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CHS/CMS music director placed on administrative leave

January 4, 2024 by David Svien

Jamar Jenkins keeps the music flowing. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

For the first time in two decades, there’s a new person currently in charge of keeping the beat going at Coupeville High School and Middle School.

Jamar Jenkins, the school’s music teacher and band director since 2003, is currently on paid administrative leave.

Coupeville Schools Superintendent Steve King released a statement from CHS/CMS Principal Geoff Kappes Thursday afternoon, in a bid to offer clarity to rampant discussion on social media.

That statement:

“As many of you know Mr. Jenkins has not been teaching his classes over the past couple of weeks.

“In order to make sure you have accurate information I’m writing to inform you that Mr. Jenkins is on paid administrative leave while the concerns that were reported are being investigated.

“This leave is not disciplinary and the District has reached no conclusions regarding what personnel actions, if any, may be appropriate.

“We ask for patience and respect for the investigative process, as well as your understanding that we are not able to discuss further specifics of the concerns at this time.”

A graduate of the University of Washington, Jenkins has an extensive history as a professional musician, coming up through the Seattle funk scene in the 1970’s.

A guitarist and vocalist, he is one of the founders of the band Cold, Bold, and Together, originally known as Funk Experience.

Cold, Bold, and Together in their prime. (Photo property Light in the Attic Records)

That group, which later introduced the world to Kenny G, was together from 1971-1978 and opened for Canned Heat, Kool & the Gang, KC & the Sunshine Band, and Earth, Wind & Fire among others.

After band members opted to move on to different projects as disco swept the nation, Jenkins went to college, got married and fathered children, and moved into teaching music.

He had teaching stints in Tacoma and Los Angeles before moving to Whidbey Island, where his wife, Allenda, grew up in Oak Harbor.

Jenkins daughter, Janiece, is a member of the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame, captured three medals at the state track and field championships in 2005, and held the school record in the 200 for eight years.

Posted in Not sports? Tough! | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments »

“Whirlwind of fun ‘n sun” gets her Hall o’ Fame props

January 4, 2024 by David Svien

Kirsten Pelroy, a talented athlete and better human being.

Kirsten Pelroy is a special human being.

Utterly unique, her soaring spirit eclipsing even her often-amazing athletic talent, the 2016 Coupeville High School grad forever lives large in the memory of Wolf fans.

Kirsten’s name still graces the CHS track record board in the entrance to the school’s gym.

She was just a fab frosh in 2013 when she ran a leg on a 4 x 400 relay team which set a mark which has now stood for more than a decade.

One of the silkiest, deadliest runners to ever step to the line while reppin’ the red and black, Kirsten was a multi-event threat.

She ran on all three relay teams during her high school days, and actually also still holds part of a Coupeville Middle School record for the 4 x 200.

When not perfecting her baton handoff, then coming up big in crunch time moments during the postseason, Kirsten ran in the 100, 200, and 400, while also competing in both the 100 and 300 hurdles events.

Racking up 10 wins, multiple PR’s, and a lot of dropped jaws from rivals, she was a key part of a generation of superb female athletes who held their own against athletes from much-bigger schools as Coupeville proved it didn’t matter how many students a school had, as long as the ones they did possess were kick-ass warriors.

That carried over to the soccer field, where Kirsten used her quicksilver speed to zoom away, or sometimes right over, any fool who tried to make a play for the ball while it was on her toe.

Staring down the best booters the world could send her way, she was a rock-em, sock-em superstar who often sacrificed her own stats for the good of the team.

Kirsten played for the girls on her squad, and her happiest moment as a CHS soccer player seemingly came on Senior Night, when she asked for a group hug and got promptly mobbed by her pitch sisters.

“Can’t catch me, can’t stop me!!” (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Toss in a run as a Wolf cheerleader, and Mitch’s lil’ sis was the real deal as a well-balanced athletic success.

But like all of the truly memorable ones, Kirsten’s impact went far beyond sports.

She was, and is, a bright, shining light piercing a world of greys.

Back in her high school days I described Kirsten thusly:

“A whip-smart, truck-drivin’, multi-hair-colored-rockin’ whirlwind of fun ‘n sun, she has style for days and her epic smile reaches the field a good two feet before she does.”

A radiant star, hanging out with two of her biggest fans. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Nothing has changed since her exit into the adult world, as she remains one of the most-vibrant human beings you will ever meet.

Which is part of why today, after too long a wait, we warmly welcome Kirsten into the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame as our newest inductee.

After this you’ll find her hanging out under the Legends tab at the top of the blog, joining big bro.

Entrance to our digital shrine may make it “official” that Kirsten is one of the true big-timers of Wolf Nation, but you don’t need me to tell you how special she is.

If you’ve ever met her, spoken to her, or watched her gracefully navigate the world, you already know.

Look up “transcendent” in the dictionary, and there Kirsten Pelroy will be, rockin’ the joint as always.

Dr. Jim Shank gets to shake the hand of a legend. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Posted in Girls Soccer, Hall o' Fame, Track | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Wolf Nation mourns loss of ’90s star

January 4, 2024 by David Svien

Gabe McMurray powers to the hoop for a bucket during an alumni game. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Gabe McMurray was a beast.

One of the big stars at Coupeville High School during my days as Sports Editor at the Whidbey News-Times in the early ’90s, he dominated in multiple sports and left an enduring impact on a writer only a few years older than he was.

The news that he passed away this week, well before his time, hits hard, and I extend my sympathies to his family and friends.

A 1995 graduate of CHS, Gabe scorched the basketball nets for 592 points, and surely grabbed as many rebounds, while playing alongside Brad Miller in one of the most formidable one-two combos I’ve witnessed during my on-again, off-again years in the Coupeville gym.

Standing at six-feet-two inches, he capped his prep hoops career by being named a First-Team All-League pick by Cascade League coaches.

That year, Gabe poured in a team-high 355 points for Randy King’s squad, still one of the best single-season performances by a Wolf basketball player, boy or girl.

That came on the heels of a 235-point performance during his junior campaign, while his first varsity bucket hit the bottom of the net when he was a sophomore.

Gabe, who was also a standout on the football field, was an inductee in the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame, and came back around in his later years to prove he still had it, throwing down buckets in alumni games while often facing off with younger rivals.

He was one of a kind, as an athlete and a person.

Gabe’s former classmates and fellow Wolf athletes gathered on social media to remember him as word filtered out.

In the words of Natalie (Slater) Fisher on Facebook:

“Today CHS lost a friend. You touched many with your kindness, sarcasm, and contagious smile. You will be missed.”

Posted in In memory | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments »

Downes 11 points away from joining exclusive club

January 3, 2024 by David Svien

Logan Downes eyeballs history. (Andrew Williams photo)

We are all witnesses.

As 2024 begins to play out, Coupeville High School is deep into its 107th season of boys’ basketball and its 50th campaign for the girls.

My detective work has unearthed 658 Wolves — 414 boys and 244 girls — who have scored at least one point in a varsity hoops game.

Now, the real number is certainly higher, as the reality is there are many male players from early decades, such as the 1920’s and 1930’s, whose point totals are lost to history (and discarded score sheets).

On the girl’s side of things, other than having absolutely no stats from season #1 in 1974, we’re sitting much better.

But the reality is, with a much slower pace of play back in the (really) old school days, no one from Altus Custer or Banky Fisher’s eras would have amassed enough points to scale the school’s career scoring chart.

There is one intriguing outlier in the form of Tom Sahli, the only Coupeville grad to go on to face hoops immortal Elgin Baylor on the hardwood.

He rattled the rims for 719 points across his junior and senior seasons at CHS, but we’re missing his sophomore year (1951-1952), so may never know if he cracked the 1,000-point club.

But we do know that there are nine Wolves — five boys and four girls — who made it to four digits during their time repping the red and black (or red and white in an earlier time).

That list:

Brianne King — (1549) — (1999-2003)
Zenovia Barron — (1270) — (1994-1998)
Makana Stone — (1158) — (2012-2016)
Jeff Stone — (1137) — (1967-1970)
Mike Bagby — (1137) — (2002-2006)
Randy Keefe — (1088) — (1973-1976)
Megan Smith — (1042) — (2006-2010)
Mike Criscuola — (1031) — (1956-1960)
Jeff Rhubottom — (1012) — (1975-1978)

And we do know current CHS senior Logan Downes is just 11 points away from making it a 10-person club.

Angie and Ralph’s youngest son has torched the nets for 211 points across Coupeville’s first nine games this season, averaging 23.4 a night, so the chances the milestone moment arrives this Friday in Darrington are high.

If not, the Wolves welcome Auburn Adventist Academy to Cow Town this coming Monday, Jan. 8 in their next game.

Now, nothing is guaranteed, and not every player gets to the round numbers, no matter how talented.

Jason Bagby, a terror on the floor, finished with 499, a rimmed-out free throw shy of 500.

Amanda Fabrizi, one of the more deadly shooters in school history, finished with 299. A ref gives her credit for a three-ball on a shot where her toe touched the line and it’s 3-0-0.

Even those who reach the round numbers often get shorted.

Hawthorne Wolfe dropped in a three-ball at the state tourney on the final shot of his prep career, giving him exactly 800 points.

But a pandemic cost him a season’s worth of games across two seasons and kept him from making a run at the CHS boys’ career scoring record of 1,137 points.

So now here comes Logan Downes, who played alongside Wolfe for two seasons, making his own bid for hoops immortality.

Remember those earlier numbers.

There are 658 Wolves who we know have scored in a varsity game, and Downes would be just the 10th to top 1,000 points.

In doing so he would push the percentage of CHS players to achieve said feat to … 0.0151975683890578.

That’s historical and that’s absolutely worth celebrating.

Posted in Basketball | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

WIAA ranks seemingly non-existent boys’ hoops team #1

January 3, 2024 by David Svien

You too can be the #1 ranked team in the land, without actually playing the games.

When the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association releases its RPI rankings, it wants us to take them seriously.

And they do have an impact on more than just starting arguments.

When the state playoffs roll around, the RPI rankings are one of the things taken into consideration when teams are seeded for the big dance.

Playing deep on the road as a lower seed or getting to travel just down the street as a top-level seed, matters.

Just ask Coupeville High School boys’ basketball, which, two years ago, qualified for state while boasting a 16-0 mark, yet was sent 214 miles away to Battle Ground, while Kalama traveled just 25 for the state tourney opener.

RPI ranking likely dinged the Wolves, who still showed up and showed out, pushing the defending state champs to the final seconds in a five-point loss.

Jump forward to 2024, and CHS, which is 7-2 on the current season, sits #10 in the WIAA’s RPI rankings for 2B teams as of Wednesday morning.

Like it? Sure.

Trust it? Eh…

That’s because on the same day, the RPI currently has a boys’ basketball team ranked #1 in 1B which doesn’t seem to actually exist.

At least not this season.

For pushing three weeks now, the WIAA has listed Pacific Christian Academy, a small private school out of Federal Way, as being a perfect 1-0, boasting a 79-65 win on Dec. 15 over South Eugene High School.

A victory the Eagles never collected, as a little research shows that the team bringing home the W that night was actually Pacifica Christian/Orange County out of Newport Beach, California.

That squad is 10-8.

So, someone got two schools with similar names mixed up. Easy to do.

We’ll just go check and see how our Pacific Christian team, the one located in Washington state, is doing and … they don’t seem to have an active team this year.

At all.

The Eagles have a girls’ basketball team listed, with a three-game schedule, but that team hasn’t played a contest yet.

The boys’ hoops program? Not listed at all on the school’s website when you click through on the link offered by the WIAA.

There’s volleyball, girls’ basketball, and boys and girls track and field and that’s it.

Now, Pacific Christian (the one here in Washington) is a small school, academically strong, and likely doing its best to create opportunities for its student/athletes. No disrespect meant to the Eagles.

But the bigger question remains — how keenly is the WIAA monitoring its own rankings when it lets stuff like this linger for three weeks?

While most 1B boys’ basketball teams have played between 8-10 games, only two of 76 — Pacific Christian Academy and Chief Kitsap Academy — are listed with just one result.

CKA lost that game, legitimately it appears, 59-28 to Crosspoint, and is ranked dead last in the RPI.

Did no one think to question why #2 ranked Cusick sits at 8-0 and #3 Lummi Nation at 8-1, while the supposed top dogs sat quiet?

Was no one going to notice this until the state seeding committee sat down in February to do its business, and then, after a lot of back-patting and grazing through the fancy sandwiches provided to fuel all the hard work, suddenly noticed a fly in the ointment?

“Um, guys, gals, where is our #1 team? It didn’t qualify for state?? What do you mean it doesn’t exist???”

So, WIAA bigwigs, maybe step away from the cucumber sandwiches and get back to your number-crunching.

Because for now, it sure sounds like teams such as Coupeville could improve their RPI rankings by simply not playing any games.

And where’s the fun in that?

 

UPDATE: Three weeks with a sham #1, but two hours after this article hit the internet, Cusick — a real team playing real games — has been elevated to the top of the 1B rankings, where it always belonged.

Posted in Boys Basketball | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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