Admit it, Tiger basketball fans. You all knew this moment would come, probably sooner rather than later.
As it turned out, sooner was right on.
Clovis North in talent-rich central California picked up Douglas boys' basketball coach Rob Streeter to be the K-12 basketball director in their growing school system. With that, he will coach the Clovis North High School boys' basketball team.
It's not that Streeter was looking for another job, he was plenty excited about the upcoming season and the next four or five years at Douglas. But officials in Clovis knew a good thing when they saw it and they went to great lengths to get it.
For those of us who watched, there was no true surprise in what the Tigers' accomplished this past year (Douglas finished as regional runners-up after a dramatic run through the Northern 4A Regional playoffs) as this was really the first complete class of seniors to come all the way through the summer AAU programs the previous coach Keith Lewis established.
That's not to take anything away from what Streeter brought to the program. His fortes included meticulous game preparation and heady in-game adjustments. He knew how to find a formula to fit the players he had out on the floor and he managed to extract every ounce of defense he could out of an increasingly offensive-minded sport.
It's become clear the Streeter has the chops to one day get the shot at a Division I college program. He knows the right people, works in the right camps and has the flat-out talent recognition and development abilities to make it one day.
Perhaps most importantly, he's young enough to be able to have that dream become a reality.
For the time being, it hurts the program here.
There really are few positive spins you can put on a program having to find a new leader right in the thick of offseason workouts.
But given the quality of the talent coming back, and the depth being developed in the middle school and elementary school ranks around here, one can only assume that some pretty qualified names will crop up over the next several weeks to replace Streeter.
In the long run, what's good for Streeter is good for Douglas County on the whole.
He's one of those that in several years we're going to be saying, "We knew him when..."
He's a rare coaching talent that will be starting out with a freshman team at a brand new school. By the time he gets thrown into the big league with Clovis West and Buchanan, he'll have a team full of seniors that he's had out there for four years.
He's been given the reins of an entire education system's basketball program with remarkable facilities and several future Division I prospects already in the mix.
Don't be afraid to expect to see big things from him down there. He's walking into a very favorable situation and that situation is getting a very favorable leader.
At the Memorial Day Tournament in Reno over the weekend, the Douglas summer baseball team saw several very familiar faces across the field when it went up against the Sierra Sundevils.
The Sundevils have made a habit out of picking up outgoing Douglas seniors for the summer league in the last several years (Douglas typically plays only with juniors and underclassmen during the summer).
Chad Walling and Jimmy Pierce played with them in 2005 and Roman Davis and D.J. Brady played in 2006.
This year, the Sundevils feature former Douglas starters Niko Saladis, Nate Whalin, Phil Mannelly and Cory Eilers and they return Davis behind the plate for good measure.
They topped Douglas 16-3 in a game that featured a unique matchup that featured freshman Michael Whalin on the mound for Douglas against brother Nate at the plate.
