Dear Washington Interscholastic Activities Association and Cascade Conference,
With all due respect, bite me.
In your effort to legislate every last bit of genuine excitement out of high school sports, you have apparently decided that Coupeville High School, and its student cheering section, is out of control. The Wolves are enemy number one.
Are you morons?
If you attended a single CHS volleyball game and you witnessed Danny “Shaman” Savalza lead his band of rough ‘n ready rowdies through their paces, you would see one thing: a group of students who have reawakened dormant school spirit, a group that supports their fellow students, a “mob” that is loud, proud and bleeds red and black.
You would not see an abusive crowd, you would not see athletes who willfully make illegal hits and then want their opponents to pray with them after the game. You would see the very thing you want to promote — kids taking pride in their school.
But that won’t do for the fun police, who won’t be happy until every high school sporting event resembles a day at the country club, where no one raises their voice above a whisper, lest a golfer have his tender psyche shattered by a patron burping during his back swing.
Which is not a slam on CHS golfers Austin and Christine Fields, who, like most Wolves, are made of hardier stock than that.
But you hear one or two complaints from parents from other schools — parents mad because their kids lost a game — that the big, bad Wolves are too loud, too proud and you swoop in to take away our kids’ vuvuzela horns, you tell them not to bang brooms on the ground during volleyball games or wave the Wolf flag, you want them to sit down, shut up and be good little Stepford children.
Which is bull.
You allow verbally abusive parents to remain in the stands, regardless of whether they berate the coaches and officials or their own daughters.
But have a group of students take pride in their town, their school, their classmates, and you get your panties in a bunch. Can’t have that! Got to shut it down before that spirit spreads!
So, I dare you — get out of your seats, leave your swanky offices and come to Coupeville (it’s on a rock in the middle of the water, kinda hard to miss), watch what Savalza and crew do, and then try to explain to us how exactly they’re the bad guys.
And then give them back their horns!



















































