clock reached eight seconds. But he held on for a score of 87.

Joe’s ride was cleaner, but he fell six points short of his younger brother. Josh was the winner. Joe was third.

The two brothers from eastern Utah provided a thrilling finish to the 105th War Bonnet held at Bank of Idaho Arena at Sandy Downs. Josh will go home with a rifle, just like Joe did when he won the 2012 War Bonnet.

“I’m very excited,” Josh said after his winning run. “It’s always fun to compete at the War Bonnet.”

Joe, 24, came into the War Bonnet ranked No. 2 in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association bull riding season standings. He placed second in the 2014 National Finals Rodeo and fourth last year.

Josh, 21, hadn’t pursued the NFR since this year. He was outside of the PRCA’s top 50 bull rider standings going into this weekend, but Saturday’s win will give him a healthy jump.

The brothers began their rodeo careers once they could walk, more or less. Joe said they he was about 5 years old when he started riding calves and steers, and Josh wasn’t far behind.

“I’d climb on Joe’s back and he’d pretend to be a bucking bull,” Josh said. “We just always wanted to do (bull riding) since we were little kids. It’s been our dream.”

The Frost family joined the PRCA more than 60 years ago. Clyde Frost, the brother of Joe’s and Josh’s grandfather, rode bareback in the first NFR, held in 1959.

“That’s the thing growing up a Frost,” Joe said. “You’re pretty much born wanting to ride a bull.”

Clyde’s son, Lane, was the PRCA World Champion bull rider in 1987. Two years later, Lane died in the arena in Cheyenne, Wyo., after his bull broke several of Lane’s ribs with its horn.

“He’s been our biggest hero,” Joe said. “I know if he was alive today, I’d talk to him two or three times every day. The only way we get that now is through prayer. I still feel close to him, and I feel like he’s with us a lot. A lot of the way we ride, and a lot of things we do come from trying to emulate someone like that.”

Now Joe (and Josh, to a lesser extent) is the bull rider that others look up to.

St. Anthony native Garrett Remington, 19, competed in his first War Bonnet on Saturday. He was bucked off his bull in under three seconds, but qualifying was more gravy than beef for the South Fremont High School graduate. He knew the quality of his competition, namely Joe Frost.

“I watched him on TV at the NFR,” Remington said. “So that was pretty cool to interact with all these bigger names.”

Joe was a secondary attraction after the bull riding competition Saturday. He still came away with $1,727.82, but Josh earned the winning check of $2,760.54.

Joe had no issue with his third-place finish. In fact, he looked more excited than Josh after their runs. Sure, Joe wanted to win, but defeat doesn’t taste so bad when his brother earns the victory.

For Josh, Saturday’s win was sweet revenge. He rode American Sniper two weeks ago in Cheyenne, and the bull bucked Josh. This time, Sniper earned him a rifle.

“Now we can go shoot targets together,” Joe said.

Correction: This story had been updated to note that Clyde Frost rode bareback in the inaugural NFR in 1959.

Fellow Post Register reporter Bryan Clark and I broke the story about a lawsuit filed against Idaho State University.

Idaho Falls native Orin Duffin alleged anti-Mormon discrimination by his ISU tennis coaches and teammates. Some unnamed teammates of Duffin’s backed up many of his claims, as did an investigation by ISU’s Office of Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action and Diversity.

Here is the full story:

A Mormon tennis player from Idaho Falls is suing Idaho State University, claiming he was discriminated against because of his faith.

Former Hillcrest High School tennis standout Orin Duffin filed suit against the school Friday, alleging he was subject to severe harassment while playing for the men’s tennis team because of his membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Stuart Summers, ISU’s associate vice president for Marketing and Communications, said Monday that school officials would not comment on the pending litigation.

The suit comes almost a year after ISU’s Office of Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action and Diversity completed an investigation into allegations that Duffin was subjected to religious harassment.

That investigation found corroboration for allegations that assistant coach Nate Gross and some team members sent women, possibly prostitutes or strippers, to Duffin’s hotel room while the team was at a tournament in Las Vegas. The investigation also found that then-head coach Bobby Goeltz permitted a culture of hostility toward Duffin on the team and failed to investigate allegations of Gross’ misconduct.

“The interviews conducted collectively paint a clear picture that (Duffin) was subjected to severe, persistent and pervasive harassment and bullying,” investigators found. “In particular, they establish that (Duffin’s) religion was a contributing factor (to) that treatment.”

The report recommended that Goeltz, a popular longtime coach, be fired and that Gross, who had already resigned, not be rehired.

Goeltz announced his “retirement” in late July, a month after the internal investigation concluded. But a letter from the Office of Equal Opportunity notes that Goeltz “submitted his notice of retirement in lieu of termination.”

Goeltz spent 25 years as ISU’s head coach of the men’s and women’s programs. Prior to coming to ISU, he was the head coach of the Maryland tennis program for 10 years. He recorded more than 500 career wins.

Gross, who played for ISU before becoming an assistant coach, was announced as the new men’s and women’s tennis coach at the University of Hawaii-Hilo on July 30. In September, however, Tina McDermott was announced as Gross’ replacement.

Reached by phone Monday, UH-Hilo’s athletic secretary Audrey Hirayama said Gross’ hiring never went through. A September article in the Hawaii Tribune-Herald said Gross resigned, per a university spokesperson.

Duffin attended Hillcrest from 2011 to 2014 and made the state tennis tournament his final three seasons. As a senior, Duffin won the 5A boys singles championship, the first such title by a District 6 boys singles player since 2009. He was also named the Post Register’s All-Area Boys Tennis Player of the Year in 2013 and 2014.

After Duffin’s stellar high school career, he was offered several college scholarships, according to the complaint. He chose to play for ISU, fulfilling a childhood dream.

Duffin joined the ISU men’s team for the 2014-15 season. He played 10 singles matches and five doubles matches in 2015, per ISU’s archives. He went 5-5 in singles play and 4-1 in doubles.

But ISU’s investigation showed that shortly after joining the squad Duffin, the only Mormon on the team, began to experience harassment.

The investigation found corroboration that Gross badgered Duffin with questions about sex and his religious beliefs. It also found corroboration that Gross would attempt to hit Duffin with tennis balls during a practice drill, something other players were also encouraged to do.

One team member told investigators: “If I were being treated by (Gross) the way (Duffin) is being treated, I would have left in the second week of school. All of the kids on the team including (Gross) are bullying (Duffin).”

Another player, identified as an upperclassman, told investigators that what was happening to Duffin differed from hazing that freshmen typically undergo and that he was worried Duffin would “just lose it some day.”

The report did not find that Goeltz directly participated in religious harassment against Duffin, but it found that he had “demonstrated negligence in the management and oversight of his team.”

When investigators asked if Goeltz had investigated allegations that prostitutes or strippers were sent to Duffin’s room by Gross and a group of players in order to test his religious convictions, Goeltz responded: “I seriously doubt any of the kids would have enough money to hire a prostitute in Vegas,” according to the report.

“The failure to intervene on (Duffin’s) behalf signaled to the team that its treatment of (Duffin) was appropriate, allowed the treatment to continue and worsen over time,” the investigation found.

Ultimately Duffin, who is now serving a LDS mission, left the team.

“(Duffin) ultimately chose to sever his relationship with the tennis program rather than consider returning to the team after he serves his mission,” the report states. “Thus, (Duffin) has also been deprived of his ability to participate in inter-collegiate athletics.”

Duffin is suing ISU, President Arthur Vailas, Athletic Director Jeff Tingey, Goeltz, Gross and 10 as-yet unnamed individuals over the treatment he received while playing on the men’s tennis team.

Duffin is seeking an unspecified amount of punitive damages for religious discrimination, deprivation of due process, deprivation of free speech, conspiracy, negligent supervision and training, negligence, gross negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

Rexburg, Idaho was recently named the safest town in Idaho by an online public records aggregator. Few Rexburg residents have been gang members, been to prison or even been arrested.

Art Morales is not one of those residents.

The baseball coach for Rexburg’s high school baseball team had a rough upbringing in Ventura, Calif., and that lifestyle followed him to Idaho.

But after his second prison stint, Morales reached a slowdown in Rexburg. Here’s my profile of the Madison High School coach:

Luke Mecham approached Art Morales four years ago with a job offer. Madison High School’s then-varsity baseball coach wanted Morales to join his staff as an assistant.

Mecham was surprised to hear Morales say, “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?” Mecham asked.

“I just have to check on some things,” Morales responded.

“Is it work?” Mecham said.

“No, my work supports me,” Morales said.

Mecham walked away for a second, then returned.

“Is it your record?” Mecham said.

“Yeah,” Morales said.

Morales had lived in Idaho for 15 years at that point. He had been to prison twice, which he figured would complicate his chances of becoming a Madison coach, but Mecham reassured him. The district superintendent had already signed off.

“I was like, ‘Then I’ll take the job,’ ” Morales said with a laugh.

Morales, 38, replaced Mecham as the head coach last summer and has helped the Bobcats reach the 5A state tournament, which starts Thursday. The tattoos that coat Morales’ arms hint at his turbulent past, but they also obscure his transformation into a cherished baseball coach.

“He’s doing a 180-degree turnaround,” Morales’ father, Art Sr., said.

Morales moved to Idaho in 1997 at the age of 19. He served about three years total in prison due to marijuana possession. His most recent prison term ended in 2006.

“I wasn’t living the right lifestyle,” Morales said. “(When you’re) not living the right lifestyle, problems find you or you find problems.”

Those problems stemmed from a rough childhood in Ventura, Calif. Baseball was Morales’ greatest passion, but drugs, alcohol and gangs pervaded his life.

Morales, a catcher, made Ventura High School’s varsity baseball team as a freshman, but he was booted from the team as a junior after he beat up a man who heckled one of his teammates.

Morales ended up at Santa Barbara High School as a senior and graduated. He even planned to play baseball at Cerritos Junior College. But one life-threatening incident altered his path.

One night in 1997, members from a rival gang jumped Morales and a fellow gang member. Morales ran away, but a lone rival followed him. Morales fought without realizing the man had a knife. He stabbed Morales in the back and the neck.

Morales’ neck was gushing blood, which he subdued by tying a shirt around the wound. He ran to a nearby friend’s house and was rushed to the hospital.

Morales’ parents were living in Pocatello at the time. When they heard the news, they immediately drove to Ventura. They brought their son back to Idaho after he recovered.

It took two prison terms for Morales to turn his life around. He abandoned drugs and alcohol. He started a family. He moved to Rexburg seven years ago and became a member of the LDS church last summer.

It took time, however, for Morales to adjust to Rexburg.

“I wanted to slow down in life, and we hit Jake brakes,” Morales said.

The city’s culture felt foreign to Morales, and he looked out of place to many of the residents.

During his first year in Rexburg, parents took their children out of his baseball academy because they were uncomfortable with his appearance. Other parents refused to let their children hang out with his four children.

“At least once a month, we wanted to move,” Morales said.

Life drastically improved after that first year. In fact, parents began to ask him to accept their children into his baseball academy.

Despite an inconsistent regular season, Madison won the 5A District 5-6 title and reached their first state tournament in two years. The Bobcats play Lewiston at 4:30 p.m. Thursday.

Morales’ tattoos used to stand out for negative reasons. Now, they symbolize how much he’s changed.

“We just changed playgrounds,” Morales said. “We surrounded ourselves with really good people, and in return really good things have been happening.”

You don’t hear about many major league pitchers who go through two Tommy John surgeries in their careers. You almost never hear about MLB pitchers who go through the surgery twice in two years.

So I was stunned when I heard Anthony Brady.

Brady pitched for Idaho Falls High School and earned a scholarship at Division III Puget Sound in 2012. During his freshman season, the right-hander tore his ulnar collateral ligament and needed Tommy John surgery. He returned in time for his sophomore season. Three appearances in, he tore his UCL again.

Brady’s story would be amazing if it ended there. Instead, Brady received Tommy John surgery again, returned in time for his senior season and finished the year healthy for the first time since high school. As you can imagine, Brady’s rehab process was the most fascinating part of this story.

Here’s my profile of Brady that appeared in the May 3 edition of the Post Register:

Anthony Brady feared his ulnar collateral ligament had torn for the second time in two years, but he held his emotions in check until the MRI report arrived.

Brady was a sophomore pitcher for the University of Puget Sound baseball team. As a freshman, Brady tore the UCL in his right elbow and needed Tommy John surgery, but the right-hander returned for the start of the 2014 season.

In his third appearance that year, Brady threw a fastball and felt a pop in his right elbow. Eight days later, Puget Sound’s head athletic trainer Craig Bennett confirmed Brady’s fear — the UCL was torn again.

Brady buried his head in his hands with tears streaming from his eyes.

“I told Craig, ‘I’m not going to quit,’ ” Brady said. “At the time, I said it like that with such confidence, but during the rehab process it was a completely different story.”

Brady is now a senior at Puget Sound. He pitched for the Loggers all spring, finishing a baseball season for the first time since he played for the Idaho Falls Bandits after his senior year at Idaho Falls High School. The previous three years were mired in fear and self-doubt, which Brady overcame with persistence.

Eerily similar injuries

On Feb. 16, 2013, Brady made his third bullpen appearance for the Loggers. Down 16-0 to Corban in the eighth inning, Brady recorded the first two outs and reached a 3-2 count on the third hitter. Brady decided to throw a fastball. He set, wound up and threw the pitch into the dirt. Brady crouched on the mound in pain, prompting a visit from head coach Brian Billings. Brady told Billings he slipped on the mound and tweaked his hamstring. It was a lie. On that 3-2 fastball, Brady felt a pop in his right arm.

“That was probably the most pain I’ve felt throughout the process,” Brady said. “My whole arm had searing pain up and down and kind of went numb. I knew at that point that whatever had happened was pretty bad.”Brady and Billings decided to gauge his health with some practice pitches. He threw the first one softly and felt fine. He threw the second with a normal arm action.

Brady underwent an MRI days later, and it revealed a torn UCL. The second practice pitch was ill-advised, but the UCL had already been shredded on the 3-2 fastball.

Dr. Elias Khlafayan, the orthopedic surgeon for the Seattle Mariners and Seahawks, performed Brady’s Tommy John surgery. Brady’s right arm was in a brace for the first two months after the procedure. After that, he worked on regaining range of motion in the arm. He lifted light weights (one or two pounds) after the brace came off to regain muscle mass in his bicep and tricep. He also rehabilitated his left leg because the tendon graft in his hamstring was used to replace his torn UCL (in Tommy John surgery, a tendon from another part of the body replaces the torn UCL).

The final half of the 12-month recovery process involved throwing, first with a tennis ball from a short distance.

Brady didn’t suffer any major setbacks and was cleared to play before the 2014 season began. He was even slotted as a starting pitcher.

In his third start of the season, Brady carried a shutout into the fourth inning against Whitman. With one out, the count swelled to 3-2. Brady chose fastball. He set, wound up and the pitch plummeted into the dirt. He felt a pop in his right elbow.

This time, Brady knew something was wrong and immediately left the game, but he wasn’t sure of the severity.

“I had seen a lot of stories that during the throwing process when you come back from Tommy John, it’s pretty common to feel pops, feel a snapping, because you have a lot of scar tissue that builds up over the surgery area,” Brady said. “My thought was, ‘Maybe it’s just scar tissue.’ ”

The fear of another torn UCL, however, crept into Brady’s mind. Sure enough, eight days after the Whitman game, the MRI report revealed another torn UCL.

“(My wife and I) both thought he was done,” Brady’s father, Cliff, said. “‘Nobody would go through this twice.’”

‘Is it really worth it?’

Tommy John recovery lasts about 18 months the second time, so Brady knew he’d miss the rest of his sophomore season and all of his junior season. Plus, the surgery is far less successful on second-time recipients than on first-timers, according to Jeff Passan’s book “The Arm.”

“I was looking at it saying, ‘Is it really worth it?,’ ” Brady said. ”’Do I really want to put in all of this work just to come back and play Division III baseball for one more year?’ I was ready to quit every day.”

So why didn’t he quit?

Part of the answer stems from his experience at the Logger Youth Baseball Camp, where he coached 7- to 13-year-olds at Puget Sound during the summers of 2013 and 2014. Those players reminded Brady of a younger him. They rekindled his love for baseball.

Brady’s girlfriend at the time also helped keep him going. So did his parents, who he felt he’d let down if he quit baseball. He also credits his I.F. roots.

“Growing up in southeast Idaho, you, especially the baseball player, gain a chip on your shoulder,” Brady said. “You hate being told no, and you can’t stand being underrated.”

The return

The grind of Brady’s 18-month recovery felt easy compared to his first games as a senior this spring. Brady allowed a combined 11 runs on 10 hits and five walks in his second, third and fourth appearances.

“I was honestly ready to quit,” Brady said. “I couldn’t deal with the fact that I had put in all of this work the last three years to come back and literally just suck.”

Brady also had trouble trusting his twice-repaired arm, so Bennett suggested he see a sports psychologist. Brady agreed.

The psychologist gave Brady strategies to improve his focus and confidence, but more than anything, she served as an outlet for Brady to express his tormented thoughts.

In Saturday’s season finale, Brady struck out six Whitman batters in 2.2 scoreless innings. His final ERA was 3.86.

“He’s the hardest working, most determined athlete I’ve ever seen,” Puget Sound head baseball coach Jeff Halstead said.

Brady will attend graduate school at Northern Colorado this fall with plans to study biomechanics. He also has a spot on the baseball team. Until mid-March, he didn’t know if he’d be physically or mentally capable enough to continue pitching.

“Any day that I have the ability to go out and play catch and even throw a baseball at this point, I don’t take it for granted,” Brady said.

Three years ago, Ethan Telfair was a Division I college basketball prospect. Since then, the point guard attended two junior colleges and is now playing for Idaho State. I wanted to figure out how the Coney Island product and brother of former phenom Sebastian Telfair ended up in Eastern Idaho.

Here’s the resulting profile I wrote for the Post Register:

Everything crashed for Ethan Telfair in December 2012.

Ethan, now the starting point guard for the Idaho State University men’s basketball team, received a call from his mother, Erica Telfair, in late November 2012. His father, Sylvester “Otis” Telfair, had died at the age of 64.

After the funeral in New York (Ethan’s from Coney Island), Ethan returned to Quest Prep in Las Vegas. He quickly discovered that his classes weren’t NCAA accredited, which meant he wouldn’t become eligible to play in the NCAA for another year. Several Division I schools were recruiting him at the time.

“I was on the other side of the country in Nevada by myself,” Ethan told the Post Register. “Them telling me that the school wasn’t accredited and my dad dying, it was too much. I just wanted to get away.”

Ethan spent the next two years traversing the southern United States, trying to find a launch pad back to Division I college basketball. He finally found it this season for ISU, and he’s been one of the best players in the Big Sky Conference.

What a long, strange trip it’s been.

“I don’t even know how I got here,” Ethan said.

Black marks

Before attending Quest for his senior year of high school, Ethan went to Lincoln High School in Brooklyn, N.Y. His brother, Sebastian Telfair, and cousin, Stephon Marbury, both attended Lincoln. Both played in the NBA.

High school was where Ethan first encountered problems. In 2011, Ethan was charged with felony criminal possession of three loaded guns and attempting to bribe a police officer, according to the New York Daily News. The gun charges were later dropped.

Ethan said that he was merely playing basketball when police officers arrested him and 11 other people.

The charges have followed him around. For instance, Oklahoma State was tentative about offering him a scholarship because of the incident, he said.

“It left a bad stigma on me for a while,” Ethan said. “I used to be so angry about that, but I have to let it go.”

When it came to recruiting, the criminal charges were compounded by Ethan’s height (ISU generously lists him at 6-foot) and his non-accredited classes at Quest. The latter left him scrambling to find a new school.

Arriving and thriving at ISU

In 2013, Ethan transferred from Quest to United Prep in Oklahoma City. But his stay was short. Ethan’s half-brother, Jamel Thomas (another former NBA player), recommended he look at junior colleges, where he could play and complete his class credits.

Thomas asked Steve DeMeo, his former coach at Providence and current Northwest Florida State College coach, to take a look at Ethan. Sure enough, DeMeo brought Ethan aboard.

“I was excited to have him on the team,” DeMeo said. “He’s one of the strongest competitors I’ve ever coached.”

Ethan lasted one season. DeMeo said Ethan, who came off the bench for the Raiders, wanted more playing time.

Ethan got the starting role he craved last season at Redlands Community College in Oklahoma, but he again went searching for a new school after the season. He said Utah State, Fresno State and Manhattan College, among others, looked at him. ISU coach Bill Evans knew some of Ethan’s AAU and junior college coaches, he said, so he reached out to the now-junior. Ethan came to Pocatello on a visit shortly thereafter.

“Then I put him in a headlock and said, ‘Are you going to sign?’ ” Evans joked. “And he did.”

ISU is currently 11-11. The last time the Bengals had a winning record was 2005. Ethan has been the key to their resurgence, thanks to his 18.3 points per game (fourth in the Big Sky), 5.6 assists per game (first) and 2.3 steals per game (first).

Did he expect the instant success?

“If I say what I want to say, they’re going to say, ‘Are you cocky? Are you arrogant?’ ” Ethan said, referring to no one in particular. “I didn’t come here to lose. I didn’t come here for nothing less than success.”

Doing right by Sylvester

Ethan is driven to make up for his past criminal and academic issues. He wants to prove he’s more than Sebastian’s little brother. But more than anything else, he’s playing for his late father.

In a decade-plus leading up to Ethan’s birth, Sylvester — a Vietnam War veteran — ran into trouble with the law, including a manslaughter conviction in 1988 that landed him eight years in prison, according to Ian O’Connor’s 2007 book, “The Jump.” But he was around to watch Ethan, his youngest of 10 children, grow up.

“My dad was tough,” Ethan said.

Ethan has a scar near his right eye from when he ran into a radiator as a child. He’s faced criminal charges. He’s attended six schools in five years.

None of those things can compare to losing his father.

“I made a promise to my dad at the funeral that I was going to do right,” Ethan said. “Graduate from high school and college, stay out of trouble and try to make the most of my life.”

On Wednesday, January 27, I was a crime reporter for an afternoon.

JonRyheem Peoples, a Idaho State University football player who played up the road from Idaho Falls in Rigby, had been suspended indefinitely two days earlier for violating the athletic department’s code of conduct.

Naturally curious, I dug around hoping to discover why he was suspended. I ended up finding an online court record detailing a felony marijuana distribution charge against Peoples.

After confirming the charge with the Bannock County prosecutor, I wrote a story and published it online. Here is that story, which also appeared in Thursday’s Post Register.

Michael Sanders is a college quarterback who transferred from Scottsdale Community College to Idaho State University prior to this most recent football season. He was named ISU’s starting QB, and fans hoped he would continue pick up where 2014 QB Justin Arias left off.

Instead, Sanders struggled with inconsistency and injuries, and the Bengals finished 2-9.

Sanders chose to transfer after the season. Earlier this month, I spoke to him about his decision to transfer. That story can be found here.

A week after that story was broken, he told me he was transferring to Henderson State. He didn’t say anything other than confirming the transfer, but I spoke to Henderson State’s coach about his new QB. That story is here.

Also, I nabbed an exclusive interview with Sanders on the day he officially signed with ISU back in February. That Q&A can be found here.

Earlier this month, I wrote an A1 story for the Post Register laying out the case against high school sports. As you can see above, the Post Register ran my sports con story next to a pro one written by another reporter. These two stories were inspired by a recent bond measure that proposed a new high school in Idaho Falls (it passed, and the new school will be built by 2018 or 2019).

Here’s the link to my story, with the full text below (the pro story can be found here).

When Bonneville Joint School District 93 looked for ways to trim the cost of its new high school bond, it didn’t consider eliminating one large money-sucker: sports.

The Nov. 3 bond dedicated $63.5 million to a new high school and its additions. About $15 million of that is going toward athletic facilities.

“If you did not have athletics, you’d have a lot of people not coming to your school,” District 93 superintendent Chuck Shackett said.

About 40 percent of Bonneville and Hillcrest high school students play sports, according to the schools’ athletic directors.

But are competitive high school sports, particularly football, a necessary component of a well-rounded educational experience?

A growing list of educational experts and medical doctors are arguing that they are not. Citing high costs for facilities, equipment and travel, distractions from academics and health concerns, they propose that removing sports from the school system would make students safer and more focused.

High costs

In its three attempts to pass the new high school bond, District 93 only considered removing an athletic cost once, when it separated the high school from the auditorium and football stadium on November’s ballot.

Both questions passed. As a result, several athletic facilities will grace the new school, which will have a 1,500-student capacity and will open in fall 2018 or 2019. Here’s the breakdown of the $15 million:

• $5.7 million for a competition gym

• $3.4 million for a practice gym

• $2.1 million for a football stadium

• $4 million for everything else (tennis courts, track, baseball, softball, soccer and physical education fields)

The stadium alone was not vital. The Highland, Pocatello and Century high school football teams all rent Holt Arena, which is also home to Idaho State University’s football team. Boise, Capital, Timberline and Borah all share the football stadium in Boise’s Dona Larsen Park. Three District 93 schools sharing one football stadium might be an inconvenience, but it wouldn’t be impossible.

But sports cost more than just the facilities to house them.

District 93 doled out $502,000 in athletic stipends to pay coaches, trainers, etc. for the 2014-15 school year while paying $156,700 in nonathletic stipends for department heads, club advisers, etc., according to district records. Those numbers are so disparate because the district has more athletic employees (coaches, trainers, etc.) than non-athletic (department heads, club advisers, etc.). Employees with more experience also receive larger stipends.

District 93 Chief Financial Officer April Burton said the district also funds transportation costs for all extracurricular activities, which include organizations such as debate, band and orchestra.

Distracting from academics

Idaho State University defensive lineman Tyler Kuder  is set to graduate this month with a degree in sports management. When he attended Payette High School, he said all he cared about was playing sports and hanging out with friends. He earned a 2.4 GPA and a 20 on the ACT, causing several Division I football programs (including Boise State, Duke and Oregon) to lose interest in him.

“They didn’t have good academic support,” Kuder said of Payette.

High school is designed to educate teenagers and prepare them for adulthood. Yet, in many places across the nation, the students who participate in athletics are often pushed to excel on the field and merely get by in the classroom. In other cases, the students’ time is stretched so thin that they prioritize sports over studies.

“Sometimes, I got lazy thinking, ‘No, I’ve got football, I’ve gotta watch film,’ so I put that over homework,” Madison High School senior Michael Dredge said.

Student-athletes also frequently miss classes for travel to games and tournaments.

Bonneville High School athletic director Dale Gardner said freshman football players miss about one class a week, while baseball, softball, soccer and track athletes miss around four classes per week. Idaho Falls High School reported similar numbers. The number of missed classes increases if the athletes make district and state tournaments.

“Anytime any kid misses for any reason, whether they’re sick or whatever, that always puts an extra stress on the teacher because you still have to make sure that kid gets what they need,” said Natalie Woods, a math teacher at Hillcrest. “You hope that they’ll make good on themselves and come in and do it so you don’t have to chase them down.

“It’s just one of those things you deal with.”

Health concerns

For the first time in his high school career, Dredge, a defensive lineman, didn’t suit up for the Madison football team this past season. Three concussions within seven months prompted his parents to put their feet down.

Dredge’s first two concussions came from wrestling, but the highest percentage of concussions in high school sports happen in football.

During the 2014-15 school year, 1,264 concussions were reported by Idaho’s high schools, according to a survey conducted by the Idaho High School Activities Association. Football accounted for 567, or 44.9 percent, of those concussions.

However, female athletes are not immune to concussions. Research by the Women’s Sports Foundation shows that girls playing in many high school sports have a higher incidence rate of sports-related concussions than males in similar sports.

“It’s a real issue that parents and administrators should be aware of,” Shackett said.

Dr. Bennet Omalu wrote in a column published Monday in The New York Times that children should not be allowed to play high-impact sports until they are 18 years old. Omalu, a forensic pathologist, was the first to link head trauma suffered by football players to a neurological brain disorder, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.

“The human brain becomes fully developed at about 18 to 25 years old. We should at least wait for our children to grow up, be provided with the information and education on the risk of play, and let them make their own decisions,” he wrote.

Additionally, 691 high school students have died from playing football since 1990, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research. At least eight have died this year, the Kansas City Star reports.

“No life is worth any sport,” Dredge said.

An alternative

Critics of school-based sports programs argue that eliminating competitive sports from public schools would allow the students and teachers to focus on the institution’s primary purpose: education.

In much of the world, high school sports do not exist. In Europe, teenagers who want to play competitive sports often participate on club teams outside school.

Former University of Nevada men’s basketball coach Len Stevens told the Reno Gazette-Journal in 2012 that adopting the European model would allow high schools to focus on academics and more inclusive athletic programs such as intramural sports and PE.

Other than school spirit, high school sports don’t have much more to offer than club sports. For example, the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is crucial for basketball players who want to play in college.

“The one thing about summer basketball is you get the chance to go see 1,000 kids at one venue on one day,” said Utah Valley University head men’s basketball coach Mark Pope, who signed former Bonneville player Telly Davenport last year. “It’s incredibly more efficient, in terms of a broad brush chance to evaluate, than it is to go visit kids at their high school.”

Clubs would not eliminate the danger of sports, but separating sports programs from the school system could reduce societal pressures on athletes to participate in competitive contact sports.

In their Oct. 30 paper titled “Medical Ethics and School Football,” published in the American Journal of Bioethics, Drs. Steven H. Miles and Shailendra Prasa wrote that “health professionals should call for ending public school tackle football programs.”

“Private play and private leagues, like the Pop Warner program, would continue,” they wrote. “Young people choosing such programs would play purely for the game and not be lured by ‘school spirit.’”

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.