Wolf freshman Cole White scored his first varsity points Tuesday at home against Concrete. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
Milestones make stat geeks giddy.
Tuesday night, as the Coupeville High School boys basketball team battered visiting Concrete 71-17, there were two such moments in time.
One — Hawthorne Wolfe cracking the 500-point career scoring club — was noted in my game story last night.
Today we note the other.
When Wolf freshman Cole White scored his first varsity points, he joined an exclusive club.
With 5:13 left in the game, Jonathan Valenzuela, trapped under the basket, looped a pass to his fellow swing player, who was lurking on the left side.
White caught the ball, popped a short jumper, and the net flipped upwards as history tumbled through it.
With the bucket, Cole joined dad Greg, watching the game from the bench as a CHS assistant coach, on the school’s career scoring chart.
The elder White rippled the nets for 604 points back when he was wearing short-shorts, and still sits #31 all-time.
But the basket had another historical note to it, as Cole White became the 400th Wolf boy I’ve been able to document scoring at least one point in a varsity hoops game.
From Jeff Stone and Mike Bagby, tied with 1,137 points, to Paul Baher, Robert Engle, Bob Franzen, Meryl Gordon, Oscar Liquidano, and Raleigh Sherman — who all netted a single varsity free throw — it’s a long and diverse list.
Boys basketball has been active at CHS since 1917, and my pursuit of what is now 104 years of scoring history is not a complete one.
I’m missing points for a fair amount of players from the 1930’s and 1940’s, but I do have totals for two seasons in the 1920’s(!), so we’re getting there.
If a bunch of old-timey scorebooks suddenly appeared in the blink of a time machine, we obviously would go above 400 Wolf boys having scored.
Floyd Wanamaker, Dean Edmundson, and the rest of the 1925-1926 Wolves, you will be honored, one day!
OK, probably not, but we can still hope.
But we’re pretty dang solid from the early ’50s to today, with scattered records from before, so if the 400 isn’t 100% correct, it’s getting closer and closer.
For the moment, though, don’t worry about what could be. Instead, celebrate what is known.
Valenzuela, who also scored his first varsity points Tuesday, became #399 in the third quarter, then set up White to be #400.
Milestone city, baby.
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