One of many blast from the pasts as I wander through Coupeville High School’s 100-year basketball history. (Megan Hansen photo)
Where have you gone, Jeff Rhubottom? Wolf Nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
As I plow through my current project — trying to track down the history of Coupeville High School basketball — it’s a mad swirl of players, some of whose exploits have unfairly slipped away into the mists of time.
But we’re going to change that!
Jeff Stone and Corey Cross, Bill Riley and Bill Jarrell, Randy Keefe, Denny Clark and Del O’Shell will once again get their moment in the spotlight, along side latter day legends like Brad Sherman, Mike Bagby and Pete Petrov.
Going through 100 years of hoops history (the first official CHS game was Jan. 19, 1917) is a daunting task.
There is no magical back room at the school where all the records were faithfully kept, so I’m relying on score-books which still exist (less than you’d think), old yearbooks and the dusty newspaper archives at the Whidbey News-Times.
The first thing I had to make peace with was there is simply no way to come up with a definitive historical record for rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots, etc.
Even with the years where I have score-books to work from, the stat sheets have long vanished and newspaper articles were seriously lacking in non-scoring stats.
For example, Randy King coached CHS boys basketball from 1991-2011 and I obtained 18 of those 20 score-books. But not a single stat sheet.
So, my goals shifted slightly.
While it would be great to raise a basketball record board which showed the full range of stats, it ain’t happenin’ any time soon.
Instead, my plan is to have two boards, one for boys and one for girls, which will showcase the top 10 scoring leaders for a single season and a career.
In addition, the single-game scoring record will be honored.
For the boys, we know Jeff Stone poured in 48 against Darrington during the 1970 district title game, so game over on that one.
When I get to the girls, which will be easier (a lot less years to look at) and harder (painfully thin newspaper coverage in the early days), Judy Marti starts as the player to beat, based on a 32-point night in the early ’80s.
Doing this research, and working towards getting basketball its own record boards like track, football and volleyball, is long hours sprinkled with aha moments.
One of those comes from the aforementioned Rhubottom.
I had heard his name, in passing at least, and knew he was a player likely to appear on my charts, but I was surprised to find just how successful he was back in the day.
Having arrived on Whidbey in 1989, a decade after Rhubottom wrapped up his CHS hoops career, I had no clue he torched the nets for 459 points in the 1977-1978 season.
While my list is still a work in progress, with 55 of 100 seasons accounted for, what remains to document is mostly pre-1950s, when scoring would be much lower.
At the moment, Rhubottom sits with the second-best single-season performance (Stone’s mind-boggling 644 in 1969-1970 is untouchable) and is #4 career-wise.
I’m still working on stats for Corey Cross and Tom Sahli, so final standings could change a bit, but Rhubottom is golden. He will be on that board, two times.
And that is what has driven me, through the creation and installation of the school’s Wall of Fame for team titles, the revamp of the football record board and now the pursuit of basketball boards.
By bringing the greats of the past like Rhubottom back into the modern-day conversation, we pay tribute to what they accomplished, remind them they are not forgotten, and give today’s athletes genuine records to shoot at.
Past, present and future, all brought together, as I slowly go cross-eyed in the archives.
