Paul Schmakeit (4) in happier days. (Shelli Trumbull photo)
Five years ago, give or take a week or two, Paul Schmakeit was on top of the local sports world, part of something truly special.
As he and his teammates on the Central Whidbey Little League Juniors squad celebrated winning a state title — the first and only one ever owned by a Coupeville team — the future was bright.
And it stayed that way for some time, with future wins, personal growth and milestones.
Not all 13 of the Coupeville players on that squad continued to play baseball for all four years at CHS, but all 13 graduated and have begun to go out in the world.
As a group, they remain young men we were all justifiably proud of.
Today, a chunk of that joy has been forever dimmed, as Schmakeit sits in police custody, the central figure in a crime that is shocking in many ways.
The buzz that filtered across the Island is matched almost beat-for-beat in the police report.
Even knowing that, reading today’s article in the Whidbey News-Times (http://www.whidbeynewstimes.com/news/321097001.html), it’s hard to reconcile with the image I have of Paul, which is of an an easy-going, genuinely friendly, super-polite guy who always had a smile.
I realize things change, people change, and sometimes (allegedly) stupid decisions spiral into truly awful outcomes.
Doesn’t make them any easier to accept.
There are no winners, only losers in this story.
Multiple families are shattered, by the events of that day and by the fallout which will continue.
And what can I say?
I hope that the man who is paralyzed wakes up one morning and is able to walk again.
I’ve never met him, as far as I know, but some of his closest friends are people I do know, people for who I have a healthy respect.
I hope that Paul, his family (who I have a great appreciation for) and his friends — the athletes I cover on a daily basis on this blog — find a way through this.
That atonement is made. That lives can be rebuilt.
There is great darkness now, but I want to believe, always, that there is hope.
Coupeville Sports 