Your bookshelf won’t be complete without copies of all three of my books.
Don’t call it a comeback, cause I didn’t go anywhere.
As I begin to emerge from the haze of pain after dental surgery (otherwise known as The Great Whining of 2018), I am preparing to fully launch into the next phase of “Coupeville Sports.”
But nope, while you’re reading this here on the blog, that does NOT mean the blog is returning on a daily basis.
As I mentioned before, I’m taking a break from that 24/7/365 world, which resulted in 6,200 articles in six years.
Instead, my plan is to spend the next year writing my third (and hopefully most in-depth) book, “A Year on the Prairie.”
Having refined my original concept, I’m here on this lazy Sunday to lay out what it will (hopefully) be and how you, my readers, can (hopefully) help me get to the finish line.
My original thought was to simply document a year in the world of Coupeville sports, specifically the upcoming 2018-2019 school year, but in book format, instead of a blog format.
That would allow me to focus less on the immediate, day-to-day, who-won, who-lost, who-scored and spend more time chasing down the stories behind and beyond the games.
More “Sports Illustrated” and less “USA Today.”
That’s still the driving idea, but after a lot of thought, I have refined my focus.
Going forward, my plan with “A Year on the Prairie,” is to concentrate solely on female athletics in Coupeville, with an eye on combining past, present and future.
When the school sports year plays out, I’ll track whether CHS volleyball returns to state, Kalia Littlejohn’s pursuit of the school soccer scoring records and Lindsey Roberts‘ bid to unseat Makana Stone as the Wolf girl with the most career state track meet medals.
As well as everything else which happens in, and around, female athletics in Coupeville, such as the 45th anniversary celebration being planned for CHS girls basketball.
At the same time, I will be delving into the past, with the goal of documenting the stories of women who have left an impact on our community.
I want to hear stories from the early days of Title IX, but also the stories of the female athletes who fought for their right to play long before then.
For a sports writer who started in newspapers in the early ’90s, it boggles my mind when I see the coverage the Whidbey News-Times gave the first school-sanctioned CHS girls basketball team in the modern-era, the 1974-1975 squad.
As in, not one word.
That season simply doesn’t exist in the newspaper that is supposed to be our document of history.
The young women on that team, now likely grandmothers, deserve to tell their story. And so do a lot of others.
Whether they were playing tennis in 1925 or running cross country in 1985, Coupeville’s female athletes, and their families, deserve to read their stories.
Young women playing today deserve to know the full extent of their heritage, that when they pull on a Wolf uniform they play both for themselves and all the women who blazed the trail.
If we do this project justice, it will be a living history, shining a light on the past, celebrating the present and hailing a bright future.
And you might notice I said WE, and not I, because I need your help.
Do you have photos, programs, yearbooks, newspaper clippings, diaries, videos, etc.? Anything which would help to tell the tale of female athletics in Coupeville?
Do you have a story to tell, or know someone with a story to tell?
I want, I need, to see and hear it all, whether it’s from the 1920’s or the 2000’s.
No story is too big, no story is too small. A thousand small strands come together to form a complete web.
You can email me at davidsvien@hotmail.com, snail mail me at 165 Sherman, Coupeville, WA 98239 or catch me at a game.
Also, if you so desire, you can join those who are the wind beneath my wings, by slipping me a buck or two to help keep my computer humming as I write, interview and research.
Do so, and your name will appear on a thank you page in the printed book (and you can snag a signed copy, as well). So there’s that, if you pop over to:
https://www.gofundme.com/help-me-write-a-year-on-the-prairie
Can we do this? Yes, we can.
