Coupeville Sports

Look what happens when you believe.

In 2010, Coupeville was on top of the sports world. It can get there again.

That summer, a group of young men (guys like Brian Norris, Korbin Korzan, Ben Etzell and Jake Tumblin) went toe-to-toe with the best in Washington state in their sport and flat-out kicked ass.

The Central Whidbey Little League Junior All-Stars won a state title and it’s remarkable what they did.

They never backed down.

They never made excuses that they were from an area much smaller than many of the teams they faced.

They never apologized for being very, very talented.

They never quit.

They never stopped believing.

And, in the end, they now have memories they will never, ever forget.

It’s a lesson with deep meaning for all current and future Coupeville athletes. You can be the best and you don’t have to feel bad about being the best.

We live in a very different time than when I started covering high school sports on Whidbey Island back in 1989.

You can make a lot of excuses for why Wolf athletics is not what it once was. And, in the end, that’s what they all are — excuses.

It’s true that CHS plays in an unfair league, where it is the smallest school by far. So what? Smaller schools beat big schools every day in every sport, in every state.

It’s true that kids have so many entertainment options now that few simply go out and play ball year-round like they did in the ’70s and ’80s. I say take their damn phones away and lock ’em outside again.

It’s also true we have coddled a generation by telling them they are all equal, they all deserve a pat on the head for simply trying (even if they just hit the bottom of the rim and had the ball bounce off their head), that none of them should aspire to be too much better than the kid next to them.

Bull crap! That’s not what they teach ’em at ATM and King’s.

There are a lot of nice kids in Coupeville, but, you can be nice and still play like a beast.

Be proud of your talent. Believe in yourself. Kick ATM in the over-priced nads.

Off the basketball court, Jodi Christensen and Jennie Cross were, and still are, two of the nicest people you will ever meet. On the court, they came at the opposition like rabid dogs. When they went for a rebound, they flat-out committed, dropping teammates with their Elbows O’ Death.

Or look at Kyle and Tyler King, as driven and focused a pair of athletes as this town has ever seen. They ran relentlessly, in the snow, in the rain, in the wind. They had talent, they developed it, they firmly believed they were going to win … and now they’re on full-ride scholarships at major Division 1 schools and their parents say a giant “thank you” every time they check their bank balance.

Maybe we can’t go back to the ’70s and ’80s, get high school guys to grow ‘staches, get refs to let folks brawl again and play Darrington and Concrete and La Conner on a regular basis. But Coupeville can be just as good as it once was.

We can be the King brothers. We can be Jennie Cross. We can be a state champion baseball squad.

We are Coupeville and we can make that mean something.

If we believe.