Coupeville Athletic Director Willie Smith, killin’ it as a male model. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
This is not the way.
Sports didn’t get you into this financial hole, and taking arguably the most-efficiently run program in the Coupeville School District and kneecapping it isn’t going to solve anything.
We have one of the most-respected Athletic Directors in the state in Willie Smith, a man who is currently the Northwest 2B/1B League President.
A man who has decades in the game, a man who knows everyone and can get things done with a phone call, an email, or a nod of the head from across the prairie.
He absorbs any and all criticism, remains unflappable and upbeat, even in the worst of times, and has built strong, successful programs even as other schools around us struggle mightily to maintain numbers.
Athletic programs which largely pay their own way, in terms of ticket sales and coaches being willing to give back money from their budgets to help cover transportation costs.
But when it comes time to propose the opening cuts in Budget Wars 2023, we’re going to bounce Willie from his AD job and replace him with an already stretched-thin assistant principal whose own hours would then be cut?
Poppycock, as the kids would say.
Well, maybe the kids from the 1920’s, not the 2020’s, but anyway.
This is by no means an attack on Leonard Edlund, the aforementioned assistant principal.
He is a righteous dude who, in my opinion, has been a great hire for the district.
Working with CHS/CMS principal Geoff Kappes, he does the never-ending work to keep our upper schools operating in a safe, efficient, productive manner.
The last thing he needs is to be asked to do twice as much work for less money, while having to navigate a complex state-wide web of AD’s, coaches, athletic secretaries, bus barn bigwigs, administrators, athletes, and parents who Willie is already on a first-name basis with.
And we’re not even talking about how many new emails and/or texts the man would have to delete on a daily basis from me alone.
That part of the job alone is staggering, and something no other AD in the state has to endure.
Let Mr. Edlund do what he was hired to do – be an assistant principal. Don’t subject him to my inane ranting!
And let Willie do what he does – run an athletic program which, unlike some other departments in Cow Town schools, is a booming success.
I’m not just talking about wins and losses, or league titles, or the fact football and boys’ basketball broke 30-year dry spells and returned to the state tourney with Willie at the helm of Wolf athletics.
We are not, have never been, and likely never will be, a true athletic powerhouse in the state.
We’re not King’s or Archbishop Thomas Murphy – private schools funded (allegedly) by money from blood diamond mines owned by local parents.
And we’re not Lynden or Lynden Christian, where seemingly waves of genetically flawless teenagers emerge from the haze (or a mad doctor’s laboratory), every ponytail, every chin cleft, identical.
We’re scrappy, a farm town where not that many of the kids actually work on farms anymore, but where we can open a can of whup ass on entitled rivals every now and then.
Where Willie’s greatest success as an AD has come has been in maximizing what he has, of getting coaches and players to buy in to his plan to be competitive, and to do it in the right way.
The pandemic crushed athletics at many schools, but thanks to his leadership, Coupeville has emerged stronger on the other side.
Just look at Wolf teams this spring.
The track and field rosters, at both the high school and middle school, are the biggest they’ve been in decades.
High school baseball and softball are able to field win-happy varsity and JV teams while many league rivals are struggling to field just one squad, and girls’ tennis has no issue filling all of its varsity slots.
It’s been that way all school year for almost every sport, with football, in particular, being a bounce-back story.
After several years of rosters which could barely withstand the loss of a player here or there to injury, the Wolves topped 30 players this season and drew in massive, ticket-buying, crowds.
Look, I get it.
Schools are here for education, not sports.
But sports, especially when attention is paid to both the All-State player and the kid who has never run a lap around a track in their life, is invaluable.
Coming out of a pandemic, with mental health issues for teens a huge concern, getting kids out of their bedroom and into the sun (OK, into the prairie wind and rain…), making them a part of something bigger than themselves, is invaluable.
Sports are not bigger than education, but sports keep kids in school, and they are a lifeline for many teens.
I may not fully remember that algebra equation I solved in Mr. Luikko’s class at Tumwater back in the late 80’s.
But that time I shocked my own coach by thumping a rich-school kid on the tennis court — literally drilling him with the ball three times in my win — while my teammates climbed up the fence encircling the court?
That I remember.
And I was that kid who only stayed in school so I could play a sport, any sport.
If you’ve read any of my thousands of stories, I’m a writer thanks to hitting future Rose Bowl-winning quarterback Brad Otton in the face with an overhead during practice.
If I wanted to keep doing that, I had to stop skipping school, and what the heck, my tennis coach, Lionel Barona, was also the journalism teacher.
So, I’m just saying, my writing heir is out there right now, and he or she is probably the kid throwing worms at their friends during practice.
And if there is any AD in this state who will embrace his worm throwers and help them grow into semi-normal adults, it’s Willie freakin’ Smith.
The man, the myth, the ever-grinning legend endured a pandemic to show us the way.
Respect his authoritah!
ADs and coaches across the state fell by the wayside in a dark time, but in Coupeville, I watched as Willie refused to buckle.
He dealt with all the crap thrown at him, enforcing pandemic rules dictated by state officials, and did it in a way that Coupeville, unlike some other districts, never erupted into a full-on culture war.
Willie was firm, but he was fair – even to the asshats who deserved to be kicked where the good Lord split them.
He kept his coaches invested, he kept his athletes active, he found creative ways to honor those who lost games and seasons, he gave hope to a town at a time when it needed it most.
In the best of times, being an athletic director is never-ending work.
The schedules for next school year? Already largely in place, thanks to Willie’s work.
And then Mother Nature laughs, especially in a state and on an island bathed in liquid sunshine, and you have to scramble to rip everything up, and put it back together.
League rules change, state rules change, and ding, another 10,001 emails from the guy blogging at 2:00 AM.
All handled with a calm ease.
I have known Willie for many years, from back in the Videoville days when he first stepped off the ferry from Sequim.
As a coach, a teacher, an AD, and a father, husband, and man about town, he remains one of the best I have ever dealt with.
He is a straight shooter who can be brutally honest (in a good way), someone who doesn’t dodge responsibility, a man who has given a chunk of his life to Coupeville and made our schools immeasurably better.
We’ve already gone through this once before, where a misguided rush to save a few bucks pushed Willie out of the AD’s office.
It did NOT WORK OUT WELL.
Then, things were tweaked, he returned to the job, and guess what? Things got much better, even when the world shut down around him.
The $15,000 you “save” by stripping Willie’s AD duties is not enough to justify the lasting damage you will do.
If Mr. Edlund is the man trying to ignore my emails next year, he will give it his all. I have no doubt of that.
But it doesn’t have to be like that.
Edlund should be allowed to focus on holding the front line at our schools, and Willie, the man with the plan, the man whose athletic department is the gold standard in the district, should be leaning back in his chair, making things hum.
Saving a penny to set the bank on fire?
This is not the way.
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