Coupeville Sports

This is an artifact called a newspaper…

Next Sunday is the 20-year anniversary of a journalistic milestone … of sorts.

Feb. 24, 1993 I ran the single biggest headline in the history of the Whidbey News-Times. A paper that has existed for well over 100 years, and no one else can claim that.

So, that’s something.

Being an idiot who had not yet hit 22, but who had, somehow, managed to worm his way into the Sports Editor job at a twice-weekly newspaper with not a single day of college (think about that, Ballard’s class!), I ran amuck.

I was an editor, so no one saw my pages until they flowed off the presses downstairs, 10,000+ copies of them at a time.

Odd photos? Check! Poems on the sports page? Why not! Inflammatory opinion pieces? I would be delighted!

I didn’t know the rules, so, when I broke them all, I had little idea I was actually, you know, breaking the rules. I was entertaining myself, and they gave me a paycheck for it.

And then we hit February and the Oak Harbor High School wrestling team put on a run never seen before, and never seen again, until Dave Ward and crew went out and won a state football title.

In the days before the internet (stop hyperventilating … it existed), and at a time when the newspaper had no desire to pay for me to travel to Tacoma, the results from Mat Classic V came in via phone. And not a cell phone (again, stop hyperventilating).

After day one, the Wildcats were locked in a duel with Mead for a state team title, which would have been the first in school history. Meanwhile, Joe Sarpy, the splendid, unbeaten 101-pounder, was halfway to an individual title.

This was gonna be huge, so I decided to go big. I mean, really big.

And then the ‘Cats fell just short of a team title. BUT, Sarpy won.

So, I ran the single biggest headline in newspaper history. Sarpy went to work at Burger King and found the store windows plastered with copies of the paper.

And I had the 12,209th conversation with editor Fred Obee in which the newspaper guru rubbed his temples gently, chuckled at odd times to keep me on edge and told me, in nice terms, that I was why he was going bald.

“You realize if you stand upstairs in the newsroom and look downstairs where the paper is pasted up (old school reference #3!) you can read the headline … without … even squinting?”

“Thank you!!”

“What? I didn’t mean it that way and … OK, here’s the headline for WAR DECLARED from World War II and here’s SARPY RULES! Do you see what I’m sayin’?”

“Yep. My headline kicked World War II’s butt!! Probably had to save on ink with the shortages and all…”

“You’re a frickin’ idiot, son.”

“Thank you, sir. That means a lot coming from you.”

And they always wondered why Obee often stood outside smoking like a chimney, rocking gently back and forth, mumbling to himself?

I knew.

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