McKayla Bailey: The Best
There will be a day, too soon, when McKayla Bailey will no longer be a student/athlete at Coupeville High School.
On that day, I may cry. For a very long time.
Miss Bailey, who celebrates the final birthday of her high school days today, is nothing less than the reason Coupeville Sports exists.
Without her, will there even be a reason to go on?
I may start crying now…
Talented athletes come and go, but no one else has had quite the same impact McKayla has had.
And it’s not because of what she can do on a softball diamond or a basketball or volleyball court or soccer pitch. Even when she was impressive, as she often has been, and will be again once her injured arm heals.
She is bigger than that, though.
McKayla is a bright, shining superstar because the camera loves her, she loves the camera right back and every time she sees one, something magical happens.
She is an exuberant, free-wheeling force of nature in real life and the many pictures we have run of her on this blog show that in crystal clear detail.
Bailey loves life and it comes through in every action, whether she’s being goofy, being an attentive big sister to McKenzie and Mollie (who have both inherited her ease in front of a camera) or, on the rare occasion, exploding in anger.
I have seen her royally pissed, pacing around like a caged lioness in the pitching circle, slapping her thigh repeatedly with her glove, aiming daggers at the poor girl about to step into the batter’s box.
Boom-bam-boom.
Strike one, strike two, strike three, a small grin escapes and then she goes bonkers, chasing her teammates into the dugout and jumping on them, unable to contain her re-found glee.
The thing that sets Coupeville Sports apart the most from the Canadian-owned newspapers is our willingness, our burning desire, to run as many glossy pics as possible.
They can cover the same games we do, but we capture the highs and lows better with liberal uses of eye-catching photos.
And, while game photos are often dramatic, many of the most memorable ones have come from pre-game and post-game shenanigans, a place where McKayla thrives.
I have noticed that high school and middle school female athletes as a whole tend to be much more open to being goofy and embracing the chance to act up for the cameras than their male counterparts.
Maybe it’s an ingrained thing, since most team photos of boys’ sports usually feature snarls and tough guy looks, while the girls are usually one epic team-wide smile.
No one beams brighter, or longer, than McKayla Bailey.
Hunter Hammer was the rarity, a guy who played to the camera, a six-foot-seven photo bomb impresario.
Taya Boonstra was awesome, as was Haley Sherman, while Breeanna Messner lit up the joint (and her photos) with a quiet, graceful glow.
Madeline Strasburg, Kacie Kiel, Hailey Hammer — the Class of 2015 has a bevy of camera-lovin’ stars and junior McKenzie Bailey can bring it almost as strongly as big sis.
Keep an eye on freshman Lauren Rose, who could be the next big breakout Photo Queen.
But they all are at least a sliver behind McKayla, who has made it look effortless seemingly forever.
A moment ago, she was a “diaper dandy” (and yes, I still hear about that, and I still say, go talk to Dick Vitale, it’s a compliment), now, she’s on the cusp of graduation.
On this, her special day, I want to wish Miss Bailey a wonderful birthday, of course.
More than that, though, I want to say thank you.
Thank you for making all of this so much fun. For being the spark that lit the fire.
For letting me post photos of you in surgery, for always letting John Fisken or Shelli Trumbull take “just one more photo” regardless of your mood at the moment (and always working that photo for all you are worth), for putting up with me and the often idiotic things I write under your photos, for inspiring me to find joy again in my writing.
I have gotten more personal satisfaction out of two-plus-years of doing Coupeville Sports than I did out of 15 years of freelance work (and two years as a Sports Editor) for the Whidbey papers.
It’s a different style, a different flow, a different view and it wouldn’t have blossomed the same without that one unassuming, blissful ball of fire willing to put herself at the center of the whole thing.
Thank you McKayla, for being awesome. For being amazing. For being you.
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