Coupeville Sports

Bob Barker, circa 1970.

Bob Barker spent 31+ years at Coupeville High School, working as a teacher, coach and Athletic Director, affecting countless lives over the years.

A 1959 grad of what would become Western Washington University, he led baseball and basketball (both boys and girls) teams at CHS, taking three to state.

Hailed by his former players as “the best coach I ever had” and “one of the three or four people who shaped who I am today,” his impact lingers long after his retirement.

In this series, Barker responds to my questions as only he can, eloquently and passionately.

Today’s question: “As you look back on your career as a teacher and coach, what are you most proud of?”

David,

Let’s take coaching first. I will list several things in random order.

1. In twelve years as boy’s basketball coach, we experienced only one losing season.

2. Two seasons (1970 and 1972) in which we achieved 18-2 regular season records.

3. First Whidbey Island team in history to earn a berth to a state basketball tournament.

4. First Coupeville basketball team to be ranked 1st in the state polls in their division.

5. In twelve years we earned three entries to the state tournament.

6. For several years we had the best-dressed basketball team in the league and probably the whole district.

Number 6 probably needs an explanation.

A couple of years after I began coaching the boys basketball team, I became acquainted with a young man that was an owner/proprietor of a men’s clothing store in Oak Harbor.

He was an avid sports fan and, hence, I was able to persuade him to agree to purchase blazers for our team and sell them to us at his cost.

After a few fundraising campaigns by the team members, 13 red blazers were ordered. The family was asked to complete the ensemble.

Hence, when our team entered a gym in their black slacks, red blazer, white shirt and black tie, we were an impressive sight.

I felt that it created a certain amount of pride or “esprit-de-corps” in the members of our team, the student body, as well as the parents and community members that followed the team.

7. In my fifth and final year as baseball coach we won, what I believe was our first league baseball championship.

Now as to any sources of pride in the academic realm.

One of the things that gave me great deal of pride, although, I only played a very small part in it, was Coupeville’s post graduate record.

At that time the administration kept track of students after graduation and they found that the percentage of our students that went on to schools of higher learning was in fact, generally greater that many of the surrounding schools.

There were multiple factors that led to this result.

Those were primarily the type of community and strong parent support and maybe to a slightly lesser extent the faculty and administration in the Coupeville schools.

I take pride in that many of our graduates have been successes in business, education, farming, pharmaceutical, medicine, legal, banking and so on ad-infinitum.

One item of personal pride was that I was able to interest a number of students in chess and organized several successful chess tournaments, thus giving some students a real experience in problem solving.