Coupeville Sports

I doubt that Kim Meche remembers who I am. Which is fine, because I remember her.

Our paths crossed early in my newspaper career, when she was a volleyball coach and I was pretending to be a Sports Editor at the Whidbey News-Times.

She was always smiling, on the court and off. She took great delight in teaching her beloved game to young athletes and they responded to her joy, to her knowledge, to her deep caring for them as athletes and as young women.

I asked stupid questions (still do…), but she always pretended like I had some clue of what I was talking about when we met after a match.

She made my life a lot easier than she had to, and remains one of the coaches whose mix of skill, grace and good cheer has remained with me long after our paths uncrossed.

I knew she left Whidbey, moved out of coaching and went into school administration. I heard bits and pieces over the years, as she moved up in her profession and impacted the lives of countless children.

I had heard, in passing, that she was battling cancer. I didn’t realize until tonight, when I saw a link to the page she uses to update people, how tough her fight had become.

Another coach who helped me in the early days, Deb Whittaker, passed away from cancer.

My aunt, Loni Kuberka, battled the disease for most of my life until she passed two summers ago.

I have watched, along with other Wolf fans, as Kacie and Katie Kiel’s mother, a very sweet woman, has battled cancer this year.

Every time I have gone to a volleyball or basketball game this year, I have always looked for her first. Each time I see her there, usually just a few feet from where I sit, I say a silent thank you that she has made it through another round of chemo, another day.

There is no point in talking about what a horrid disease cancer is. We all know that.

But there is a point in talking about the people who are fighting it. In letting them know we are there with them.

Kim Meche is fighting right now, and if she is anything like the woman I remember, she is doing it with a smile on her face.

In my video store days, we used to religiously watch a VHS tape of the greatest moments in Oscar history. One of those moments came in 1977, when Bob Hope paused to speak through the camera directly to John Wayne, who was fighting cancer.

The words, tweaked a bit, fit here as well.

“This is a word to one of Coupeville’s biggest. She’s in the fight of her life right now and we want you to know, Kim, we miss you tonight. We expect to see you amble out here in person next year during volleyball season, because no one else can walk in Kim Meche’s shoes.”

John Wayne walked across that Oscar stage in 1978.

I want to see Kim Meche come back to a school and a town that has not forgotten her, and walk back into the CHS gym one day, a gym she made a better place for her presence.

https://www.mylifeline.org/mechek/default.cfm?page=welcome.cfm