Cooper King

A coach who has impacted sports programs all across the world has also been able to closely impact the Bulldogs of Sandpoint High School. And, he has just finished his last season as head coach.

Satini Puailoa served as Sandpoint’s head coach in 1994 to 2006 and then started again in 2011 and is now finishing in the 2016 season.

Puailoa said his goal in coming back was to improve the sports programs to make this community better as a whole, better than any other community in the northwest.

“I knew before I came back to Sandpoint in 2011 that I would want to put the program back together. It wasn’t until two years ago I realized after meeting with the administration that I would not be able to complete the full program in the logical time it would take,” Puailoa said.

Another major reason why coach Puailoa decided to hang up the hat is because of a family tragedy that happened last summer that he needed to invest his time to.

“There are a series of things I need to do for my family and I can’t run this program and do the other things because I simply just can’t be in two places at once,” he said.

One of Puailoa’s main goals returning was to incorporate the FAST Program which he learned from experience of coaching other programs across the nation. He planned to bring these techniques into the high school for athletes to use for free instead of having to pay unnecessary amounts of money at a gym.

“This program here is developing at a much higher rate using what we have in our own backyard. It is better than any college or any Olympic team just by us using the FAST program,” he said.

After talking about how proud he is of his boys and what they have been able to accomplish with going to the next level, Puailoa knows that it will be able to continue on with the help of the administration and his staff.

“I didn’t get to achieve everything I wanted to achieve, but the program is back on really good footing,” Puailoa said.

Puailoa feels that now if he steps down as coach, he will be more beneficial in the future by going out and getting new information to bring back to the team. Emphasizing that he will still be around to help and train, he just won’t be training in the weight room or on the field every day.

“My view of retirement is do what you want to do when you want to do it,” he said.

Puailoa’s plans now are to do some consulting work and along with strength and conditioning seminars around the nation and even around the world. With the knowledge he picks up, he plans to bring it back to the Bulldogs to continue to improve the program.