Kyle Rockwell sails in and snags a rebound during his days as a three-sport athlete at Coupeville High School. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)
Rockwell, seen here with Wolf baseball coach Chris Smith, joins older sister Maria as a member of the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame.
Kyle Rockwell had a senior season for the ages.
Before he graduated back in 2018, the one-time Wolf achieved a rare trifecta, pulling off the signature play of his team’s season, and doing it not once, not twice, but three times.
When you look back at Coupeville High School male athletics during the 2017-2018 season, the school’s final in the Olympic League, it would be hard to argue anyone made more of an impact than Rockwell did.
Now, I’m not saying Kyle was the best athlete in a CHS uniform. That was Hunter Smith, absolutely.
But Rockwell was a superb complementary player, the kind of durable, high-achieving support crew you need, and want.
And, given the chance, he stepped up three times, once each in the fall, winter, and spring, and made a play which will linger for a long time in the minds of Wolf fans.
For that, for overcoming every obstacle which has come his way, and for being the dude everyone cheered for thanks to his eternally positive attitude and easy-going nature, we’re rewarding him.
Mr. Rockwell joins his older sister, softball supernova Maria, in the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame, and, after this, will be found at the top of the blog under the Legends tab.
Part of this honor stems from Kyle’s resiliency, as he has been blind in one eye since childhood, yet never let that slow his roll.
Rockwell has been an athlete since day one, though it took awhile for his parents, understandably, to let him enter certain arenas.
He finally got the OK to play football as a senior, and it was there he made his first big-time play.
All season long he was a … rock … on the line, but in the home finale, he grabbed the spotlight, reflected it up at himself, and sang a few bars of My Way.
Ripping through would-be blockers like a (very large) knife slicin’ ‘n dicin’ walking, talking, non-blocking pats of butter, Rockwell destroyed a rival running back as he tried to come around the edge.
Shoulder met stomach, ball flipped free.
Then, staying as calm and cool as you can after you’ve just knocked a fool out of his cleats, the guy in the Wolf uniform lunged forward and scooped the now-free football into his chest before half of the other team landed on his head.
It was a beautiful play, full of precision and fury, and yet just the start for Rockwell during his year of glory and achievement.
Skip forward to basketball season, and Coupeville pulls off the biggest upset of the season, again in the home finale.
Facing first-place Klahowya, Rockwell and Co. pull off a 59-54 thriller on Senior Night that reignites memories of former Wolf basketball glory.
Hunter Smith goes off for a career-high 35 to spark CHS, but it’s Rockwell with the clincher.
Caught in a traffic jam in the paint, surrounded by three KSS players, he flexes his biceps to create a shock wave, then rips the ball free from an Eagle, spins and powers back up for the game-clinching layup.
The Klahowya players, sprawled on the court, can do little more than bow their heads to their conqueror, as Smith, Joey Lippo, Hunter Downes, and Cameron Toomey-Stout come charging in to group hug all the air out of Rockwell’s body.
And yet, there’s more.
Spring brings with it baseball, Rockwell’s longest-running sport, and our urban legend caps his prep career with one more play, his best yet.
Coupeville, trying to win its second league crown in three seasons, spends much of the campaign in a stare-down with Chimacum.
The Cowboys win the opener of the team’s three-game season series, taking advantage of a ridiculously muddy field on the mainland.
But the Wolves hold strong, and given a rematch on the prairie, they come up with a 1-0 victory which all but clinches the title.
Rockwell, who normally operates at first base, is lurking in right field when destiny comes calling, and I’ll direct you to the game story from that day, which captures his insane, game-clinching throw in all its Spielbergian glory.
You can find it at https://coupevillesports.com/2018/04/23/magic-on-the-prairie/.
And, just to prove it wasn’t a one-time thing, Rockwell came back later in the week, playing in the third game of the Chimacum series, and laid down the RBI bunt which provided the only run Coupeville needed to win again, and make everything official.
Cause that’s what you do when you’re the author of “I Rock: The Kyle Rockwell Story.”
Which is now, and forever, the autobiography of a certified Hall o’ Famer.
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