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These women right here are great Americans!!

Posted in Moms, Whidbey's Best on January 12, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Nanette Streubel (left) and Melanie Kooch, cheeseburger “dealers.” (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Fawn Gustafson … I did not steal your pen … really!

Is there any worse moment for a sports reporter than to have his pen go dry in the middle of a basketball game?

Especially when this unnamed reporter — we’ll call him “Skippy” — was stupid enough not to bring a back-up pen, as good sports reporters are apt to do.

When that happens, it’s Def-Con 4, baby! Screw the women and children, papa needs a new writing utensil.

Thankfully, the good women in the concession stand took pity on me Friday night and provided me with a replacement pen during the break between the JV and varsity game. And also gave me a free cheeseburger as well, so, hey, silver linings and all.

Special mention must be made of my cheeseburger “dealer,” Nanette Streubel, mom of football beast Nick Streubel, and Fawn Gustafson, mother of Wolf basketball star Amanda Fabrizi, who, after seeing the first pen being offered to me (a pink one covered with pictures of princesses), dug deeper and found me a good ol’ fashioned blue and white Bic.

Thereby saving me much grief from my companions in the stands.

And how did I repay her? By stealing her pen.

Sort of.

By the time I got done talking to the coaches after the game and we left, one barely-blinking light ahead of a dark gym, the concession stand mothers were long gone. And I was left holding my ill-gotten pen.

Which I will return at the next home game on Tuesday. I promise.

For if I have learned anything in the last four months of covering Coupeville High School sports, it is this — be nice to the moms and they will be nice to you.

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I’m a (semi-fake) grandpa!!

Posted in Courtney Boyd is Awesome, Girls Basketball, Memories, Whidbey's Best on January 2, 2013| 1 Comment »

Ruby

Ruby meets her cousin Melody, who is quick to inform her, “I’m still the cutest baby in this room!!”

She never did make it nun school, but she still turned out pretty special.

She never did make it to nun school, but she still turned out pretty special.

My fake child just had a real baby.

Before she became the successful, vibrant young adult she is today, back before she played basketball for Coupeville High School and used her Elbows ‘o Death to bounce opponents off the hard wood as a scrappy ballhawk, back before all that, Courtney Boyd was my daughter.

At least that’s what she told people.

Back when she and Liz Tingstad were feisty, loud preteens, they hung out behind the counter at Videoville with me after school.

They took out the garbage, got the mail, disposed of my recycling, rented movies to customers (even though Miriam didn’t know they did), used my computer to play games and ate me out of house and home with frequent requests for food and drinks from the espresso side of the business.

“WE ARE HUNGRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Which was followed by a customer giving me the stink-eye.

“Why don’t you feed your daughters?”

“They’re not even my daughters…”

“Don’t be that kind of guy!!! Take responsibility for your actions!”

“My actions? They’re not my daughters!”

“WE ARE HUNGRY, DAD!!!!!!”

“Oh, good lord…”

Courtney, in particular, took great delight in telling people I was her dad, just to mess with me and them.

From across the street, as she headed to school, she would bellow “PAPA DAVE! PAPA DAVE!!!!!!!” until everyone looked my way, then giggle and skip off to create havoc somewhere else.

I got back at her by frequently telling her I would send her to “nun school” if she even thought about dating a boy.

I would wait until she walked by the store, and, if there was a boy in her immediate vicinity, throw open Videoville’s doors and scream “NUN SCHOOL! NUN SCHOOL!!!”

She would get back at me by waiting until the next time she was behind the video counter and I had a customer, at which point she’d step up behind me and, in a loud voice, inform the whole store, “Papa Dave!!!! Mom never got the alimony check!!!!!!”

Good times…

And now my “baby” has gone and had herself a real baby.

Ruby Lealynne Folkestad. Born to Courtney and Brian Folkestad at 3:42am on January 2nd, 2013. 7.5 pounds, 19 inches long.

First words to her mom: “NUN SCHOOL!!!”

Is it just me or is it awfully dusty in here today, cause … just sayin’ … my eyes seem to be bothering me something awful this morning…

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And then I gushed a lot about Caleb Valko (and we all got embarrassed)!!

Posted in Boys Basketball, Football, Track, Whidbey's Best on December 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Caleb Valko, lookin’ all GQ.

Coupevillesports.com would be nothing, nothing I say, without Caleb Valko.

He is my own personal Willy Wonka gold ticket, the boy with the Justin Bieber eyes, the one-true Page Hit King (now that Hunter Hammer is semi-retired), a young man willing to talk smack, get greasy and run over refs, all to make my stories more exciting.

There are many athletes at Coupeville High School, some with some serious skills, and a few who work their butts off on the playing field.

Caleb, who celebrates his birthday today, has all that, and just a touch more.

Mr. Valko may not want to hear this, but he is NOT the most talented athlete to currently pull on a Wolf jersey. He does not have the raw speed of Madison Tisa McPhee, the size of Nick Streubel, the intangibles of Jake Tumblin or the career accomplishments of Amanda d’Almeida and Bessie Walstad.

What he does have is character, commitment, a sense of leadership and a heart that does not quit. The kid keeps on coming, in good games and bad, and he exemplifies what a Wolf should be, through and through.

When he leaves for college and beyond, there will be a large hole left behind.

It will be a hole left not just by the memories of Mr. Valko crushing the line in pursuit of a quarterback, or of him rampaging through the paint on a mad charge to the hoop.

It will be the memory of him standing off to the side on a muddy field at Chimacum, arms crossed, face a mixture of anger and sadness, as the final moments of his high school football career played out without him, a casualty of a Napoleonic ref, but an unbowed captain to the end.

He fought for his teammates, and they fought for him. After rumbling up-field, flicking would-be tacklers away like tiny gnats, Streubel, covered in mud, emerged from a pile and looked for his fellow lineman, who was supposed to have had that rare offensive play as a senior night farewell, and he flashed the thumbs-up to his partner in the trenches.

There were people crying in the stands that night, and there will be people crying in the stands when Mr. Valko throws his final shot put heave in the spring.

Many people have worn the red and black for Coupeville. Few have done it with the class and determination of Caleb Valko.

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Ladies and gents … Taya Boonscara!!

Posted in Poking the Herald, Ranting and Raving, Whidbey's Best on November 30, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Taya Boonstra, semi-serious.

Visibly impressed by the pomp of Senior Night.

Boonstra and Mitch Pelroy.

Taya Boonstra was the bomb!

The photo bomber, that is. During her delightful four-year run as a Wolf athlete (volleyball, basketball, softball, cheer), the brilliant young woman born as Tatiana took great joy in always knowing where the camera was and playing to it whenever possible.

She was the female equivalent of Hunter “he’s gold, Jerry, gold!!” Hammer, just about a foot shorter.

But I bring her up today not for her feisty play on the court and in the field, or her habit of making photos just that much better.

I bring her up because, once again, a new hoops season has been kicked off by the Everett Herald massacring the names of Wolf players, and, when it comes to that, Boonstra is the patron saint.

At one point in her hoops career, the spelling-challenged Herald referred to her as Taya Boonscara, which, admittedly, is kind of cool sounding.

Thursday night/Friday morning, they were back at it, managing to misspell the names of four of the six Wolf players who scored against Cedar Park Christian. Three of six, if you don’t want to get all nit-picky and call them out on dropping the second capitol letter in Jai’Lysa Hoskins first name.

I, however, feel like being all nit-picky, so it counts!

We’ll give credit where credit is due, as the Herald somehow stumbled blindly into getting Hailey Hammer and Breeanna Messner correct.

But then they turned Makana Stone into Mahana Stone, Amanda Fabrizi into Amanda Fabrici and Bessie Walstad into Bessie Walsted.

The last one continues a four-year tradition of messin’ with Bessie, as they have run virtually every letter in the alphabet through her last name at various points.

My favorite — when they called her Walstud. Which, based on her superior play in multiple sports over her high school career, is actually kind of appropriate.

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And then Georgie Smith called me an idiot!!

Posted in Memories, Where are they now?, Whidbey's Best on November 29, 2012| 2 Comments »

Bonacci. Cross. Stuurmans. McFadyen. Stars of a different time.

It was a different time.

The ’80s, maybe more than just about any decade, had a unique look to them, whether it was clothes, hair or style. It was a time when Duran Duran and Wham! ruled the airwaves, hair just got bigger and bigger and two out of every three Coupeville High School male athletes rocked ‘staches.

It was also a time when the Wolves were big players in almost every sport they participated in. And yes, you can say it was because they were in a B league, while the modern-day CHS squads play in a 1A/2A conference, but I don’t totally agree.

The Northwest League was tough. Concrete. Darrington. Lopez. They weren’t pushovers.

But the Wolves were tougher.

Aparicio. Messner. Grasser. Ford. Zustiak. Cross. Biskovich. Bamberger. And enough Engles and Shermans to fill an entire town. They believed they were going to win every night and they often did. It’s a mentality the current generation, which is populated by many of their own children, needs to firmly embrace.

And hey, at one point in the mid-’80s, the Wolves had 60 players turn out for football. That’s right — 60, when they were a B school.

Looking back at newspaper clippings from the mid to late ’80s, the time just before my family moved to Whidbey Island in ’89, I noticed a lot of things.

Dea (Sibon) Bowen, CHS class of ’84 and my former co-worker at Videoville/Miriam’s Espresso, had really amazing hair.

In a sea of ‘staches, Wolf star Chad Gale looked a lot like Oates from Hall and Oates.

While there were more football players (Coupeville had a high of 38 early in the season this year) there were a LOT less cheerleaders. Sylvia Arnold’s squad rolled out 27 girls this fall, while many of the years in the ’80s, pictures show 4-6 cheerleaders, tops.

A tradition was being started, however, as the beaming face of Tami Stuurmans can be seen in most of those pictures, and now look-alike daughter Sydney Aparicio is one of the current Wolf cheer stalwarts.

No newspaper at the time seemed to know how to spell Aleshia McFadyen’s first name (I saw four different versions) or Sherry Bonacci’s last name (two N’s or two C’s?). And was it Jennie Cross or Jenny Cross?!?

In 1987, the Coupeville Booster Club gave Ron Bagby $180 to get a new pole vault pole for CHS. Since the Wolves no longer compete in the event, where’s the pole these days — Bagby’s garage?

And while we’re on Bagby, back when the longtime football coach wore short shorts and rocked his own ‘stache, I knew he was a star at Forks High School and then at the University of Puget Sound, where he led the nation in punt returns as a sophomore.

I did NOT know he came really close to being drafted by the United States Football League, the NFL rival that gave us Doug Flutie, Herschel Walker and Donald Trump. Take away a leg injury and instead of having a Wolf legend, we might have watched him returning punts on TV.

And speaking of questions, who exactly are Dick Bogardus and Eddie “Grandpa” Pope, and are the CHS Athlete of the Year awards still named in their honor?

While we’re thinking about that, we’ll close with this response from Georgie Smith, who played several sports in the ’80s and went on to be a successful newspaper writer and now farmer. When I inquired if I could do a story on her, she had the following to say, in between bouts of hysterical laughter.

“Well, if there was one thing I sucked at David, it was high school sports. So if you want to do a story about how in a small town EVERYBODY gets to play on the basketball team (even if you can’t dribble to save your life) or the volleyball team (even if you were scared shitless every time somebody spiked the ball at you) that would be me.

“I can tell you the story about the ONE TIME I tried to steal the ball in basketball and it was so ridiculous that when the play was over I looked over to see my coach with his head between his knees laughing til he cried. So if so, sure.”

But, I am nothing if not persistent, and she agreed (probably to get me to shut up) to write a first-person account of her days in a Wolf uniform sometime in January. Mark your calendars, Coupeville, cause it’s gonna be epic!

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