newsminer.com

ANCHORAGE — Playing high school football in remote Barrow, some 600 miles away from its nearest opponent, requires the North Slope Borough School District to fork out some major coin.

With a healthy football budget of nearly $185,000, it allows the Whalers to travel throughout America’s biggest state for away games and buy airline tickets for teams flying to Alaska’s northernmost community.

But Monday, a quarter — and a little bit of Whaler luck — was all that Barrow coach Mark Voss needed to guarantee his team a first-round playoff game in the Arctic.

Voss was one of three men who determined the playoff fate of three teams by a flip of heads or tails during a Region III meeting in Anchorage.

“This was one of those deals that could have been resolved had we taken care of business in Nikiski,” Voss said.

Nikiski’s 40-30 victory last weekend over Barrow, coupled with Eielson’s 67-0 win over Seward could create a three-way tie for first place in the Greatland Conference should Nikiski and Barrow win their season finales this weekend.

If that happens, Barrow, Eielson and Nikiski would each finish 5-1 in conference play.

The small-school playoffs were expanded to eight teams this season and only two from the Greatland get to host.

Rather than waiting for next week’s results, and going through the hassle of a conference call, Nikiski vice principal Dan Carstens, Eielson football coach Dave DeVaughn and Voss broke the possible three-way tie in person by each flipping a coin. Odd man out.

With a group of athletic officials gathered in a circle, Barrow and Eielson each flipped heads. Nikiski flipped tails.

“I had no idea how nerve-wracking a coin flip could be,” Voss said.

So despite Nikiski’s victory over Barrow, the Whalers will host the state’s first playoff game north of the Arctic Circle with a win over Delta Junction or a Nikiski loss to Seward.

Barrow’s chance of locking up home-field advantage near the Beaufort Sea coast, where wind gusts reached 45 mph last week and forced the Whalers to practice indoors, Voss said, are better than 50-50. Barrow is 6-1, while Delta Junction is 1-6.

Before Monday afternoon’s coin toss at Anchorage Christian School, Voss checked his pockets for some change. He felt nothing but lint.

“I wasn’t 100 percent sure we were having a coin flip,” the third-year coach said, “so it never crossed my mind I would need a quarter.”

But Soldotna coach Galen Brantley loaned him 25 cents, which happened to be an Alabama commemorative quarter featuring Helen Keller, a native of the state known for persevering through life despite being blind and deaf.

DeVaughn came prepared with a 1992 quarter, the same coin the Eielson coach used in 2006 when the Ravens, Houston and Nikiski were each locked in a three-way tie for first place.

Eielson and Houston each flipped heads. Nikiski flipped tails, so its season was done because only two Greatland teams made the playoffs.

After winning the coin toss, DeVaughn made a vow that he would “never lose this coin.”

He placed the quarter inside a trophy case at the high school and rested it on top of the co-Greatland Conference championship plaque the Ravens won that season.

Before leaving Fairbanks on Monday morning for a flight to Anchorage, the nine-year Eielson coach walked past the trophy case, thought about the coin-flip scenario and told himself, “I’m going to need this.”

The quarter, made in 1992, is significant to the Ravens because it’s the last year they won a state championship.