Paul Messner (top) is joined by fellow Hall of Fame inductees (l to r) Daniel McDonald, Micky LeVine, Jaime (Rasmussen) Burrows and Mike Bagby.
Big in the moment.
The five legendary athletes who comprise the 22nd class to be inducted into the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame made their marks by playing their best at crunch time.
Whether running wild on a football field, legitimizing soccer at a school with little history on the pitch or lifting their team to a groundbreaking hoops win, all five stepped into the spotlight and soared.
So, today, we welcome them to their new home (after this they’ll reside at the top of the blog, under the Legends tab) and offer a round of applause.
Say hello to Paul Messner, Daniel McDonald, Jaime (Rasmussen) Burrows, Mike Bagby and Micky LeVine, then bask in the afterglow of their athletic excellence.
Our first inductee, McDonald, was a superb multi-sport athlete, but he goes in to our Hall as a football player.
In particular, we’re honoring him for his senior season in 2001, when he was the only Coupeville player to be named First-Team All-Conference in the Northwest A League on both offense and defense.
A hard-hitting defensive back, McDonald was also the featured back in an explosive offense.
With fellow Hall o’ Famer Brad Sherman gunnin’ away at the quarterback spot for nearly 1,500 yards, McDonald crashed through the line for another 1,184 yards on the ground.
His 14 touchdowns accounted for nearly half of Coupeville’s 31 end zone visits that season (Brian Fakkema added eight TD’s, while Matt Helm tossed in three) and McDonald’s consistency was his hallmark.
He broke 100 yards rushing in seven of nine games (topping 150 five times), with a high of 199 against Concrete.
After high school, McDonald went on to play college ball quite successfully, just like our second inductee.
Bagby, who joins dad Ron and sister Ashley in the Hall (and yes, Jason and April, I know you’re both still out there), was your prototypical three-sport star at CHS, then played college basketball for two different schools.
For his induction, I’m turning the mic over to Bagby’s former teammate, current CHS assistant football coach Ryan King:
I played football with him for two years, I played baseball with him for one year and watched him on the court for two.
Mike was a very gifted athlete and was a great leader. He excelled in every sport and def was a big part in both basketball and football.
Mike was our QB when we went to the playoffs in 2005.
He played a huge role and I saw him improve as a QB from his junior year to his senior year.
He was a play-maker. He knew how to win and knew how to lead a team.
He was also one of our DB’s and always came up with the big plays when we needed it.
In basketball he was our Kobe; he was the guy who could take over a game and we would think there were times he couldn’t miss.
Taking over games was a specialty of our third inductee.
Messner excelled in multiple sports, but he goes in as a football player, because, like McDonald, he had a season for the ages.
For the guy many now know as Santa Claus, for his epic beard and smile, 1965 was the best of times and worst of times.
A senior captain for the Wolf gridiron squad, Messner abused rival tacklers in the first four games of the season, rolling to 185, 208, 223 and 154 yards on the ground.
Toss in long kickoff returns (he took one to the house for 90+ yards and six points) and huge tackling totals (he amassed 30 in just the first two games) and Messner was one of the best players in the state, not just on the Island.
Unfortunately, an injury early in game five basically brought his season to a finish on the spot, and Coupeville, which was 3-1 and ranked #7 in state polls, stumbled to the gate without their play-maker.
Still, 50 years later, what is remembered is not the end, but the month-long tango with the record book danced by Messner. It was a short run, but one that still echoes down through the decades.
That’s the same sort of impact employed by our fourth inductee, Burrows, who is being immortalized for a moment in time.
Jump to March 2, 2000, and the Coupeville High School girls’ basketball team, which has never won a game at the state tourney, enters the fourth quarter against Freeman trailing 37-26.
Then, history was made.
The Wolves roared back to life with a 20-5 fourth-quarter run, capped by Burrows, normally a defensive spark-plug, stepping up at crunch time to score her team’s final four points.
First, she took the ball, pump-faked the world and spun down the baseline for the biggest basket of her career.
Second, in the moment we’re honoring, she softly dropped in two pressure-packed free throws with just seconds to play, icing the 46-42 win and launching the most successful multi-year run in school history in any sport.
And third, she cracked her trademark laid-back grin, then went on with her life, letting others have the spotlight while she moved on to bigger and better things like becoming a super-successful mom.
“It is a fond memory and one that I will treasure forever,” she told me for a story about the 1999-2000 team. “It holds a special place in my heart because of my teammates and our spectacular coaches, who put so much into helping us succeed as a team and as individuals.”
Succeeding as an individual while sacrificing for team was what our final inductee did every day she stepped on the pitch.
Whether playing for the Wolves or select squads like the Whidbey Islanders, LeVine, who joins dad Sean in the Hall, could do it all.
She could score, she could pass, and, while she’s but a mighty mite, there might have been no tougher player in Cow Town.
“Two Fists” got her nickname (I like nicknames…) when she responded to a teammate being roughed up in a badly-called, dangerous game by challenging the offending rival players AND the blind ref to take it outside.
Of course, in typical Micky fashion, five minutes after the game she was sitting on top of a garbage can at Baskin-Robbins, ice cream in hand, smile covering her face.
Soccer has a very short history at CHS (and no real record book), but LeVine is assured a spot on the program’s Mount Rushmore, front and center.
She brought skill, class and guts to the pitch for all four years, and her impact, like that of her fellow inductees, will be felt for years to come.
