Coupeville Sports

A young David prepares for video store life under the watchful eye of his sensei. Years later one of us would turn to sports writing. Mr. Stallone, like South Whidbey School Board directors everywhere, was not amused.

Sports are all about numbers.

Facts, figures, stats — they drive our knowledge and appreciation of athletics in general, so we frequently return to them to make sense of things.

So tomorrow — August 15 — marks not only the 12th anniversary of this blog, but at an average of 365 days a year, it means I’ve been pounding away on the keys for somewhere in the vicinity of 4,380 days.

Give or take a leap year or two.

Now, my first professional sports story with a byline appeared in the Whidbey News-Times back in early 1990, so I’ve been at this gig, off and on, for more like 34+ years.

But yeah, we’re not counting that far back, or remembering all the different publications — many of which promptly crashed and burned — in which my stories have appeared over the years.

Today is just about this thing here, the blog I started in anger when my writing home at the time, the Coupeville Examiner, was sold off to Canadian robber barons.

Now, 11,403 articles later, it’s still going, but morphed a bit from the earlier days.

I still piss people off from time to time (especially during school budget season) but spend less hours actively trying to chafe folks. Or at least that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

I’ve even accepted some money from the Canadian robber barons for allowing them to reprint some of my articles.

So, personal growth, maybe?

Now, not every word I’ve written over the past 12 years has been brilliant, but I have written them all myself.

No AI, no shortcuts. Just my fingers hitting the keys, often at 2 AM while I cuss out my computer.

Good thing no one lives in the other side of the duplex…

Is there a grand plan to this? Do I have any idea how long this will all roll on, and where it will go?

Not really.

When I look back at the last 12 years, I am proud of what I have been able to use Coupeville Sports to help accomplish.

The Wall of Fame in the CHS gym. The revamped record boards in the same building. The 101- and 50-year anniversaries we pulled off for Wolf boys’ and girls’ basketball, respectively.

Sports are about numbers, but they are also about building memories.

The moment when Coupeville hoops guru Bob Barker stepped back into the gym, wearing the same outfit he rocked in the ’70s, and grown men older than myself lost their minds and reverted to being 15-year-olds again, that happened because of this blog.

There have been other, smaller, yet still deeply personal moments when I have felt like my words have made an impact on the lives of those I write about.

If I help inspire that quiet middle schooler to keep playing, it’s worth it.

There are other times when I wonder if this blog, which puts a spotlight on young athletes in a way which doesn’t happen in other towns, makes it harder for them.

You want to honor their accomplishments, to give them a sense of pride, but you don’t want to overly inflate their heads or ramp up the pressure on them in their developing years.

The Wolf athletes of the late ’90s and early 2000’s, who played when I was busy with video store life and not hyper-focusing on their games, were among the best the town has ever seen.

Maybe a little anonymity helped.

It’s a tricky balancing act, and there are days where I feel like I do pretty well, and days where I probably make life tougher than it needs to be.

Does it benefit teenagers to be able to often read about their accomplishments even as they ride the bus home, bumping across the back roads via bus and ferry?

Short answer — I don’t know. And I guess we’ll see.

I try and take in all the comments, good and bad, and find a balance.

Coupeville Sports, love it or hate it, is fairly unique, especially in a world where old school media coverage continues to erode.

Newspapers continue to decimate their staffs, and there are very few other places in the state with bloggers dedicated to providing regular sports coverage.

One of the few, Rhett Workman, called it quits this week after 13 years of writing the Snoqualmie Valley Sports Journal amid building frustration with being able to get results and info from area schools.

We haven’t had too many issues with that here in Coupeville, with the great majority of Wolf coaches and admins being great to work with.

Also, being on an island, there’s less room for them to run away from me in the first place, so there’s that.

For now, I plow on, heading to day 4,381, doing my own thing, surviving thanks to the grace of those who donate to support my ranting.

Should I go poke South Whidbey school officials as they prepare to pass an emergency resolution after an allegedly incompetent drilling crew punctured a pipe and unleashed 150,000+ gallons of water, flooding school grounds like Noah was in town for a visit?

Or should I go spend my time documenting the history of Coupeville cross country runners at the state meet instead?

Choices. Choices.

They say the traditional gifts for a 12th anniversary are linen and silk, but I’m a simple guy, so I’ll dream of DVDs and cookies miraculously appearing at the duplex.

Manifest what you want, or some such nonsense like that.

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