Gavin O’Keefe looks for an open man while trying to inbound the ball. (Shelli Trumbull photos)
O’Keefe (far right) seems really, really interested in teammate Josh Wilsey’s finger during a team dinner.
This stinks.
You hate to see any high school athlete go down with an injury, at any time, for any reason.
Since 99.9% of them will never get a chance to play their sport at a college or professional level, high school sports is where they will make their memories. Whether they are a varsity star or picking up a few minutes in a JV game, this is their time.
But seeing a quality kid like Gavin O’Keefe be robbed of most of his junior basketball season is truly depressing.
It was an accident. A defender’s foot suddenly in his way when he came down from a desperation, end-of-quarter three-point bomb. His foot goes one way, the defender’s foot the other, and suddenly you’re looking at O’Keefe being out for four to six weeks, which puts a return at mid-January (and then only if things go perfectly on the way back).
The final regular season game for Coupeville High School is Feb. 1.
And, like I said, while it would be sad to see any kid miss all or most of their athletic season, it really stinks this time around.
O’Keefe is a hoops guy. That’s his sport. He worked his butt off in the off-season, with the goal of being an All-Conference player for the Wolves, of following in the proud family tradition of older siblings Kramer and Kendra, both CHS stars.
The kid looks like he stepped out of “Hoosiers,” as well, with the low-cut hair and the broad smile.
He was the guy who was going to spearhead the return to excellence for the Wolf program. It would have been a beautiful story.
And now, he will have to sit on the bench as a season of promise starts to go bad really fast.
Game one — epic food poisoning/viral crud that left the Wolves barely able to field five guys who could stand up long enough to play against Blaine. Game two — battling University Prep to a standstill until one bad twist robs Coupeville of its heart and soul.
Forget stinks. This plain sucks.
But, hope doesn’t die easy.
There are 18 games left in the regular season. Drew Chan and Caleb Valko are tough, hard-nosed team leaders and won’t let the team backslide. Chan played against Blaine looking like he was one step from the ER at times and was still fighting for loose balls like a rabid dog in the final 30 seconds of the game.
Nick Streubel is bigger and badder than a season ago and will hurt some people in the paint. Aaron Curtin can step up and take some of O’Keefe’s potential scoring. There is hope on the horizon, with the emergence of freshmen like Wiley Hesselgrave and Dalton Martin.
Heck, the Wolves even keep on picking up players, with baseball stud Ben Etzell having joined the squad recently.
They will win this season. Mark it down now. Whether they do it for themselves or in tribute to their fallen star, they will do it.
And Gavin O’Keefe will be back. This season or next, because the kid will not quit. He’s an O’Keefe and he will go out the way his siblings went out — at the top of their game.
I don’t want to hear anything different. This is the story I’m writing because I know it to be true.
I believe in Gavin O’Keefe and I want to see him get his chance. I want to see him end his high school hoops career hitting jump shots over outstretched arms, sending South Whidbey and ATM home in tears, not sitting on a bench in a cast.
I believe in Drew Chan, too, and I know he and his teammates will celebrate a break-through victory, whether it be over the La Conner Ebersoles, Orcas Island or King’s.
You can tell me that life is unfair, and it often is.
But these stories don’t end that way. They can’t.
I believe in Coupeville.
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