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Archive for the ‘Memories’ Category

One night, one legend!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, Memories, tagged , , , , on November 18, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Old-school Megan Smith, ready to lay down a butt-whuppin'. (Photo poached from Smith)

   “I will break you, and they ain’t ever gonna put the pieces back together again!!” Old-school Megan Smith, ready to lay down a butt-whuppin’.

One day, one game.

Can you take an entire four-year high school basketball career and boil it down to one night and say, “This here, this is the greatest moment that player ever had?”

Well, maybe.

In some cases, there is a transcendent moment.

Kacie Kiel hitting a three-ball from the corner to cap a stunning eight-point comeback in the final minute against Sequim, or Kassie Lawson and Ian Smith banking in miracle treys to stun King’s and South Whidbey, respectively, at the buzzer.

But in the case of Ian’s big sister, Megan, the highlight show was pretty much every night.

When we discuss who the greatest Coupeville High School girls basketball player of all time might be, Megan Smith is on the very short list, with Novi Barron, Brianne King, Ashley Ellsworth-Bagby and Makana Stone.

Maybe toss Marlene Grasser, Tina Lyness, Sarah Mouw and Lexie Black into the mix, as well.

For one thing, if Mouw had more than one season in the red and black, there’s little doubt she’s in that top five.

But, while we’re arguing (people speak in hushed whispers when they talk about Novi, while Makana is flat-out the best pure athlete, in any sport, I covered live), it’s safe to say Megan Smith can put her numbers up against anyone.

Today though, thanks to me randomly leafing through old score-books, we’re going to focus on a night that took place 2,831 days ago.

Coming into the “ancient” night of Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009, the Wolves were struggling, having lost 14 straight games.

Long past were early-season memories of beating Concrete, Friday Harbor and Tenino and instead harsh beatings at the hands of ATM and King’s were now front and center.

Now, I’m taking a leap here, since I wasn’t in the stands during the 2008-2009 hoops season.

I was in the midst of my own skid, in the final months of a 15-year video store career.

The 12+ Videoville years had been awesome sauce, but a rocky run at David’s DVD Den would finally implode on Cinco de Mayo of 2009, when, not for the first, or probably last, time, I burnt my bridges in spectacular fashion.

So, I doubt Feb. 17, when I was likely fighting the non-stop croup that afflicted me through my final days in a cruddy old building, far away from the sun, offered me much personal salvation.

For the Wolves, though, it came in the form of a much-needed win, one that came on their home floor and one that was inspired by one of the best performances put up by their shooting star.

Facing off with league rival Friday Harbor for the second time, Coupeville came out hot, and balanced.

Smith dropped in five in the first quarter, but so did Lawson, while Cassidi Rosenkrance added four (the trio all hit a three-ball) and CHS built a 14-6 lead after one.

The long-range game, and the balanced scoring, continued in the second eight minutes, as Kendra O’Keefe nailed a pair of treys and Smith tossed in five more (included a shot from long-range).

Lawson added a free throw and the Wolves went into the locker room up 26-15.

Something changed in the second half, though (and again, I’m going off a seven-year-old score-book and not first-hand knowledge) and Smith apparently decided it was time to drop the hammer.

She poured in 20 of her team’s 25 second-half points and Coupeville held off a late Friday Harbor rally to snap the skid with a 51-44 victory.

Smith banged home four baskets in both the third and fourth quarter (including her third trey), while also netting her first free-throws of the night.

Nine points in the third gave her a modest 19 (the total she finished with in the games before and after this one), before 11 down the stretch rounded out her game-high 30-point assault on the bucket.

Lawson backed Smith up with eight, while O’Keefe (6), Rosenkrance (5) and Mandi Murdy (2) also scored.

Katie Smith, Courtney Boyd, Jessy Caselden, Taylor Sherman, Marie Hesselgrave and Amanda Manker all saw floor time as well, while Courtney Arnold is on the roster, but appears to have been a (surely enthusiastic) sideline supporter that night.

Few Wolves have ever put the ball in the bucket more consistently than Megan Smith.

In the three score-books I have from her prep career, she broke double digits in an uncanny 51 of 67 games played.

But that 30-point night ranks as her best scoring performance (again, I’m missing a book for one of her seasons).

And you’d have to think, based on where the Wolves were and how much they needed a win at the time, it went down as one of the best nights Smith (and her teammates) had on the court.

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A losing record, a winning team!!

Posted in Memories, tagged , , , on June 9, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Bob Barker

Bob Barker, old school style. (Photo courtesy Jeff Stone)

Curt Youderian

Modern-day Curt Youderian, with daughter Corynn. (Photo courtesy Corynn Youderian)

Bob Barker spent 31+ years at Coupeville High School, working as a teacher, coach and Athletic Director, affecting countless lives over the years.

A 1959 grad of what would become Western Washington University, he led baseball and basketball (both boys and girls) teams at CHS, taking three to state.

Hailed by his former players as “the best coach I ever had” and “one of the three or four people who shaped who I am today,” his impact lingers long after his retirement.

In this series, Barker responds to my questions as only he can, eloquently and passionately.

Today’s question: “If you had to pick a highlight from your coaching career, what would it be and why?”

David,

In response to your final question:

I have already mentioned several highlights, concerning championships, district tournaments, and state tournament entries, etc.

However, there is one that I have not yet mentioned and it concerns the boy’s 1973 – 1974 basketball team.

Out of the 12 years that I coached boys varsity basketball, it is the only team that lost more games than it won. 

Now, one might make the assumption that it was a year and team, that as coach, I would be most likely to forget.

Actually, just the opposite of that is true as I have fond memories of that team and take great pride in its accomplishments.

The team consisted of four seniors, Steve Bisset, Les Jacobson, Rick Keefe and Curt Youderian.

If my memory serves me, Curt had dropped out of sports for a couple of years and decided that as a senior he would like to give it another try. 

At 6-foot-1, Curt was our so called “big man.” 

Junior Scotty Franzen was probably our most experienced player. 

In addition we had three sophomores, Randy Keefe, Bill Jarrell and Mark Bissett, who all would later play big roles in getting Coupeville entries into state basketball tournaments in 1975 and 1976.

We knew at the beginning of the season that scoring was not going to be our strong point so we spent a great deal of time on practicing our defensive schemes. 

There isn’t a lot of glamour to defense and it takes a lot of hard work and effort. 

But defense kept us in most games and due to the positive leadership demonstrated by the aforementioned seniors and the development of the sophomores I found this to be one of my most enjoyable years in coaching.

Sincerely,

Bob Barker

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Life is good for strikeout king!!

Posted in Baseball, Memories, tagged , , , , , , on May 31, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Bob Rea

Bob Rea and his wife enjoy Glacier National Park. (Photo courtesy Rea)

He’s the strikeout king of Snakelum Point.

Go back five decades and the man you wanted on the mound, if you were a Coupeville High School baseball coach, was Bob Rea.

A three-sport star for the Wolves (he quarterbacked the football team and played forward for the basketball squad), his biggest moments came on the diamond.

Drop a baseball in Rea’s hand and the lefty who grew up skipping rocks on Whidbey Island beaches was deadly.

He tossed a no-hitter against Tolt, and went on to play varsity ball for four years at Western Washington University, but the CHS Class of ’65 grad made his reputation one afternoon chopping down Loggers.

“Darrington was a logging town and the boys from the area were physically strong because of how they were raised,” Rea said. “Coupeville boys … more of the beach crowd.

“We always knew, whichever sport, we were going to have work hard to beat the Loggers.”

Rea and the Wolves were in Darrington for a league duel during his junior year, when the game turned into a marathon of endurance and whiffs.

By the time it was over, 16 innings later, Rea had set 27 (or is it 26?) Loggers down swinging and Coupeville escaped with a 2-1 win which still resonates 50+ years later.

While the score-book from that game is long gone, it lives on in the memories of then-Wolf coach Bob Barker, who credits Rea with 27 K’s, and the former hurler, who’s justifiably proud of his day, regardless of the stats.

“As the game wore on it became almost comical. Which pitcher was going to give in first?,” Rea said. “Fortunately for me, a lot of batters never hit the ball.

“I think my total was actually 26 … but legends grow.”

27 or 26, it remains widely accepted as the best one-game performance in CHS pitching history, and one highly unlikely to be duplicated in modern times.

“In today’s world of youth athletics, you would never see one pitcher go 16 innings, much less two,” Rea said. “When the game was over I know our team was proud to have outlasted the tough guys from Darrington.

“One thing I do remember is that my arm never hurt during nor after the game,” he added. “I contribute that to either my strict diet and exercise regimen … or lots of rock throwing on the beach.”

To this day, Rea praises his counterpart on the mound as one of his tougher rivals.

“I remember the opposing pitcher was Brian Mount, a senior, and an all-everything athlete from Darrington,” Rea said. “We played Darrington in football, basketball and baseball, so we got to know the athletes pretty well.

“There were family names that kept appearing year after year,” he added. “Mount was one, along with Boyd and Green. All offspring were good athletes.”

Equally memorable was the ball-field the game was played on.

“We played on an all-dirt (sand and gravel) field and it was very dusty,” Rea said. “Left field included the town railroad tracks and any ball hit to the tracks was fair game … you got as many bases as you could touch.

“I can still see Ray Harvey, our left fielder, looking both ways before he stepped out on the tracks to recover a well-hit ball.”

With three solid years behind him, Rea was denied his swan song when he broke his leg in practice as a senior.

“I managed the team in a cast that year,” he said. “We won the league even without my input. Kind of a hollow victory for me, personally, but great for the coaches and the team.”

While he had some personal success at Western, the school’s program, which had been on a three-year streak of appearing in the NAIA World Series prior to his arrival, hit a rough stretch.

“I started some games, relieved some, was only marginally successful,” Rea said. “I enjoyed traveling and playing, but the team was not very competitive.

“In the four years I was there we had at least three different coaches. Not a lot of continuity.”

After Western, Rea went into teaching, spending two decades as a PE instructor in Seattle. He also picked up a summer job to help make ends meet, and that turned into a lifetime pursuit.

His brother purchased a bowling center in Issaquah, and Rea went to work there as an instructor. He’s now celebrating his 40th anniversary as a bowling teacher.

Taking a leave of absence from school teaching in 1990, he created a program called Port-A-Bowl USA, which brought schools and bowling centers together in an “educational partnership.”

The program, which is now a nationally-funded program known as In-School Bowling, has taken him around the world and allowed him to teach the sport in 16 foreign countries.

When he looks back on his high school glory days, Rea sees a young man who got by largely on natural talent. If he could change one thing, it would be to tell his younger self to listen to advice when offered.

“As far as high school sports goes, the only sport where I received much coaching was in basketball,” he said. “Being a better than average athlete and young, I don’t know if someone tried to coach me much at that time I would have been very open to their suggestions.

“I thought I knew it all,” Rea added with a chuckle. “Soooo wrong in soooo many ways, ‘grasshopper’.”

Still, he’s content, with his athletic legacy and where life has taken him since high school.

“I am married to a wonderful woman, 48 years and counting; have two great kids and a couple of grand-kids to spoil,” Rea said. “I go back to Snakelum Point with my grand-kids and we walk on the same beach that I grew up on.

“Fish, clam, beach-comb and enjoy what nature provides by way of a beautiful backdrop.

“Life is good.”

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Bob Barker preaches, teaches pride!!

Posted in Memories, tagged , , , , , on April 16, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Bob Barker, in the moments after the 1969-70 Coupeville boys became the first CAMERA

Bob Barker, circa 1970.

Bob Barker spent 31+ years at Coupeville High School, working as a teacher, coach and Athletic Director, affecting countless lives over the years.

A 1959 grad of what would become Western Washington University, he led baseball and basketball (both boys and girls) teams at CHS, taking three to state.

Hailed by his former players as “the best coach I ever had” and “one of the three or four people who shaped who I am today,” his impact lingers long after his retirement.

In this series, Barker responds to my questions as only he can, eloquently and passionately.

Today’s question: “As you look back on your career as a teacher and coach, what are you most proud of?”

David,

Let’s take coaching first. I will list several things in random order.

1. In twelve years as boy’s basketball coach, we experienced only one losing season.

2. Two seasons (1970 and 1972) in which we achieved 18-2 regular season records.

3. First Whidbey Island team in history to earn a berth to a state basketball tournament.

4. First Coupeville basketball team to be ranked 1st in the state polls in their division.

5. In twelve years we earned three entries to the state tournament.

6. For several years we had the best-dressed basketball team in the league and probably the whole district.

Number 6 probably needs an explanation.

A couple of years after I began coaching the boys basketball team, I became acquainted with a young man that was an owner/proprietor of a men’s clothing store in Oak Harbor.

He was an avid sports fan and, hence, I was able to persuade him to agree to purchase blazers for our team and sell them to us at his cost.

After a few fundraising campaigns by the team members, 13 red blazers were ordered. The family was asked to complete the ensemble.

Hence, when our team entered a gym in their black slacks, red blazer, white shirt and black tie, we were an impressive sight.

I felt that it created a certain amount of pride or “esprit-de-corps” in the members of our team, the student body, as well as the parents and community members that followed the team.

7. In my fifth and final year as baseball coach we won, what I believe was our first league baseball championship.

Now as to any sources of pride in the academic realm.

One of the things that gave me great deal of pride, although, I only played a very small part in it, was Coupeville’s post graduate record.

At that time the administration kept track of students after graduation and they found that the percentage of our students that went on to schools of higher learning was in fact, generally greater that many of the surrounding schools.

There were multiple factors that led to this result.

Those were primarily the type of community and strong parent support and maybe to a slightly lesser extent the faculty and administration in the Coupeville schools.

I take pride in that many of our graduates have been successes in business, education, farming, pharmaceutical, medicine, legal, banking and so on ad-infinitum.

One item of personal pride was that I was able to interest a number of students in chess and organized several successful chess tournaments, thus giving some students a real experience in problem solving.

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Bob Barker, Episode 3: It’s a Woman’s World!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, Memories, tagged , , , , , on March 17, 2016| 1 Comment »

Bob Barker

   Bob Barker and one of his girls hoops teams from the late ’80s. (Photo courtesy Sherry Roberts)

Bob Barker spent 31+ years at Coupeville High School, working as a teacher, coach and Athletic Director, affecting countless lives over the years.

A 1959 grad of what would become Western Washington University, he led baseball and basketball (both boys and girls) teams at CHS, taking three to state.

Hailed by his former players as “the best coach I ever had” and “one of the three or four people who shaped who I am today,” his impact lingers long after his retirement.

In this series, Barker responds to my questions as only he can, eloquently and passionately.

David,

I guess that it is time to address your fourth question: What are my memories of working with the girls basketball teams.

I will begin with some related information that may seem superfluous to the actual answer of your question, however, thought I would take this opportunity to bore you with a little history of modern girls basketball at Coupeville High School.

When I began my teaching career at Coupeville in 1959, there were no girl interscholastic athletic teams.

 At that time Pearl Wanamaker (from the Wanamaker family in Coupeville) was Superintendent of Public Instruction. 

It seems that her philosophy was that the female build did not lend itself to the heavy physical exertion of competitive sports and in fact it would be harmful. 

The only athletic outlet for the girls at that time was what was called GAA (Girls Athletic Association).

Now if my memory is correct, (and there is some possibility that it isn’t 100%) the interested girls would get together after school once or twice a week and indulge in some type of sport activity under the direction of a supervisor, which was usually their physical education instructor. 

Since this was an after school hour activity the supervisor was awarded a slight monetary compensation just as the boy’s coaches were.

I vaguely remember field hockey, and volleyball as a couple of those sports.

The only competition that they were allowed was that in the spring some of the schools would gather together for a “Field Day” in which they would join in some kind of competition.

If you are interested in following up on a little history of GAA, perhaps some of the girls that graduated in the early-to-mid-60s could give a better explanation.

After Mrs. Wanamaker was voted out of office, girls interscholastic sports began to appear in schools around the state. I believe this was about the time that Title IX was passed by Congress.

Here is where the timeline gets a little hazy and since I don’t have my annuals to fall back on I may miss the start of girls basketball at Coupeville by a year or two. 

Valerie Arnold was the first girls basketball coach and she was a 1963 graduate of Coupeville High School. 

So adding four years for college, I believe that Valerie returned to teach at her alma mater no earlier than 1967. I don’t recall her entire teaching assignment but one of them was girls physical education.

My narrative of the beginning of girls basketball as it is now played at Coupeville begins with the arrival of the Hack family on Whidbey Island.

Mr. Hack had completed a career as a Navy pilot with his last station being on Kodiak Island in Alaska.

Of their three children, Joy was the oldest and entered Coupeville as a junior.

It seems that Alaska didn’t share Pearl Wanamaker’s idea on girls and sports.

Joy was a very talented athlete and had played basketball on her successful Alaskan high school team. 

Joy began agitating for a girls basketball team.

Valerie finally agreed to serve as coach and the administration gave the OK.  This had to occur in the late 60’s or early 70’s.

Coupeville at that time didn’t have an organized girls track team either, however, I believe Joy was able to get entered into some local track girls meets and that she later competed in the Washington state track meet in the broad jump but here again I am depending on a vague memory.

Outside of Joy Hack, the skills of the players on the first Coupeville girls basketball team were very rudimentary and as the boys basketball coach I found their games a little painful to watch.

They lacked the basic skills of dribbling, passing and shooting.

However, this was to be expected as probably the only basketball they had ever played, to this point in time, was a short unit in a P.E. class.

Outside of Joy, I am unable to recall the names of the other girls on this team, but I give these girls credit and they should take pride in the fact that they were the real pioneers of girls basketball at Coupeville.

My memories of coaching girls basketball are nothing but good.

Coaching the girls gave me a chance to interact with them and know them in a way that was entirely different from the classroom.

In general they were terrific to work with and I found them to be as fiercely competitive as the boys.

While I wasn’t able to lead them to any league championships they were all champions in my book.

Another highlight of coaching the girls was that I got to coach a couple of my own daughters, Traci and Tina.

David, if you find that you have fallen asleep while reading my ramblings, I might suggest that you file this e-mail away in your “saved messages” and retrieve it on those nights that you experience insomnia.

Sincerely,

Bob Barker

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