Coupeville Sports

         Coupeville coaches savor the moment, as head man Tony Maggio holds The Bucket.

It’s only fair that The Bucket resides in Coupeville, since we’re mainly responsible for its creation.

When the Wolves beat South Whidbey 18-13 in a tense gridiron battle in Langley Oct. 12, the victory liberated said trophy from the South End and brought it home. Now it sits in one of the glass enclosed trophy cases in the entrance to the CHS gym, (hopefully) never to be returned.

But for old-timers who offer a bemused look at the mention of the trophy, which has a Wolf logo on one side and a Falcon logo on the other, there’s a simple explanation. It hasn’t been around very long, first coming in around 2008 after a dust-up between fans.

Coupeville High School baseball coach Willie Smith was the school’s Athletic Director at the time, and he recounts the creation:

Ha ha … well, during a volleyball game at home against SW, one of our senior boys didn’t appreciate the cheering going on by the SW crowd.

So, this young man decided, erroneously and very immaturely, to take matters into his own hands.

He procured a licorice bucket, filled it with water, and proceeded to dump it on the SW crowd, who then chased him out of the gym and very nearly got into a brawl.

Said CHS student was suspended and it almost got really ugly between the two schools.

So, John Patton (former SW AD) and myself decided to turn this negative event into a positive and came up with the idea to make the football game the “Bucket Game” and whomever won that game would keep the bucket for the year.

Thus, the annual Bucket Game began.

So now you know, and knowing is half the battle. Beating South Whidbey, that’s the other half of the battle.