RIVER CROSSING

Writer Afield –Vlahovich recognized as sports media icon

By Craig Howard Current Contributing Editor

If an Inland Northwest version of Mt. Rushmore is ever carved into the side of Mt. Spokane honoring local journalism legends, Mike Vlahovich has secured a slot.

Vlahovich’s roots in regional media trace back to 1948 when he was 4 years old and his father, John Vlahovich Sr., purchased the Valley Herald. The middle of three sons, Vlahovich grew up around the printing press, stacking copies of the Herald and inserting ad flyers into each issue.

It was an era of pre-computer print journalism still defined by the industrial heart of each publication –the linoptype, a hand-set typesetting machine responsible for the letters and words on each page.

“Everybody worked together,” Vlahovich said of his formative years spent alongside his brothers and dad at the Herald office. “The newspaper was the hub back then. It’s where everyone got their information.”

From an early age, Vlahovich began following sports – both local and national – by scouring the newspaper for the latest news and scores. He followed his future alma mater, Washington State University, as well a pro teams like the Green Bay Packers, Boston Celtics and Brooklyn (later Los Angeles) Dodgers.

“From the time I could read, I kept up on football, basketball, baseball and later track and field in the sports pages,” Vlahovich said.

One of Vlahovich’s earliest sports memories dates back to 1954 and the World Series pitting the New York Giants against the Cleveland Indians. That September, Vlahovich was a fifth-grader at Opportunity Elementary watching a grainy, black-and-white TV when Giants’ centerfielder Willie Mays made a sprinting over-the-shoulder catch still regarded as one of the greatest plays in baseball history.

Vlahovich played sports as well as following them. Early in his youth baseball career, he realized that he had a better chance of carving out a career as a reporter than an athlete. At West Valley High School, he latched on with the basketball squad as manager. The head coach was Jud Heathcote, who would go on to success at Washington State, Montana and Michigan State where he led the Spartans to a national title in 1979.

Heathcote became a mentor to Vlahovich who transferred into the West Valley School District after his family moved from the Central Valley School District following his eighth-grade year. At West Valley High, Vlahovich ran track, served as senior class president and maintained a B average. When he graduated in 1962, Vlahovich packed his bags and headed south to Pullman, enrolling at Washington State.

At WSU, Vlahovich was recruited to write for the school paper, The Daily Evergreen. While the invitation seemingly came from out of the blue, Vlahovich is convinced that an old friend from West Valley – who became assistant coach on the Washington State basketball team –had something to do with it.

“It had to be Jud,” Vlahovich said. “No one else there knew that I was a writer.”

After rising to Daily Evergreen sports editor and earning his degree in Journalism, Vlahovich was drafted into the U.S. Army. He served two years, including one year in Vietnam where he was assigned clerk duties in the country’s central highlands but still experienced several close calls.

“It was dangerous,” Vlahovich said. “Looking back on it, you could maybe say I was lucky.”

By 1968, he was back in Spokane Valley working for his dad at the Herald. He would emerge as the area’s sage of sports over a span of close to a quarter century before the Herald was sold in 1992.

Rick Sloan remembers being interviewed by Vlahovich as a standout quarterback at Central Valley High School in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Later, when Sloan was the head coach of the CV boys’ basketball program and assistant for football, Vlahovich was still there, reporter’s notebook in hand.

“Mike was just a good guy who cared about what he was doing,” Sloan said. “He was an old-school reporter who not only watched the game and wrote about it, he was uncanny about keeping meticulous stats throughout the game. He was unbelievable that way. Mike was always fair and balanced in his writing. He cared about the studentathlete and felt they deserved to be recognized.”

Vlahovich moved onto the Spokesman-Review in 1992 and was a fixture there for 18 years, mostly covering high school sports. Other assignments surfaced in his tenure, like interviewing Pete Carroll when he was head coach at USC and being called away from state wrestling in 1999 when an upstart squad from Gonzaga began pulling upsets

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Continued from page 2 during March Madness.

“It was all hands on deck,” Vlahovich recalls of the Zags’ Cinderella run that year.

Since 2010, Vlahovich has contributed to the Liberty Lake Splash and Greater Spokane Valley Current and stepped up to fill various assignments for the Spokesman. When a pair of legendary coaches – Herm Caviness (Ferris track and field) and John Owen (Central Valley and North Idaho College wrestling) passed away recently, Vlahovich got the call to write both retrospectives. After Sloan announced his retirement from coaching in 2018, he called the Spokesman with a request that Vlahovich do the write-up.

Vlahovich and his wife Tambra have been married for 42 years. They are proud parents of three grown kids – Jared, Linse and Brett – all graduates of University High School.

Q: Most of us would probably not recognize the Valley that you and your family moved to in 1948. What are some of the most significant changes you’ve seen in this area during the time you’ve lived here?

A: In the late 1940s there was no Spokane Valley as such. Residents said that they lived and worked in Opportunity or Pasadena Park or Millwood, the only incorporated city, or Trentwood. But even as they expressed their individuality, people were quick to inform you that they lived in the Valley, not Spokane. Each was, more or less, selfcontained with its own post office, school, mom-and-pop stores. Small clusters of housing developments dotted the Valley. A residential street would run a block or two or maybe four. Kids could ride their bikes along Sprague, Argonne or Broadway with no fear of traffic, even though there no sidewalks. Most of the streets were unpaved. Sprague Avenue was U.S. highway 10. I-90 did not yet exist.

Q: What kind of influence did your father have on you both from a personal and professional standpoint?

A: Dad was early to rise and gone again after dinner, either writing a story on the linotype machinery at the office, selling advertisements or attending a meeting with other leaders in a community that was becoming less agrarian and more cosmopolitan, or he was reading about the latest advances in print technology. People often came to him for advice. The name stood out. There was only one Vlahovich in Spokane.

Q: During its heyday, just how popular was the Valley Herald?

A: The Valley Herald was incredibly successful. Leave the world’s problems to the daily papers. People wanted to know about their neighbors in the community. We had correspondents in Dishman, Millwood, Otis Orchards, Greenacres et al. It seemed like everyone took the paper because the area was small enough that “everybody knew your name.” Then you had the sports rivalries. Every school accused us of favoring the others.

Q: You’ve seen a lot of changes in journalism over the 50-plus years you’ve been part of the industry. What do you think have been some of the most significant ones?

A: I’ve always believed that Watergate changed the way news is presented and not entirely for the better. When The New York Times got wind of Richard Nixon’s chicanery instead of reporting the news and letting the reader decide, the print industry began looking for other scandals to uncover and has divided the country, particularly in politics.

Q: College athletes are now being paid through Name-Imageand-Likeness endorsements while compensation for professional athletes has reached astronomical levels. Is the realm of high school sports the last remaining sanctuary of amateur athletics?

A: Don’t get me started. I wrote a story in the Splash/Current that it would prove detrimental and people disagreed with me. I stand by my belief. When I was at WSU, the student body was literally “True to Your School.” You lived with an athlete for four years whether a classmate in a dorm or fraternity/ sorority. Win or lose you were loyal. Now it’s “one and done” or the transfer portal, Name-ImageLikeness. I admire Drew Timme for staying four years at Gonzaga and soaking up the college atmosphere. I did. Of course, I wasn’t an athlete. Heck, I was lucky to stay in school. Might not have if not for various sports classes.

Q: I’m sure you have a slew of memorable moments in all your years as a sportswriter, Do you have one highlight that stands out above any other?

A: The 1968 Olympics. I was about ready to leave Vietnam to end my stint in the Army. My brother Jerry and I corresponded and I got a wild hair that we should go. We had no tickets but there were plenty of scalpers. We settled into the seats above the medals podium and were right above the ceremony when

John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their arms with gloved hands. The next day, we found seats a few rows above the long jump pit. Bob Beamon unleashed a mighty jump. Did my best to convert meters into feet and was stunned when it was over 29 feet. Never knew my math was correct until we got back home. Lastly, we found seats in the end zone for the high jump and were there to witness (Bob) Fosbury Flop.

Q: How do you think your life may have been different if Jud Heathcote had not been coaching and teaching at West Valley High School when you were a student there?

A: If Jud Heathcote hadn’t been in my life? I can’t imagine. I was a sophomore in a dominant freshman class. We qualified for state basketball my senior year. He told me I was one of the best basketball managers he’d ever had. We both ended up at Wazzu. He asked if I wanted to be the Cougars’ manager. I had already committed to be sports editor for the Daily Evergreen. Life takes you where you’re supposed to be.

Q: Finally, what has covering sports for so many decades taught you about the human condition?

A: Sitting under a basket, clipboard and camera in hand, I always believed the athletes deserved all the accolades they received. They are willing to put themselves out there in the public eye, risking embarrassment and failure. Some became leaders and future successes, some fell by the wayside. My one fear is that the club programs today are sending the wrong message to youngsters whose parents shell out money in the belief they’ll get a college sports scholarship rather than preparing them for the real world.