Coupeville Sports

   Coupeville’s athletic future, like this basketball, is up for grabs. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

First, the bomb hit. Now, the hot takes are raining down, as everyone and their mother chimes in with an opinion.

If you were asleep at the wheel Wednesday, here’s the break-down:

Coupeville High School is leaving the 1A Olympic League at the end of the school year. Come next fall, Wolf athletes will have a new batch of rivals.

Washington state divides athletics into six classifications (4A, 3A, 2A, 1A, 2B and 1B), and, moving forward, CHS has two primary options.

One, which is ongoing, is a bid to move back down to 2B, where Coupeville lived and prospered for decades.

CHS has always been one of the smallest 1A schools in the state, and, currently, its student body numbers for grades 9-11 fit nicely into 2B parameters.

But, Washington Interscholastic Activities Association classification counts last for four years. With the last one in 2016, Coupeville is locked-in as a 1A school until 2020 … unless the WIAA grants a reprieve.

That decision arrives Jan. 28.

If CHS gets approval, it’s likely bound for its old time stomping grounds, the Northwest League, which currently houses 2B schools La Conner, Concrete, Darrington, Orcas Island and Friday Harbor and 1B Mount Vernon Christian.

Instead of giving up 75-250 students to almost all of our main rivals, we would be facing schools which are mirror images of Coupeville. Or, in a lot of cases, smaller.

Plus, it would reignite long-time rivalries with schools that current Wolf athlete’s parents and grandparents once faced on a regular basis.

If the WIAA says no, you’re 1A until 2020, then CHS likely heads in the direction of its other old time stomping grounds, the Cascade Conference.

Or, more appropriately, what is rising from that league’s ashes.

King’s, Granite Falls, Sultan, South Whidbey and Granite Falls (all 1A schools if Granite Falls gets WIAA approval to drop down from 2A) have defected, shedding 2A schools Cedarcrest and Archbishop Thomas Murphy.

Next fall, those five schools (and possibly Coupeville) will launch the 1A North Sound Conference.

Reuniting with Island arch-rival South Whidbey in a league setting is the main selling point of that scenario. Also, there’s always something to be said for competing at the highest possible level.

I know what direction I hope we go in, but, since there’s a poll below, I’m staying neutral.

So, here’s where I ask you, the reader, what do you hope to see?

The decision will come down to the WIAA and Coupeville Athletic Director Willie Smith.

The former is a fickle master (witness its fleeting “punishment” of Bellevue football), but I have complete faith in the latter, so we’re good.

But, until our path is set, you can vent and dream and argue all you want. So get at it. Choose what you want Coupeville’s next athletic adventure to be.