Amanda Fabrizi (top) is joined by fellow Hall o’ Fame inductees (l to r) Chad Gale, Pete Petrov, Gavin Keohane and Eldon Jenne.
Speed. Size. Grit and tons and tons of talent.
The five members of the 27th class to be inducted into the Coupeville Sports Hall ‘o Fame left a lasting impact on the town, even though one made his greatest mark a world away.
So, let’s fling open the doors to these hallowed digital walls and welcome Chad Gale, Amanda Fabrizi, Petar Petrov, Gavin Keohane and the late, great Eldon Jenne.
From this point on, you can find them living up at the top of the blog under the Legends tab.
Our first inductee, Gale, remains one of the quickest guys to ever stroll the hallways at Coupeville High School.
A state meet veteran, two of his marks still sit on the CHS track record board more than 25 years after he originally set them.
Gale’s marks in the 110 hurdles, set in 1988, and the 300 hurdles, slapped down in ’86, have withstood every challenge since then. They remain as two of the longest-standing records in school history.
From Mitch Pelroy to Lathom Kelley, fleet-footed Wolves have come gunnin’ for Gale over the years, but none have been able to take his legacy down yet.
Though, truth be told, if someone one day does eclipse his stats, they won’t begin to dim how brightly his star shone.
Our second inductee is our most recent CHS grad.
Fabrizi was a basketball gunner, a volleyball jack-of-all-trades and a loud ‘n proud cheerleader during her days as a Wolf, and the Class of 2014 grad worked her tail off to achieve greatness.
Off the court, she was as sweet a person as you will meet, a proud big sis and a devoted animal lover.
On the court, she would tear your arm off and hit you with it, bringing a nice touch of grittiness to her game.
Time and again, she and running mate (and fellow Hall ‘o Famer) Breeanna Messner would be underestimated by other teams because they didn’t shout and pound their chests and seemed like genuinely reasonable people.
But poke them and the steel in their spines would come out on full display.
Fabrizi, especially in her stellar senior season, never backed down from taking a big shot and she was good at it, continually dropping her little running hook that, as her coach, David King, joked, looked like someone playing the game Barrel of Monkeys.
Was it a textbook shot? Perhaps not. Was it deadly effective and carried the Wolves to big wins? Without a doubt.
The ultimate testament to Fabrizi?
Regardless of the sport, over the years every single one of her coaches I spoke to her praised her. That universal acclaim was rare, and well-deserved.
Our next two inductees, Petrov and Keohane, go in together a day after leading the Red Pride to a win in the Tom Roehl Roundball Classic.
Both are charging hard at their 20-year reunions (Pete left CHS in ’97, Gavin in ’99) but they are still two of the best basketball talents to ever grace the hardwood in Cow Town.
They were beasts back in the day, went on to play college ball (Olympic College and Occidental College, respectively) and can still turn it on at a moment’s notice in their mid-thirties.
Keohane, tall and bearded like the fishing boat captain he is in the real world, still has the silkiest shot known to man, something he proved by scorching the field in the mid-tourney three-point shooting contest Saturday.
Petrov, ripped as ever and now competing as a weight lifter, made his Roundball debut Saturday and it was like he never left.
Crashing through the paint, knocking defenders back five feet with just a flex of his chest, draining jumpers from all angles, he was the tourney’s unofficial MVP and seemed to be enjoying himself as much as his enthusiastic fan section (led by teammate Mike Vaughan’s parents) was.
Watching them baffle the young guns and flawlessly run and gun to another title Saturday was a potent reminder of how good they were back in the old days.
And jumping back to the really old days, we honor our final inductee, who may be the only Coupeville native to ever compete in the Olympics.
Jenne popped in to the world in 1899, progeny of Edward and Agnes Jenne, and while his athletic exploits came off Island (he went to Mount Vernon High School), he remains, by birthright, one of ours.
First came his time at Washington State University (he’s in their Hall of Fame), where he was an All-American track and field athlete while also lettering in football.
A member of the US team at the 1920 Olympic games in Antwerp, Belgium, Jenne claimed seventh there in the pole vault, then returned to Wazzu and won the NCAA Championships in ’21.
After college, he was a successful coach in Oregon, first in high school, where he won state championships in boys’ basketball and football.
Jenne followed that up with a run as football and mens’ basketball coach at Pacific University and was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1983.
So now, 22 years after his passing, and 95 years after his moment at the Olympics, we welcome Mr. Jenne to his third Hall of Fame, and welcome him home, to where it all began.
