If you go to any high school golf tournament, you can usually find Stevensville’s coach, Jack Filcher, surrounded by a number of people with a lot of laughter coming from the group. Filcher is a fixture at these tournaments, having coached golf for about 42 years, he’s not really sure. But he almost always has a story to tell so people stop to listen.
Filcher said that Fred Rooley, who was the superintendent at Stevensville at the time, came and asked him to start a golf program. Jim Edwards Sr. was a golfer and wanted his son, Jim Jr. to play. Filcher got the program going and soon had quite a bunch of kids out for the sport.
“Golf was in the spring then and we had a lot of kids come and play. There wasn’t the competition with other sports then. And then when Class A golf was moved to the fall, we had to compete with soccer, football and volleyball. It’s been a lot tougher,” said Filcher.
Filcher started playing golf when he got his first teaching job in Chelan, Washington. He said almost all the teachers played the sport and so he started. His first tournament that year, he won a golf umbrella for having the worst score in the tournament. But he grew to love the sport which he describes as playing against yourself and the course.
Filcher grew up in Corvallis and graduated in 1962. He played football, track and was on the state championship basketball team. He went to school on a football scholarship to what was then Western Montana College, now UMW.
After teaching in Washington, he moved back to the valley and began teaching at Stevensville. He held several coaching positions including head basketball coach, assistant football coach, and assistant girls basketball coach under Terry Rosin. Filcher said he had the pleasure of coaching his daughters, Tara and Tonia as well as Kristi Langton Schlimgen for a few successful seasons.
This year, he was hoping to bring home a trophy from the state tournament but midway through the tournament on Friday, he was losing a little optimism.
“These boys have been shooting well all season,” he said but they seem to be falling apart today (Friday). Maybe they will get it together.”
He explained that although the boys have been playing at the Hamilton course all year, it’s still a tough course that takes a lot of mental toughness. But his boys came through with a third place finish, the first golf trophy for Stevensville.
“These are some of the best golfers we’ve ever had and they’ve been really fun to work with. But in the end, it’s golf, just chip and put.”