Posted in Ranting and Raving on October 11, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Spell-check. Man’s best friend.
Right before you enter the Coupeville High School gym for tonight’s volleyball game, take a look at the mural on the wall to your right.
It’s inspirational. It’s literary. It’s … not right.
The man’s name was Rudyard Kipling. One “P”, no “S”.
Does anyone have any white-out?
Posted in Football, Ranting and Raving on October 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Be nice to this woman. She’s football royalty.
Now is the time to make nice with Coupeville businesswoman Lynda Richards.
You need to get in good with the co-owner of The Lovejoy Inn on Front Street, if you have any slim hopes of one day snagging some free NFL tickets. It might be a long shot that she’ll bestow some on you, of course, but it doesn’t hurt being nice to her anyway, as she and her family (husband Mitch and trio of whip-smart daughters) are pretty dang nice and would deserve it anyway.
But why the sudden interest in Mrs. Richards and her potential link to football tickets, you ask?
Her cousin Johnny has a son, and he’s a beast. In the best way.
Drew Wolitarsky, a 6-foot-3, 210-pound receiver at Canyon High School, is no mere high school football player. As of last Friday, he is the all-time receiving yards leader in the history of California high school football.
Yes, California. The biggest state of them all. We’re not talking about the best player from Delaware here.
Wolitarsky, who has more college scholarship offers than you can imagine (with interest from the Pac-12 to the SEC), has hauled in 240 passes for 4,585 yards in his high school career, with several games remaining.
His yardage total now bests former Taft High School star Steve Smith, who merely went on to be an All-Pac-10 and All-American player for Southern Cal and now plays for the St. Louis Rams. Smith also won a Super Bowl title with the New York Giants, has been selected for the NFL Pro Bowl and holds the Giants single-season record for receptions.
Now, of course, it’s premature to think that Wolitarsky will continue to eclipse Smith. But that doesn’t mean football fans shouldn’t prepare for all possibilities.
So be nice to Lynda Richards. You never know what she might be able to do for you in the future.
Posted in Ranting and Raving, Volleyball on October 7, 2012| Leave a Comment »
So, there I was, minding my own business, when I heard a commotion from the kitchen.
I went to investigate and discovered that Bob, the lead banana in my fruit bowl, was throwing a fit. It seems he had taken a look at a Coupeville High School volleyball roster that I had left on the counter, and, gobsmacked by what he saw, had attempted to throw himself onto the offending paper.
At first I knew not what had upset him so terribly, until I looked closer and saw it for myself.
Right there in black and white (and all season long, something I confirmed by looking back at rosters from previous games), CHS had been misspelling their own coach’s name.
The horror! The horror!
Unless, this whole time, Toni Crebbin was actually just an alias and Tini Cribbin was her real name.
Which made me wonder what else she might be hiding from her past. Was she in the witness relocation program, on the run after a lifetime of mob hits? Had she been a Celine Dion impersonator back East and just wanted a fresh start, someplace where her heart could go on (and be devoted to volleyball, instead)?
Questions. So many questions.
And probably the biggest one of them all — when exactly on this slow Sunday had I lost my marbles?
Posted in Community Sports, Homecoming, Ranting and Raving on October 7, 2012| 1 Comment »
This photo, by itself, is 100% more Homecoming parade photos than the Canadian-funded “local” news rags have given us this weekend. (Shelli Trumbull photo)
Oh, Canada…
The “local” papers you fund seem to think it’s still 1935 and everyone is waiting for their newspaper to arrive on the stoop mid-week, along with a couple of glass jugs of milk. Because that’s the only explanation I can think of for their absolute dereliction of duty these days.
Last week, Coupeville High School won its first football game of the season, thrashing Orcas Island 47-14 at a field ACROSS THE STREET from the building that houses the Whidbey News-Times, Whidbey Examiner and South Whidbey Record. It took them 63 hours, however, for the first news of that game to hit their websites.
You know, a website, the thing that powers news coverage in 2012.
During those 63 hours, coupevillesports.com — a one-man operation chugging along without a salary, a benefits package, free doughnuts in the break room and honorary Canadian citizenship granted by having your paychecks endorsed by Manitoba — posted nine articles.
This week, a little thing called Homecoming. A parade. A game. A half-time show. Sort of a big deal in a town the size of Coupeville.
And yet we sit here on Sunday morning, more than 36 hours since the game against Granite Falls ended, and what does Sound Publishing/Black Press and its “local” papers have to offer?
Diddly and squat. Cause it’s 1935, apparently.
Do I even need to mention that coupevillesports.com — one man in a bunker under Penn Cove typing on a computer run by three hamsters on a treadmill — has already posted eight articles (and numerous pictures from my vast network of local moms) during this time?
Cause it’s 2012 and there’s a thing called the internet.
Somewhere in the hinterlands of Canada, there’s a bean counter or two who has to be wondering just what their filthy Canuck greenbacks are paying for right now, because it certainly isn’t timely coverage of Coupeville sports and community events.
Must be some really incredible doughnuts in that break room.
Posted in Cheer, Football, Homecoming, Ranting and Raving on October 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Earlier in the day, Zane Bundy (center) was relatively restrained. Once the Friday Night Lights went on, out came the dance moves, however. (Shelli Trumbull photo)
So, you wake up Saturday morning, with a bit of a football hangover and you wonder, what’s going on?
Now that the rush and the buzz and the lights and the hype of Homecoming is gone, a person can take a moment to collect their thoughts and mull over what we learned in Coupeville’s 47-14 loss to Granite Falls.
So, did you know:
A) Korbin Korzan had a much better game than he thought. At least according to the Everett Herald, which continued its decades-long tradition of screwing up when trying to report on Coupeville High School games.
The Herald’s on-line account claims Korzan threw for two touchdown passes last night. Which is interesting, since Josh Bayne took all the snaps at quarterback, and while Bayne did throw a touchdown pass to Bryce Fleming, the other Wolf score came via the feet of Jake Tumblin.
Which is not to knock Korzan, who played a nice defensive game and got in on several big stops with his skills as a tackler.
No, this is a knock on the Herald, which used to change Taya Boonstra’s name to Boonscara and Bessie Walstad’s name to Walstud on a regular basis. I’m just shocked they spelled Korzan right.
B) The Granite Falls cheerleaders are smarter than the football players they cheer on.
It’s true. All eight Tiger cheerleaders carry a GPA of 3.0 or better, with five of the eight being at 3.5 or higher. Miranda Meier is the brains of the operation, with a flawless 4.0. By contrast, only four of 39 football players can boast a 3.5, though Mathew Hamilton, the sophomore running back who blasted Coupeville for three long touchdown runs, has so much speed that his 3.0 GPA will just be a bonus when college scouts come calling.
C) They may have lost on the field, but the Wolves are smarter than the Granite Falls players, as well.
Junior linebacker Jared Dickson boasted the only 4.0 on the field last night, while seven other Wolves (Brett Arnold, Josh Bayne, Ben Haight, Carson Risner, Danny Savalza, Alex Schmakeit, Daniel Thornley) carry a 3.5 or better. So replay the game in the classroom and prepare to bow down, Tigers!
D) Once a cheerleader, always a cheerleader. Back in town, taking a break from her studies as a freshman at the University of Washington, former Wolf great Taya Boonstra sparked an audience vs. cheerleaders show-down set to the lyrics of “How loose is your goose?”
The current cheerleaders brought their A-game, but Boonstra proved “old” pros are not to be trifled with.
E) Freshman Zane Bundy can dance and is shameless when it comes to playing to the crowd.
The older classes had impressive floats (“Star Wars,” “Avatar” and “The Jetsons”) but it was the freshman float, with Bundy and sidekick bringing in the noise and the funk that sent the audience into hysterics. CHS, you have your very own Justin Bieber.
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