School sports have become more popular since Spokane Public Schools began its emphasis on “Engaging in Real Life” last year.
Turnout has increased in a variety of sports, from volleyball to track and field.
I asked Stephanie Splater, the district’s executive director of athletics and after school programs, about which sports are becoming less popular. I thought she’d mention football, which many parents are telling their kids they can’t play because of the risk of traumatic head injuries.
Not so. In fact, she says, football turnout numbers are increasing.
“We invested in safety. So we do a helmet reconditioning program. We make sure our helmets are not good enough, they’re the best,” she said.
“At the high school level, we’ve committed to that for a long time. We have extensive concussion and sudden cardiac training. We have head coaches, head football coaches, who are trainers for concussion protocols.”
Splater says SPS has taken a page from the playbook of the Seattle Seahawks, “where new age tackling became a thing, we’ve adopted that as part of our school cultures as well.”
These interviews have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Doug Nadvornick: Can you explain what new age tackling is?
Stephanie Splater: Less head-to-head, more safe tackling that doesn’t involve the violent, what everyone thinks football is about, to reduce concussions, to reduce all of the things that people fear in football. Clearly it’s a high-risk activity and there’s going to be that risk, but having coaches and having kids who know what they’re doing is really important.
And that’s why we took a big leap last year and brought on middle school football. We’ve never had middle school tackle football. It was almost unheard of to bring on a football program at this point in time, and we decided our kids need it, our varsity and high school age kids need it. They need to be prepared. They need to be working out more and healthier, and they need to be learning the skills at the developmental level.
So we piloted it last year with four of our schools from Rogers and North Central feeders [schools], and we’re bringing on all of our schools this year. So we’re increasing in football. We know there’s going to be injuries. We know there’s going to be situations, but if we invest in great equipment, great training for our coaches, and giving kids the opportunities to grow in their development, we think we can be successful in a program that kids want to be a part of right now.
Football has grown to the point where over 500 kids play it in high school. Last year in our pilot middle school, we had 120. So it’s growing. We can’t wait to see the numbers for this year. And I love to mention right now our Rogers football team is our most successful team, and last year was the first year we allocated an additional coach to their staff because they had so many kids. They had 160.
DN: The head football coach at Rogers is Ryan Cole.
Ryan Cole: The game has come a long way, even from the time I was a kid. When I was a kid, you know, in the early 2000s, we were taught, you know, put your head on the football, put your head across the body, put your face mask in their sternum. And that’s a dangerous way of playing the game. And I experienced that as a kid.
But we’ve evolved so much in taking the head out of the game. A lot of inspiration is from rugby. That’s how football is kind of going these days and keeping the head out of the game, using your shoulder to strike. And then there’s a strike zone. Right? So where do we hit guys to keep the opponent safe as well? So teams aren’t just wheeling and dealing on each other and hurting each other.
So it’s come a long way, but I understand where parents are coming from. But we do a good job of minimizing risk. A lot of it is the practice planning and making sure that you’re not overdoing drills that involve high-speed contact collision at bigger distances. To be smart about it, you condense the area that kids play in. You cut the amount of reps that they do. You rotate them appropriately, and you give them breaks in between.
Rogers High School football coach Ryan Cole talks with his players after a recent morning workout.
RC: We’ve been working really hard at establishing good TC, team culture. And it starts with working with the players individually and then as a team collectively. During the summer and during the fall season, we’re meeting with our kids in the classroom. We give them team notebooks that they write in, and we cover all kinds of topics. We cover leadership, character, humility, integrity, teamwork, all of it. I mean, we cover it all, and we get them involved in it.
A lot of our kids here at Rogers might not come from a household or an environment that supports a lot of the things that young men need to thrive and be successful. And so, as a coaching staff, we work really hard to provide that for kids, not that they’re a replacement of their parents, but we can just be an extension of that learning. It’s been translating really well. You can see it in the kids when you’re out there watching.
Here in Spokane, the Little League scene where kids are playing from fourth grade up before they get to high school isn’t as prominent as it is on the west side. I grew up in Tacoma, and everybody played football growing up as little kids. I mean, one of my best friends in the world is a basketball junkie. He doesn’t even like football. And yet he did it as a kid because that’s what everybody did. And here, when I got over here, it’s like, man, where are all these Little Leagues? They exist, but it’s not as profound here. There’s not much of a community backing behind kids playing at a young age. And so oftentimes it’s us trying to entice kids that haven’t played the game before. And football is a hard sport to play. So it’s like if you’re not used to that work ethic, it’s a shock when you get into it.
DN: So, it’s cool again to be playing football at Rogers High School, which has had kind of an up-and-down tradition over the years.
RC: More downs than ups. But we’re up. We’ve been up for a couple years now.
DN: My assumption going into the discussion about football was that tackle football would be becoming less popular and that perhaps flag football, where players are downed by pulling a flag on their belt, might be increasing in popularity. So I asked Stephanie Splater about that.
SS: Flag football has a lot of energy within the girls’ flag football setting. We have tried to figure out where would we do it because here in Spokane with a really different weather climate than Seattle, they can put it in the winter, they can put it in the early spring. We don’t have those options. So when we have interest in girls wanting to play flag football, we’ll meet that interest and we’ll expand. Right now it’s a mild interest. We do some singular events at schools. Our middle school has done flag football for a few years, eight years or so. But in general, in our area, it hasn’t been as popular.
What we have seen, though, is our community partnerships. Quite a few, the SYSA [Spokane Youth Sports Association], the parks, offer flag football, and so we look to partner with them to connect kids to those opportunities. And so for now, flag football isn’t something that we do at the high school level, but it’s on our radar.
20250821_Inland Journal_football_online.mp3
Hear Stephanie Splater from Spokane Public Schools and Rogers Football Coach Ryan Cole talk about the popularity of football in the city’s high schools and making the sports safer for players.
Good Shepherd Food Bank, Maine’s largest hunger-relief organization, has hired former Unum finance executive Camilo Echanique as chief financial officer.
Camilo brings nearly two decades of experience in leadership, financial management and strategy to the Auburn-based nonprofit.
Camilo Echanique PHOTO / COURTESY GOOD SHEPHERD FOOD BANK
“After an extensive search, we are excited to welcome Camilo Echanique to the Food Bank team in this important leadership position,” said Heather Paquette, president of Good Shepherd Food Bank. “In addition to his strategic expertise, Camilo brings a proven ability to lead through change, a focus on learning and collaboration, and a passion for talent development that make him an excellent fit for the Food Bank.”
Camilo’s experience includes more than a decade at Unum, a Tennessee-based insurer with a large office in Portland. Most recently, he oversaw the finance and actuarial functions for a key business segment.
A Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and a member of the American Academy of Actuaries, Camilo was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador. He moved to New England as a child and attended the University of Connecticut, where he received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics.
Outside of work, the Yarmouth resident coaches youth sports and serves on the board of LearningWorks, a Portland-based nonprofit focused on education and community support.
“I am honored to join the team at the Good Shepherd Food Bank and collaborate with such dedicated people to advance our mission of promoting food security in Maine,” he said.
“The strength of our organization, the commitment of our partners and the generosity of our donors — especially in recent events — highlight the undeniable impact that the Food Bank has on Maine’s communities. I am eager to begin this journey and dedicate myself to advancing our mission.”
Good Shepherd distributes food to more than 600 partner organizations across Maine, including food pantries, meal sites, schools, health care centers and senior programs. It also engages in advocacy and nutrition education.
Eleven-year-old Amy was about half way through her haircut Monday afternoon but paying little attention to what stylist Amanda Lee was doing with her blond locks. She was too busy working on a piece of yellow putty in her hand.
At one point she shaped it into a heart. Later, it was something else. But when Lee was finished cutting and unbuttoned the smock pinned at her client’s neck, Amy had molded her putty into a miniature hand. With it, she grinned and high fived Lee in thanks for her new look.
Across the hall, stylist OmarAntonio had just finished cutting and styling a teen’s long, black hair. Moments later, she came back smiling and interrupted a conversation to tell him she loved it.
“There is something very important about our responsibility as hairdressers to really read the client, to really see them,” he said. “I want to reintroduce my clients to themselves, so a good haircut is so important.”
These seemingly small moments — a smile into a hand held mirror, a flip of the ‘do, a handshake — were happening Monday across the donated space at Church Unstoppable. For three hours, about 60 stylists and barbers volunteered their time and skill to give free cuts and styles to an almost equal number of children and young adults from 10 to 25, all of whom have been touched by foster care or social service programs.
There were three DJs on stage. There were two live singers. Along one wall were tables lined up and loaded with brand new backpacks for the taking. At the entrance to the hall were hand-painted trucker hats created by Dom Chi Designs in Sebastopol, also for the taking. In yet another room was free food and drink. Throughout the three-hour event raffle prizes were given out: Apple headphones, Beats headphones, a JBL speaker, tickets to a Santa Rosa Growlers hockey game, Amazon gift cards, restaurant gift cards and jewelry.
It was all the brain child of KT Maggio, a barber at Daredevils & Queens Salon and Barbershop in Santa Rosa. And it was born of a seemingly simple ask.
It started with an annual holiday giving event held by nonprofit Our Village Closet, a group that runs a full-scale, foster care support operation out of thousands of square feet of space at St. Lutheran’s Church on Mendocino Avenue in Santa Rosa. Under the direction of executive director and co-founder Amanda Kitchens, foster care providers can pick up, for free, necessities for kids and young adults in their care, everything from strollers to socks to bathing suits and winter coats.
There are 1,000 individual kids or young adults registered with OVC, but the number of people who access their free services typically hovers around 5,000, Kitchens said.
Our Village Closet for the past five years has held a holiday giving program that has grown from 167 youth in 2021 to 769 kids this year. It was for that event that someone at OVC reached out to Maggio and asked if she could provide gift certificates for hair cuts.
Maggio said she would do one better. One a lot better.
She put out the call to the wider stylist and barber community in Sonoma County and asked for folks to show up for three hours on Monday, donate their time and skills, and send young adults back into the world looking sharp and feeling good.
“I didn’t even say much,” Maggio said of the invitation to her peers. “They just said ‘We’re in, we’re in, we’re in.’”
To say people rallied for the event would be underselling what unfolded Monday.
The top shelf cuts, the next level raffle prizes, the DJs, the food — it was a full-scale experience.
“I wanted them to feel special today,” Maggio said.
Kyle Corbin, owner of Chuck’s Barbershop, cuts John Coolidge’s hair during an event for foster youth at Church Unstoppable in Santa Rosa on Monday, January 5, 2026. (Christopher Chung/The Press Democrat)
Barber Jesus “Chuy” Dominguez helped with perhaps the most obvious transformation Monday when a young man with sandy hair falling down to his shoulders sat down in Dominguez’s chair and said he wanted it all off.
“He asked for a five guard on top which is less than half an inch and then he wanted a rat tail in the back,” Dominguez said. “I always triple check when it’s a transformation that big but he was on it and I was like, ‘Alright, bro.’”
“He knew exactly what he wanted,” he said. “It was cool.”
And it was. After Dominquez tapped a stylist to braid the rat tail in the back, the young man cracked a small smile into the mirror.
“Things like this just fill my heart,” Maggio said, noting that Daredevils & Queens regularly supports haircuts for the homeless events and community outreach efforts. “I just wanted to come together and make these kids feel like number one.”
Christopher Chung / The Press Democrat
Nicolai Lisiukoff, right, thanks Daredevils & Queens barber KT Maggio for the haircut and shave at the homeless shelter run by West County Navigation Center in the Guerneville Veterans Memorial Building in Guerneville Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (Christopher Chung / The Press Democrat)
In addition to her colleagues at Daredevils & Queens, she tapped friends at Chuck’s Barbershop in Santa Rosa and Oak and Ivy Salon in Rohnert Park, who brought folks on Monday. She also tapped longtime friend Jose “JayTee” Tapia who, in addition to his 293,000 Instagram followers, runs the 15-chair Visionz Barbershop in Santa Rosa and, to Maggio’s way of thinking, is a star in the barbering world.
That would explain the small crowd of fellow barbers that gathered around Tapia when he pulled out his scissors and began to ply his craft on the dark locks of a young teenaged boy Monday.
“For men, for boys, it’s like our make up,” Tapia said of a haircut. “For me, being able to build confidence in a kid, there is nothing like it. People come to us before a first date, before a wedding, before any special day because a haircut alone can make anyone feel that much more special and that much more confident.”
That is what moved OVC’s Kitchens on Monday — the gift of confidence, the gift of being seen.
“It’s the fact that this many stylists and barbers showed up and showed up with heart,” she said. “It’s ‘You matter.’ Not necessarily you matter because of what happened to you but you matter just because of who you are…A haircut for so many of us, especially in this age group, it’s about how we show up in society. To be able to show up like everybody else and blend in is such a gift.”
To find out more
To find out more about the services provided by Our Village Closet and for ways to support the work, go to www.ourvillagecloset.org.
Alexandra Montoya feels this.
Montoya is raising her 12-year-old granddaughter, Irie. Irie is bi-racial, her hair looks different from her grandmother’s, and that has made finding a stylist tricky. On Monday, Montoya was emotional about seeing her granddaughter pampered.
“Somebody needs to know her hair,” she said. “The truth is, I don’t.”
But the people who volunteered Monday did.
Irie Fisher, 12, has her hair cut and styled by Natalie Dixon, of Sparrow Hair, during an event for foster youth at Church Unstoppable in Santa Rosa on Monday, January 5, 2026. (Christopher Chung/The Press Democrat)
“This is wonderful, this makes a difference,” Montoya said. “It’s the mix of people. The cutters, the stylists, they volunteered their time. We understand what that means. They put heart into it.”
As stylist Natalie Dixon finished cutting Irie’s hair, they had a brief conversation. Irie decided she wanted her hair straightened on this day. Dixon got to work. Nearby, Montoya watched, deeply moved.
“All of these kids have lost someone, in one way or another,” she said. “That’s what makes what they are doing here a thing of beauty.”
You can reach Staff Columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Instagram @kerry.benefield.
Madison Mullins grooms her Jersey dairy cow, Clairabell recently during the Santa Cruz County Fair. (Tarmo Hannula/The Pajaronian)
Organizers at the Santa Cruz County Fair are asking the public for ideas for a theme for the 2026 County Fair.
Anyone who has a “phrase that pops” or a “rhyme that shines” is invited to submit it.
“Imagine your words splashed across every poster and sign,” The Fair Board stated in an announcement. “If you’ve got a clever saying or catchy theme, now’s the time to share it in the Santa Cruz County Fair Annual Fair Theme Contest.”
Anyone with a creative theme— “with a little red, white, and blue sparkle” in honor of the United States’ 250th birthday,” is invited to send in their ideas.
The winning theme will be featured throughout the fair, and earn four free fair tickets plus a free parking pass.
The deadline is Jan. 13 at 5pm.
To submit your theme, email in**@*****************ir.com, send mail to Santa Cruz County Fair, Theme Contest, 2601 East Lake Avenue, Watsonville, CA 95076 or visit visit bit.ly/4bkX2RS
Funding available to activate Youth Week events on Redlands Coast – Redland Bayside News
NOT-FOR-PROFIT organisations are being encouraged to apply for funding to deliver free or low-cost events on Redlands Coast as part of Queensland Youth Week 2026. Redland City Mayor Jos Mitchell said funding was available through Council’s Activate Redlands Coast Youth Week Program for events and …
As on most evenings, the Henrico Sports and Events Center echoed Dec. 1 with the sounds of youth sports: running feet, basketballs drumming on floors, and shouts of triumph or dismay as volleyballs were slammed home.
But on one basketball court, the clamor of squeaking sneakers and balls thudding against backboards was just distant background noise. In this arena, dozens of fifth-grade students were showing off their history projects – while educating their parents and teachers about significant Henrico events, places and persons.
At one display, students stood beside a screen highlighting photos and facts about the Henrico Theatre. The old-fashioned spelling of “theater,” they explained, is still used because that was the custom when the Theatre opened in 1938. A few years later, when World War II broke out, the site was even designated as a bomb shelter.
Today, the restored movie house is used for a variety of arts programming, films, community events and celebrations, and is distinguished not only by listings on national and state historic registers, but by its designation as the only example of art deco architecture in the county.
At another station, Quintus Tian and Corbyn Constanzer of Shady Grove E.S. had constructed a Henrico map large enough to cover a tabletop, and were eager to explain the sites of historical interest sketched throughout the county. Asked why they had created a traditional map – using paper instead of a digital display, as many of their peers had done – the boys were emphatic.
“Too small!” said one, pointing out the hand-drawn illustrations that bordered the map, and indicating that the expanse of paper was superior to a screen for depicting scale and enhancing impact.
Henrico Schools Superintendent Amy Cashwell presents a ribbon and gift bag to a winner in the Henrico History Project Dec. 1, 2025. (Patty Kruszewski/Henrico Citizen)
Among other projects on display were several featuring famous figures with Henrico ties, such as Pocahontas, Virginia Randolph, and Arthur Ashe, Jr. Depictions of historic sites ranged from the Theatre and Dabbs House to Echo Lake Park and Richmond International Airport, while displays featuring events centered around such struggles as the Seven Days Battles and Gabriel’s Rebellion.
A few students from each magisterial district took home top honors for their projects (see list below) – but the celebrations were not limited to the big winners. Parents lingered after the awards ceremony taking family photos, while students continued to share stories of how they chose their topics and created their projects.
Corbyn and Quintus were among the students who clearly enjoyed revealing “tricks of the trade” they had used in crafting their project. Asked what modern-day techniques had produced such an authentic-looking map – complete with browned edges and yellow tints to give it the look of a centuries-old relic – they grinned knowingly and announced, “We used shoe polish!”
Henrico History Project award-winners
Formerly known as the Henrico Historical Awareness Project, the Henrico History Project is a partnership of Henrico County Public Schools and the Henrico Preservation Advisory Committee. The following students in each magisterial district took top honors for their projects this year:
Brookland District First place – Emma Salang and Aryaa Adivarekar; Springfield Park E.S. Second place – Luke Baum; Greenwood E.S. Third place – Skye Robbins, Erum Jebran and Sara Faqirzada; Dumbarton E.S.
Fairfield District First place – Jurnee Clarke, Dionne Hawkins and Aziyah Hill; Harvie E.S. Second place – Samara Giles and Kaylan Huynh; Longdale E.S. Third place – Avery Umbarger, Ruben Caballero, & Monroe Redding; Chamberlayne E.S.
Three Chopt District First place – Luke Jualayba; Colonial Trail E.S. Second place – Audrey Kim, Brody Miller and Sienna Harter; Kaechele E.S. Third place – Charles Cobb; Rivers Edge
Tuckahoe District First place – Bodie Bluford; Gayton E.S. Second place – Yassine Dahri, Magnus Sorensen and Oliver Hall; Three Chopt E.S. Third place – Kate Groth & Winnie Young; Maybeury E.S.
Varina District First place – Georgina Bueno; Baker E.S. Second place – Kayden Howard and D’Zaria Mines; Highland Springs E.S. Third place – Lauren Crawley; Ward E.S.
