Unleashing hell on the SW Record

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Rise up Falcons, and lose your shackles!!

Posted in Ranting and Raving, Unleashing hell on the SW Record on May 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Embrace the Wolf and be set free.

The time has come, for Falcons to think about becoming Wolves.

I have nothing against South Whidbey High School, which has a long and rich athletic tradition, and Langley is a beautiful town.

But reality is reality — if you are a high school or middle school athlete and you want proper press coverage, you need to think about life in the middle part of the Island.

This is not coming from any of the Wolf coaches or the CHS administrators. As my blog states right from the outset, I don’t work for them, and they have no control over what I write and only sometimes endorse it (and then usually with a glass of Maalox in hand).

This is strictly me, opinionated idiot, saying to you, Falcon athletes, I can offer you more than what you currently have.

The South Whidbey Record, like all of the Canadian-owned papers on Whidbey, is glacially slow in reporting, prone to skipping huge chunks of your season and limited to only covering the top 5% or so of your athletes.

I give more coverage (photos and stories) to Wolf JV players than your media outlet gives to the best Falcon athletes, whether they be Angelina Berger, Lillianna Stelling, Madi Boyd or Nick French.

I cover EVERYTHING — varsity, JV, middle school, community sports. They DON’T.

You have an amazing girls’ tennis team down there in Langley, from the Newman sisters down to the last girl on the JV squad. Unfortunately, none of those very talented JV netters ever see their names in print.

Up here, every single girl who played tennis this season saw every single one of their match results reported, whether they were Amanda d’Almeida or the last doubles team to exit the court. And their names are always in bold print, for easy ID’ing.

Plus, I made a concentrated effort to write feature stories about as many Wolf athletes — from every sport and every skill level — as possible this season. My ultimate goal — to make sure EVERY athlete that comes through CHS gets a chance to see themselves recognized.

The Canadian papers? Not so much. That would take time away from their siestas.

But see for yourself. Go through my blog, all 1,006 articles that I’ve produced in the last nine months. I’ll be over here, waiting.

When you’re done, ask yourself, wouldn’t it be nice to be a part of that? Wouldn’t it be nice to get the kind of coverage you deserve? To be more than an afterthought?

All you have to do is come to the middle of the Island and reap the benefits.

Something to think about.

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Abysmal?!?! Prepare to face our wrath, South Whidbey Record!!

Posted in Boys Basketball, Ranting and Raving, Unleashing hell on the SW Record on February 10, 2013| 6 Comments »

Pardon me, but was this “abysmal?” (Shelli Trumbull photos)

Or this?

Maybe this?

They know not what they have unleashed.

We brought the Everett Herald to its knees, busted their preseason football poll into little bits and pieces. No matter how many times their maids and chauffeurs voted, Archbishop Thomas Murphy and King’s couldn’t hold off Wolf Nation.

We outvoted them, dominated the message board and left them crying.

And now the South Whidbey Record, a sliver of a paper compared to the Herald, wants to provoke us?

You don’t know the power of the Wolf. But you’re about to.

What’s ticking me off at the moment is a story in the Record about the Coupeville/South Whidbey boys’ basketball playoff game.

Or, more precisely, a word.

That word, written by Ben Watanabe, is “abysmal.” As in “ending Coupeville’s abysmal season.”

So, from the perspective of a writer who saw one or two Wolf games, he views our boys’ hoops squad and what they accomplished over the last four months as “extremely bad or appalling.”

I can think of a few words for Mr. Watanabe, but hesitate to use them, as he is a fellow ink-stained wretch. A misguided one, but part of the fraternity.

Now, I understand. From the outside, a 1-21 record doesn’t set the world on fire.

But where Watanabe and the other knee-jerkers fail, and fail miserably, is YOU WEREN’T THERE.

You didn’t see the broken leg. The severe concussion. The wrist injury. The stitches. The enormous black eye. The staph infection. The food poisoning. The viral crud that kept on swirling through town.

You didn’t see Drew Chan rise off his death bed and play virtually every minute against Blaine.

You didn’t see Ben Etzell, eye almost swollen shut, play on.

You didn’t see Caleb Valko, less than 24 hours after getting four stitches under his eye, play to the last ounce of his strength.

You didn’t see Carson Risner throw up, take the floor, then repeat that pattern for the next two hours.

You didn’t see a team that came back day after day after day with limited fan support.

A team beset by god-awful refs who allowed other teams to throw punches, refs who shoved Wolf players and then called a technical on the PLAYER.

You didn’t see every one of those Wolves work their ass off all season.

You didn’t see the emergence of younger players like Morgan Payne and Wiley Hesselgrave. You didn’t see the continued development of Nick Streubel into a force in the paint South Whidbey will have little chance to contain next season.

You didn’t see the improvement. The commitment. The fight still left in a program that is rebuilding after a 20+ year coach retired and his entire roster graduated two seasons ago.

You didn’t see a damn thing, but yet you’re very quick to reduce four months of sweat, of work, of commitment, of playing as a team and standing behind each other, to the word “abysmal.”

So, we’re going to give you a chance to think about your word choices. Because I am calling on every single one of my readers to go to the link down below and leave a comment on your story.

I’m not telling them what to say. That’s up to them.

Though, if they need help, calling YOU “abysmal” would be a good place to start.

http://www.southwhidbeyrecord.com/sports/190461791.html

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