Coupeville Sports

Bite me, Canada!!

We’re 77 days into the revolution!

August 16, 2012 was the day coupevillesports.com went live, with both middle fingers gently extended and pointed in the direction of Canada, where the Evil Empire that owns all three Whidbey Island newspapers, sits.

And what have we accomplished in those 77 days, besides being immature and self-righteous? A lot, it would seem.

We’ve published 256 articles (at least 17 of which were worth reading!), which is an average of 3.3+ articles a day. We’ve inflamed new “fan” bases at Archbishop Thomas Murphy and Sultan (you’re welcome!) and we’ve taken sports back to the people.

We have constant features on Coupeville athletes, with words right from the mouths of the players themselves. The Canadian-owned rags, not so much.

We cover things LIVE, sprinkling our stories with little tidbits you wouldn’t know about if you hadn’t froze your butt off in a driving rain-storm. The Canadian-owned rags, not so much.

We provoke, we irritate, we embrace, we celebrate, we raise up, we are a part of Wolf Nation. The Canadian-owned rags, not so much.

And I would say it’s working, as our numbers continue to surge upwards. Our page views virtually doubled in October, than virtually doubled again in November.

In a matter of minutes from now, we are about to roll past a major round number in total page views for the site. It’s five figures, and there’s no 1 in there, but there is a 2 and a 5.

And what has driven the surge? Brett Arnold. And lots and lots of exclamation points.

Our top 10 stories as of Nov. 1:

1) “Faith guides Brett Arnold through tough times”

2) “Farm Dog — forever a friend of the world!!” (Remembering Stacie Farmer on her birthday.)

3) “This is our Island!!” (The Wolves take The Bucket away from South Whidbey.)

4) “Wolf receiver juggles dirty diapers, big pass plays!!” (With a stinkin’ cute pic of Riley Boyd and Britnie Korzan’s stinkin’ cute lil’ daughter.)

5) “Fleming, Arnold go bonkers in close loss!!”

6) “47 reasons to detest ATM!!” (Which inspires my best batch of hate mail yet.)

7) “The ‘girl that hits really hard’ is alive and well!!” (We track Jessica Riddle down in Anacortes.)

8) “BREAKING NEWS: Tisa McPhee suffers accidental nose job!!” (My most TMZ moment yet, as we run a pic taken moments before in a Seattle ER after Madison resists her first urge to tell me to go take a flying leap. MTM rules!)

9) “The Turks were jerks!!” (Sultan, making Aberdeen look classy.)

10) “No one ever brings you down and you’re always loved!!” (Holly Craggs, human ray of sunshine.)

Right on the outside, still fighting hard for that #10 slot — Haley Sherman, Iris Ryckaert (I got a ton of hits from Belgium!) and Ashley Ellsworth-Bagby. All over the place, the All-Stars (smack-talkin’ Caleb Valko, Danny “Shaman” Savalza and Hunter “Page Hit King” Hammer.)

And who will be the next big thing? It could be McKayla Bailey, or Sherry and Jon Roberts, or Kenzie Kooch, but I’m putting my money on legendary former Wolf Mike Engle, as soon as his wife MaryAnn gets him to answer his questions.

If anything can beat an Arnold in this town, it’s an Engle. Those five letters are page hit gold, baby!

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“Wedgies for all!!”

I come not to bury Jim Waller, but to praise him.

Let’s be really clear here. I have no personal animosity towards the current Sports Editor of the Whidbey News-Times.

He was my high school journalism teacher during my semester at Oak Harbor High School, and, though I’m sure I drove him to distraction like many editors yet to come, he is the primary reason I made it through the front door of professional journalism in the first place.

When the News-Times was looking for a high school writer and a photographer to cover a story (Oak Harbor vs. Shelton in boys’ basketball) while Brian Zylstra, the Sports Editor at the time, went to a company Christmas party, they turned to Waller and he gave them two names.

My story ran, the photos (for whatever reason) did not, and I was off on a 23-year-and-counting run of chafing upper management. Somewhere, the 1989 version of Kasia Pierzga just got a chill and screamed “We have to take him out now! Before the headaches begin!!”

Mr. Waller could have given the gig to several other students who had been in his journalism program longer. He didn’t have to choose me, but he did. He made me a “made” man (well, boy…) in the biz.

And now, it seems, I trash him on a regular basis. Or, at least that’s how some people regard it.

Again, let’s be painfully clear here.

I am a huge fan of Mr. Waller.

I am not a fan of the Canadian Corporate Overlords who have oozed their way across Whidbey Island, buying up all three of our newspapers and attempting to put a stranglehold on the media outlets. They are what they are, a giant Evil Empire, and I am the Rebel Alliance in this fantasy.

There were good people inside some of those Storm Trooper outfits, guys just trying to make a buck for the family. But once you sign away your soul, you become the target.

I haven’t worked inside the Evil Empire since I left the News-Times in 1994, burnt out by too much contact with the corporate news world, so I can’t begin to say I know how and why decisions are made inside those walls.

What I do know is that it is 2012 and not 1922, and when you don’t update your web site for 60+ hours (every weekend) on games that happen RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from your building, you are asking to be paddled, and I am happy to oblige.

When you build your empire on paying freelancers virtually nothing, there comes a day when that business model falls apart. When the urchins rise up and say, “Screw this! I can beat you at your own game and without your cushy retirement packages and free doughnuts in the break room!!”

I don’t wish ill on Mr. Waller or any of the other people who work for the Evil Empire. I know Justin Burnett, Jessie Stensland and Jim Larsen, and they do what they can within the framework of working for a giant, heaving corporate behemoth.

But Sound Publishing and Black Press (the real power behind the loonie-lined throne) are behind the times. WAY behind the times. And if they want to continue to pour their filthy lucre into the News-Times and Examiner, papers that seem dead-set on fanatically clinging to the past, they’re betting on the wrong horse.

Business changes. That’s reality, something I saw firsthand in the video store biz, a once booming world that is virtually extinct now. You change with the times, adopt the new, or you die.

The stream-lined, quicker, more aggressive fighter is coming for the bloated heavyweight champ, and, if you thought my jabs were annoying, wait for the hay-maker.

I am the last of the self-righteous son of a goat lickin’ whores out here, and I ain’t going quietly into that good night. I will rain pain on Canada in the name of independent journalism, like a gnat driving a rhino insane.

And, if that makes some think I have a personal vendetta against Mr. Waller, they’re being short-sighted. And if you think I am unprofessional and need a lesson on class, remember, I didn’t waste four years listening to pretty lectures in a college class, so I probably missed that lesson.

I learned the business on the streets of Whidbey Island, honing my “skills” under tough old pros like Fred Obee, Geoff Newton, Ellen Hiatt, Bill Wilson, Mary Kay “Screw the Bastards!!” Doody and Keven R. “Shoot the bastards with rubber bands!!” Graves. Gretchen Sotomayer was awesome too, but way too nice to be called “tough.”

They are gone now, at different papers and in different professions. Mary Kay has passed, but I fight most of all for her. She would want it that way.

The prodigal son they unleashed is still here and I am going to kick Canada’s ass in their memory.

You thought I was annoying before? Tighten the chin strap, baby, cause the real storm is coming.

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This is our gym. Not yours. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Danny Savalza has done a ton to build school spirit in Coupeville.

As the leader of the student cheering section which rocked the house at home volleyball games this fall, “Shaman” Savalza, in his thrift store dress and Bow Down hat, brought pride and joy to CHS — even when the Fun Police tried to sometimes stifle the antics of him and his crew.

Now, as volleyball fades away and basketball looms on the horizon — the first day of practice is two weeks away — I’m putting out a public plea to Mr. Savalza.

Keep the beat going this winter. Don’t let The Man stifle you. Don’t break up the band just because volleyball is done. Make sure the Wolf faithful is still loud and proud when Sultan comes oozing into town.

After several years of Coupeville sports, and its fans, languishing in a semi-stupor, Wolf Nation has risen again. Now is not the time to cede the night to the handful of fans that show up with rival schools.

A huge part of the Wolves regaining their full glory is the belief that they CAN win, they WILL win, they SHOULD win.

The days of whining about CHS being the smallest school in the Cascade Conference is done. That’s reality, and there aren’t many options out there which will put the Wolves up against teams from schools their own size any time soon.

Which doesn’t mean Coupeville can’t beat the snot out of the big boys (and girls). Or, at the very least, out-holler, out-dance and out-entertain the other team’s fans.

This is our gym, not theirs.

Keep the band together, Mr. Savalza. You’ll lose some of your die-hard volleyball rooters like Caleb Valko, Nick Streubel and Joel Walstad to hoops, but you can regroup, restaff with football players who will need something to do during those long winter nights.

Basketball needs the same commitment and mania that volleyball saw from its fans on a nightly basis.

It needs the support of the students. It needs the crazies. It needs the Wolf flag waving in mid-air (screw the WIAA), the brooms pounding on the floor (double screw the WIAA) and its shaman sliding from side to side, pulling the student section right, then left, then right-right-left before throwing your hat in the air.

Coupeville needs you, Mr. Savalza. Will you and your crew accept the call to duty?

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