Hall o’ Fame inductees (clockwise, starting in top left) Ryan King, Nick Streubel, Erica (Lamb) Holland and Chad Brookhouse.
Commitment.
To their school, their sports, their families, their faith, they were as rock-solid as they come, fully embracing the big C at every point in their lives.
Who am I talking about?
The athletes who comprise the 56th class inducted into the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame, a stellar collection of some of the best to ever wear the red and black.
With that, we welcome Erica (Lamb) Holland, Chad Brookhouse, Nick Streubel and Ryan King to these hallowed digital walls.
From this point on, you’ll find them up at the top of the blog, under the Legends tab with other Wolf greats.
Our first inductee, Holland, was, without a doubt, one of the most talented athletes CHS ever had the honor of claiming.
She was also a bright shining light beaming out to the world, a young woman who led by example on the field and in the classroom.
Like sister Taniel (who she joins in the Hall), Erica set an exceptional standard for all who followed, including talented younger brothers Jordan and Nathan.
A true three-sport star, Holland was a key player on volleyball, basketball and softball squads which achieved heights never before reached by Wolf girls athletic teams.
By the time she graduated in 2003, after being co-Athlete of the Year with Amy Mouw and co-Valedictorian, she had helped carry five teams to state.
While it would be impossible to single out one sport as her best — she was aces in everything she played — Erica’s greatest contribution might have come in softball, where she was the ultimate team player.
Over the course of four years, and the school’s transition from slow-pitch to fast-pitch, Holland played every single position on the diamond, culminating with a run at catcher for the 2002 squad that finished 3rd at state.
Our second inductee, Brookhouse, was also a jack of all trades.
On the gridiron, he was named an All-Cascade Conference selection on both sides of the ball in 2009, honored for his work as a tight end and a linebacker.
On the basketball court, he did a lot of the dirty work, while also coming in as the fourth-leading scorer on a 2009-2010 hoops squad which went 16-5, the best mark any Wolf boys team has achieved in decades.
Brookhouse closed his prep career by punching 32 hits for the 2010 CHS baseball squad — the best single-season total of the last three decades — capping a strong run.
Our final two inductees, Streubel and King, share the fact they both anchored the line for Wolf football, and that King stayed on at his alma mater to coach Streubel and his teammates.
The Big Hurt was one of the most imposing physical specimens ever to trod the gridiron at CHS, though away from the battle in the trenches Streubel is the very epitome of a low-key nice guy.
Quite the talented swimmer in his younger days, Nick was a rock for a rebuilding Wolf boys’ hoops program, an accomplished thrower in track and the very last person opposing quarterbacks wanted to look up and see come crashing through the line.
But take away the pancake blocks, the times he blew up multiple would-be blockers and the play in which he got a rare chance to carry the ball and hauled seven Chimacum tacklers into a giant mud hole, and he’d still be a Hall o’ Famer.
For the time, covered from head-to-toe in manure-scented mud, he chased speedy Wolf coach Dustin Van Velkinburgh down a ferry dock and caught him in a bear hug.
For the time he plucked V’s little son off the ground and held him up in the air so the wildly grinning preschooler could dunk on a real hoop.
And for a million other times when he was a genuine class act, on and off the field.
Going in to the Hall with Streubel is a guy who is Coupeville, through and through.
King played on the last Wolf gridiron squad to post a winning record (way back in 2005) and he’s been diligently working to help get Coupeville back to those days as a coach.
Whether as a football assistant at the middle school or high school level, or as a head coach (he made a strong debut this winter coaching 7th grade girls basketball), King shows the same commitment today that once carried him through days of banged-up knees, bruises and stingers while blocking for Casey Larson.
A great story teller (some of which I can actually print), he is part of the glue which holds together Wolf sports.
For schools to be successful, top to bottom, you need those coaches who are there because they really, truly believe in the value of what they’re doing.
Because they want to give today’s athletes a chance to reach the same success they enjoyed.
Ryan King is one of the good ones, and the Hall is happy to welcome him.
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