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Archive for the ‘Hall o’ Fame’ Category

Big games, big careers, big stars!!

Posted in Hall o' Fame, tagged , , , , , on November 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Prairie legend Hailey Hammer and fellow Hall inductees Denny Zylstra (top) and, representing the 2009-2010 CHS boys' hoops squad, Hunter Hammer and Dalton Engle.

   Hailey Hammer (left) and fellow Hall inductees Denny Zylstra (top) and, from the 2009-2010 CHS boys’ hoops squad, Hunter Hammer (left) and Dalton Engle.

Hammer Time takes over the Hall.

As we celebrate the 20th class to be inducted into the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame, we welcome 14 prairie legends, led by the brother/sister combo of Hunter and Hailey Hammer.

Hunter, who is already stationed up top, under the Legends tab at the top of the blog, enters the Hall for a second time as part of a stellar squad.

Meanwhile, lil’ sis finally gets her due for being one of the most consistent stars I had the pleasure to cover first-hand for their entire scholastic careers.

Hailey, joined by softball guru (and CHS grad) Denny Zylstra and the 2009-2010 Wolf boys’ basketball squad, leads us off today.

She was that rarity, even in a small town, an athlete who played three sports a year all four years, while never knowing what it was like to play in a JV contest.

Hammer was a fixture on the Wolf varsity in volleyball, basketball and softball from the moment she stepped onto the CHS campus.

12 letters (and a ton of awards) later, she went out like the ultimate boss.

You couldn’t have scripted her final moment any better, even if you tried.

Playing in her final regular season softball game this past May, Hammer found her team trailing La Conner 4-1 going into the bottom of the seventh.

Teammates Hope Lodell and Robin Cedillo had pulled off back-to-back defensive gems in the top of the inning to keep things close, but, as the Wolves came up for their final at-bats, Hammer was far down in the lineup.

Coupeville would need a miracle to get their star slugger the swan song she so richly deserved.

And then, against all odds, it happened.

Kailey Kellner, who had only a handful of at-bats previously, legged out a triple, Cedillo got plunked and stole second, Lauren Rose dropped in an RBI single and Tiffany Briscoe reloaded the bags with a frozen rope down the line in left.

Reality started to trump fairy tale, though, as La Conner got a force at home and a pop-up and seemed on the verge of escaping with a 4-2 win.

And then Hollywood took over for good.

Bases juiced, two outs, one swing to cap her career, Hammer sent a shot off the base of the fence in center to clear the bags, win the game and cause her mom to (momentarily) lose her mind.

As she stood alone at second, the sun glimmering across the prairie over her shoulder, in the brief moment before her teammates mobbed her, a small smile played on Hailey’s lips.

She had always been a star, a quiet leader, a rock, but, in that moment, she became the kind of legend they will talk about for generations.

Her fellow inductee Zylstra spent generations on the diamond.

A 1958 CHS grad, he was a three-sport (football, basketball, baseball) star for the Wolves and continued to play most of his sports well into his 40’s.

In his post-high school days, he also began to play softball, pitching his team to second place in the state at the age of 41.

Along with playing, Zylstra put in 50 years as a softball coach, with stints at Skagit Valley College, Oak Harbor High School and, on his final go-around, back at his alma mater.

A straight-shooter and one of the nicer guys I’ve known on the sports beat, Denny could go in as a player or as a contributor (he manned the concession booth for CHS softball and was a frequent presence at Wolf sporting events of all kinds), but, today, we honor him for his coaching.

He touched the lives of countless athletes, inspiring and teaching them, and his impact on Whidbey Island sports will be felt for decades to come.

Joining the duo is perhaps the most underrated CHS sports team ever, the 2009-2010 boys’ basketball squad.

Quirks of fate prevented them from getting a chance to raise a banner in the gym, but that shouldn’t take anything away from their season of excellence.

The Wolves went 16-5 that year, finishing second in the 1A/2A Cascade Conference at 9-3.

Along the way they gave league champ King’s (11-1) its only conference loss in a 65-64 thriller, went 3-0 against Island rivals and were an especially impressive 7-1 on the road.

Coupeville not only swept a two-game series from league rival South Whidbey, but beat the big city boys as well, knocking off Oak Harbor 66-61.

Which is why the Wildcats probably now refuse to schedule the Wolves…

Averaging just a hair under 61 points a game, Coupeville opened their season with a 50-point savaging of Darrington.

The Wolves won eight games by double-digits and closed the regular season on an 8-1 tear before having their only truly cold-shooting night of the season in a loser-out playoff opener against Nooksack Valley.

That unexpected loss prevented CHS from putting together a deep playoff run, but what came before more than makes those Wolves worthy of remembrance.

So, together again, as a team, they enter our little hall, ready to run and gun one more time.

Welcome to the stage:

Randy King (coach)
Jason Bagby
Chad Brookhouse
Dalton Engle
Ben Hayes
Hunter Hammer
Erik King
Tyler King
Nevin Miranda
Ian Smith
Tim Walstad
JD Wilcox

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Excellence is our heritage!!

Posted in Hall o' Fame, tagged , , , , , , , on October 25, 2015| Leave a Comment »

The 1974 CHS football squad is joined by fellow inductees (l to r) Mert Waller, Cavan Simonson, June (Blouin) Mazdra and members of the 2010-2011 Wolf cheer squad.

   The 1974 CHS football squad is joined by fellow inductees (l to r) Mert Waller, Cavan Simonson, June Mazdra and members of the 2010-2011 Wolf cheer squad.

We have a crowded stage today.

With two teams anchoring the 18th class to be inducted into the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame, that’s a given.

But the Hall is a big one, with room for all within these hallowed digital walls (you can find it at the top of this blog, under the Legends tab), so no problem.

Let’s hear the stage groan as we welcome Mert Waller, June Mazdra, Cavan Simonson, the 2010-2011 Coupeville High School competitive cheer squad and the 1974 CHS football team.

The first two inductees are classic examples of hard-working, community-minded folk who dedicated a chunk of their lives to Cow Town.

Waller, father of current Whidbey News-Times Sports Editor Jim Waller, was once the coach at CHS.

And I do mean THE coach.

When Waller and family hit the Island in the ’50s, he was hired to coach all four of the Wolf varsity sports teams, including two in the same season.

Football, basketball and then double duty in the spring, running baseball and track (there were no high school sports for girls at the time), Waller did it all, and did it all with a deft touch.

Coupeville eventually lost him (and his sons) to the lure of the big city, where he coached basketball (boys and girls), track, cross country and softball at Oak Harbor, while serving as the school’s AD for a decade.

My path crossed Mert’s when he was assisting son Jim, my journalism teacher at OHHS, who was putting together a career that would land him in a real Hall of Fame as the Wildcat baseball coach.

His knowledge was all-encompassing, but his spirit, his kindness and his wit were also unrivaled. Wolf or Wildcat, Mert Waller was the real deal, a king among men.

And, if he was a king, Mazdra is a queen among women, a supremely sweet-natured woman who has continued to shine light on her alma mater.

A class of ’75 grad, she returned to the scorekeeper’s table in later years and has put in 20 years doing the score-books for Wolf girls’ basketball squads.

That has put her front and center for the most successful sports program the school has had in that time period, with her precise notations documenting the careers of legends such as Zenovia Barron, Ashley Ellsworth-Bagby, Brianne King, Lexie Black, Kacie Kiel and Makana Stone, just to name a handful.

She’s had a front row seat to teams that brought home state banners and broke school records and she remains the indispensable glue that holds everything together.

Without her, stats would be going everywhere and the media? We’d be even more lost than normal.

Our third inductee, Simonson, was a stellar cheerleader during her days at CHS and a pretty talented barista at Miriam’s Espresso. Athletically, though, her greatest accomplishments may have come after high school.

Cavan has transformed herself in recent years, morphing into a high-level kick-butt artiste in the world of bodybuilding and fitness figure competition.

Her dedication and drive is uncanny, yet she remains the same sweet ray o’ sunshine she was as a teen, while now being able to crush walnuts with her abs.

Pay tribute now, so when Cav-Cav hits the really big time (a slam dunk certainty), she might remember all of us peons from her early days.

And then we arrive at our teams, two squads that showed you can become first-class in a very short time period.

The 2010-2011 CHS cheer squad returned to competitive cheer after several years of staying on the sidelines and made an immediate impact.

In their first time back on the mat, the Wolves brought home a championship trophy, winning the Seahawk Cheer Challenge at Peninsula High School.

That surprise finish qualified them for state, where they would go on to claim 6th place in a field dominated by big city schools.

It was a reminder of past glory for Coupeville cheer, which has a chunk of hardware in the school’s trophy case, and a challenge to future teams, should the Wolves return one day to competition.

Put in the work and you can excel. It’s not the size of the school, but the size of your athlete’s hearts.

Inducted, as a group, together one more time:

Sylvia Arnold (coach)
Courtney Arnold (captain)
Nicole Becker
Emily Clay
Kim Farage
Jai’Lysa Hoskins
Teri Lee
Kaitlyn Marcus
Jessica Ornburn
Tyler Potts (captain)
Madeline Roberts
Kristin Sim
Amanda Streubel

Rounding out our inductees is the ’74 Wolf gridiron squad, which bounced from a one-win season to a one-loss season, becoming the first CHS football team to make it to state since 1939.

A pack of fast-living, hard-partying (allegedly) guys who gelled as a team under a coaching staff that employed techniques which might be frowned upon in modern touchy-feely times, those Wolves shocked the pigskin world (and, maybe, themselves).

While they fell 12-0 to Willapa Valley at state, they left their mark and no gridiron team would match them for 12 seasons, when the 1986 squad also made it to the big dance.

They may no longer look like an outtake from Dazed and Confused, and most have gone on to have rock-solid lives as upstanding citizens, but those freewheeling Wolves will always stand tall.

Now give me 300 grass drills, gentlemen.

Inducted, as a team:

Larry Ankney
Mike Ankney
Chris Ceci
Charlie Cook
Raymond Cook
Mike Dunn
Ron Eastlick
Foster Faris
Scotty Franzen
Kevin Haga
Chuck Hardee
Tom Hardin
Randy Keefe
Pat Leach
David McDaniel
Frank Mueller
Ron Naddy
Ted Pyles
Terry Pyles
Mark Sem
Don Stevens

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Makin’ art!!

Posted in Hall o' Fame, tagged , , , , , , , on October 18, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Linda

   Clockwise, from top left, it’s Linda Cheshier, Josh Bayne and Mike Lodell along with their body of work.

They all painted masterpieces.

The members of the 17th class to be inducted into the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame made their names in different fields, but the trio is united by one thing — they were all artists working at the top of their games.

So, we welcome to the podium Josh Bayne, Linda Cheshier and Mike Lodell and permanently install them at the top of the blog under the Legends tab.

Our first inductee, Cheshier, spent a much smaller sliver of time at Coupeville High School than our other honorees, but her impact was huge.

After transferring to town late in her scholastic career, TC became an immediate star for the Wolves.

She was the Cascade League’s co-Most Valuable Player in volleyball as a senior and was a rock star on the basketball court.

In the photo collage above, there is a photo from early 1992, shot by camera-totin’ legend Geoff Newton, capturing Cheshier as she explodes off the court after Coupeville stunned South Whidbey.

In that game, she took over like a boss, scoring her team’s final eight points, including a pair of free throws with 20 seconds to play to ice the 42-40 home court win.

Was that her best performance?

Or was it the one that came a week later, when she poured in 17 as CHS pulled off a colossal upset, bouncing fourth-ranked King’s, which arrived on Whidbey bearing a 16-1 record?

Not only did the Wolves win, they routed the stunned Knights, smacking them 55-39.

“This was the biggest win of the season. Make that the biggest win in many a season,” jubilant Coupeville coach Phyllis Textor told me after that game.

But wait, maybe TC’s best performance was the night… Well, how long do we have? Because there was a LOT of stellar nights.

Suffice it to say, Cheshier was one of the most electrifying high school athletes I have covered in person, and we shouldn’t ever forget that.

Our second inductee has barely been gone from the hallways and fields at CHS for a hot moment — he’s currently starting as a freshman defensive back for Simon Fraser University’s gridiron squad — but it’s not too early to honor the Bayne Train.

Awesome Joshsome splashed his name all over the school’s football record board during his days as a Wolf, becoming the first-ever MVP in the 1A Olympic League last year.

With the numbers he put up, on both sides of the ball, Bayne was rightfully named an All-State player on both offense and defense, and, frankly, should have been the 1A state player of the year.

As we sit seven games into the 2015 season, during which time the ENTIRE Wolf football squad has combined to score eight touchdowns, let’s remember, Bayne scored 25 times last year.

He also hit like a Mack truck on defense, earning the following quote:

“Josh had one tackle on a receiver, folded him in half like a cheap hooker who was punched in the gut by her pimp. He had to sit out for awhile and wait for his liver to start working again” — CHS stat keeper Chris Tumblin.

And, he was also an All-League baseball player, the only guy I’ve personally witness hit a home run over the left field fence at our park, bouncing the ball off of the third row of cars.

We could wait five years to induct him, like some Hall of Fames do, but really, why? He’s a lock then, he’s a lock now.

And then we get to our third inductee, and the one who has spent the most time in Cow Town.

A CHS grad, renowned street baller and father to current two-sport sensation Hope “The Surgeon” Lodell, Mike does his best work these days as one of the craftsmen who work magic with the school’s athletic fields.

Whether artfully painting the football field, putting the glow back in the tennis courts or making out-of-towners gasp when they see his impeccably-curated softball diamond, he’s the eternal whiz kid with the mega-watt smile.

His greatest moment?

Normally you get a little rain on the field — a common occurrence during spring sports — and softball games get shut down.

Not at CHS, where the heavens erupted mid-game in the type of downpour not seen since Noah (the biblical dude, not Mike’s son…) went on vacation.

When the clouds parted and everyone returned, they found, to their stunned amazement, a diamond that was holding no water. AT ALL.

The umpires gaped. The opposing team, which had been planning for a long, unfulfilled drive home, swooned.

The soaked-to-the-bones fans, who thought we were getting to leave for drier climes?

A mixture of pride in Lodell’s skill and a burning desire to dunk him in Penn Cove, as the game then restarted, and we got to stand around for another two hours in the coldest, wettest clothes ever worn.

But the Wolves won, and, even the dampest of viewers had to give it up to the man who makes diamonds sparkle in any weather.

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Prairie legends, one and all!!

Posted in Hall o' Fame, tagged , , , , , , on October 11, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Katie Smith (top, right) with mom DeeAnna

   Katie Smith (top, right) with mom DeeAnna and fellow Hall inductees (l to r) Jason McFadyen, Ben Biskovich, Greg Oldham and (representing the 1992 CHS football team) Chris “Kit” Manzanares.

Big wins, big personalities.

The members of the 16th class to be inducted into the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame all possessed the second, which helped them achieve the first.

Regardless of the sport, and most of them crossed over to multiple activities, they remain high achievers in “real” life whose impact on Wolf Nation still lingers.

So we welcome to the podium Jason McFadyen, Greg Oldham, Katie Smith, Ben Biskovich and the 1992 Homecoming Miracle.

In future days, you’ll be able to find them at the top of the blog, under the Legends tab.

McFadyen and Biskovich will always be linked by their days playing catch for the 1990 Coupeville High School football squad, the last Wolf team to go undefeated, but they both accomplished a ton in other areas.

Biskovich, who has gone on to be a partner in three physical therapy clinics with wife Karin, is a successful runner these days, keeping alive the legacy of his days as a Wolf, when he was a state finalist in the 110 high hurdles.

A captain in football and basketball, he remains one of the hardest-working players ever to grace CHS, albeit it one who did so with eyebrow firmly cocked, Fonzie-style.

“Have a great time, it goes fast,” Biskovich told me in an interview. “Train, practice and play like you’ve got something to prove, like you’re fighting for a roster spot and don’t want to be taken off the field or court, so that afterwards you have no regrets.

“Win or lose, you can look at yourself in the mirror and say, “I could not have done anything more.”

That was a philosophy shared by his quarterback.

A four-sport letter winner at CHS (football, basketball, track, baseball), McFadyen was the brains that drove the Wolf gridiron squad, but garnered much of his glory on the basketball court.

Two-time team MVP. Two-time selection to the league’s All-Defensive team. First-Team All-Conference.

And he can still bring it, as he proved by leading his squad to a title in the most recent Tom Roehl Roundball Classic, a tournament which annually brings back a who’s-who of former Wolf stars.

McFadyen, who these days runs Windermere’s property management division and is the President of the Greater Oak Harbor Chamber of Commerce, was a winner back in the day, and remains a winner in the present.

Our third inductee, Oldham, put together a five-year run that few, if any, coaches at CHS, can match.

Taking over a successful Wolf girls’ basketball program — previous coach Willie Smith had led the program to the school’s first-ever win at state in any sport in 1999-2000 — Oldham went on a tear, winning nearly two-thirds of his games.

From 2000-2001 to 2004-2005, his squads went 85-43 overall and won at an even higher clip in Cascade Conference play, where they were 45-11.

Led by stars such as Brianne King, Ashley Ellsworth-Bagby and Lexie Black, the Wolves won a school-record 23 games in 2001-2002, reached the state semifinals and eventually claimed a pair of state tournament banners that grace the gym wall.

Now a college coach, Oldham’s impact during his time at Coupeville can not be denied.

The same could be said of Smith, one of the most underrated of all Wolf athletes.

Katie, a graceful young woman who has gone on to be an all-star aunt to her many nephews, was that rock-solid athlete (and person) who every team needs at its heart.

Whether she was playing basketball, volleyball, softball, or (late in her prep career) dazzling folks on the track oval, Smith was a team leader who led by example and not by screaming.

Part of a huge clan of athletic over-achievers, some of whom will probably join her in the Hall in the coming weeks and months, Katie is prairie royalty, with Sherman blood flowing through her veins.

She honored the legacy, and has always made her family and town very proud with the way she carries herself, on and off the athletic field.

A Coupeville Hall of Fame without her? Not much point.

And, as we reach the end of today’s festivities, five days before the 2015 Homecoming football game, we take a trip in the way-back machine to pay tribute to one of the greatest comebacks I have ever witnessed in person.

It was Oct. 30, 1992 and Gina (Dozier) Slowik was the senior class queen, while on the field, the Wolves trailed league rival Foster 21-6 with only a quarter to play.

Cue the fog. Cue the comeback for the ages.

Scoring three touchdowns, and then sealing the deal with an interception in the end zone at the final buzzer, Coupeville roared back for a 25-21 win that still seems amazing 23 years later.

Wolf quarterback Troy Blouin started things with a one-yard keeper, but the two-point conversion failed.

No problem, as Coupeville pulled off a trick play in which Blouin pitched the ball to running back Todd Brown, normally known for slamming face-first into would-be tacklers.

On this night, though, Brown pivoted and fired a bomb, dropping a 32-yard scoring strike into the arms of Kit Manzanares.

Nothing would be easy, however, as the Wolves promptly missed the extra point, leaving them down 21-18.

Wolf coach Ron Bagby unleashed defensive Hell in a wild bid to get the ball back, and it worked better than anticipated, as Foster fumbled the ball and it skipped into the end zone.

To this day, no one is really sure who landed on the ball, but he was wearing red and black, and the resulting touchdown sent the crowd into a tizzy.

But, even as the ramshackle CHS press box (nothing has changed in 23 years) was rockin’, Foster got two more chances to rewrite the miracle.

The first failed on fourth down, but, after a Wolf fumble while trying to run the clock out (Bagby may have had a stroke at that moment…), Foster had time for a Hail Mary.

The ball went up, the crowd went eerily silent, the ball descended, confusion reigned and then Blouin shot out of the pack, holding the ball aloft, restarting his coach’s heart and igniting pandemonium.

Legendary.

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Here be legends!!

Posted in Hall o' Fame, tagged , , , , , , on October 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »

CHS tennis guru Ken Stange (above) is joined by fellow inductees (l to r) Mike Duke, Julie (Swankie) Wheat, Jerry Helm and Will Butela.

  CHS tennis guru Ken Stange (above) is joined by fellow inductees (l to r) Mike Duke, Julie (Swankie) Wheat, Jerry Helm and Will Butela.

Impact.

In the athletic history of Coupeville, some have left a mark, while others have hit with such a force they left a crater.

The members of the 15th class to be inducted into the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame made, or are continuing to make, impressions that have lasted, and for that they join their brethren at the top of the blog, forever enshrined under the Legends tab.

Welcome to the podium, Jerry Helm, Julie (Swankie) Wheat, Ken Stange and the loud ‘n proud tag-team of Will Butela and Mike Duke.

We want a big opening, so we have to kick things off with Butela and Duke, the fastest-rising names in sports entertainment.

Both athletes themselves who have gone on to adult things like marriage, fatherhood and starring in professionally-made ads that tout their love of Major League Baseball (https://coupevillesports.com/2015/07/14/ermahgerd-i-know-these-dudes/) the duo are going in to our hall as Contributors.

The last couple of years have been an odd time for the student cheering section at Coupeville High School, as administrators, overly-restrictive league officials and the Wolf faithful have conducted an awkward dance.

But jump back just a few years, when Butela and Duke led that section, a time when the stands were jam-packed and ready to rock ‘n roll, and Wolf Nation was a force to be reckoned with.

They had more freedom than the current kids are being given, and they reveled in it, shaking the joint to its rafters. They made the floor rumble and other schools wilt.

They were then what you wish today’s Wolves would be allowed to once again be.

Spirit? Passion? Fun? It flowed from every pore of their bodies and, in our timid times now, they loom even bigger in our memories.

Next up is a guy, who, while being a little bit older than the Fun Brothers, still looks like he could pass for a high schooler.

Helm, the poster boy for Central Whidbey firefighting (he has the calendar to prove it) was a standout athlete in his days as a Wolf.

The 1998 grad used his speed to make a mark as a football, basketball and track star, while dabbling a bit in baseball.

Along the way, he went to state, won MVP awards and was part of a school record in the 4 x 400, before hanging up his track shoes and morphing into a dad and husband.

Whether zipping around the track oval or battling fires, Helm was a winner then, and remains one today.

His journey is a similar one to the trek taken by Wheat, who transitioned from life as a stellar athlete (volleyball, softball) into being a wife and mom, raising her children with husband Erik, himself a decorated former Wolf.

While she was rock-solid on the diamond, the volleyball court is where Julie holds school records.

The Assist Queen, the former setter still holds all three CHS records, for most assists in a game (40), season (309) and career (604 from 2008-2010).

A perpetual ray of sunshine when she was an athlete, the kind of warrior who dominated but never forgot to embrace the sheer joy of playing, Wheat has gone on to provide daily assists to her young sons.

Look at their smiles in the photos in which they appear with their mom, and you know she’s still winning, every day.

Our fifth inductee is a wily tennis guru who has impacted countless players during a decade-plus run at the helm of the Wolf boys and girls’ tennis programs.

Coupeville’s version of The Dude, a free spirit who bops to his own tune, Stange, who is now in his 11th year at CHS, imparts two kinds of lessons. Tennis ones, and life ones.

He’s had some very good players, taken several to state, but it’s the little things which make him worthy of induction.

The way he has pulled in countless kids from the fringes who had never played a sport and then given them a game they can play for a lifetime.

His Zen-like mixture of wild stories, hard truths and laser-like wisdom.

His Swayze-like dancing skills.

Plus, he’s one of the best in the biz when it comes to writing up info for the ink-stained wretches who cover his teams, and, he’s one of the few coaches who can still flat-out blast his players off the court if needed.

You come for the king, you better have a quick racket.

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