Toni Crebbin (with blaster) joins fellow Hall of Famers (clockwise from upper right) Mike Meyer, Brittany Black, Paul Mendes, Marie Hesselgrave and Jessica Riddle.
Heart. Lots and lots of heart.
It’s what drove the six people who make up the 14th class to be inducted into the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame.
They’ll live on, up at the top of this blog, under the Legends tab, but, frankly, none of them needed us to say a word. Their legacy is already set in stone.
But, it’s Sunday, and I need something to do, so let’s welcome Toni Crebbin, Brittany Black, Jessica Riddle, Paul Mendes, Marie Hesselgrave and Mike Meyer to these hallowed digital walls.
We kick it off with a man who is probably already in a few real Halls, Señor Mendes.
An elite-level soccer player who lettered four years at the University of Washington and went on to play for the original Seattle Sounders, he is the only CHS coach who can say they played in a game with Pele.
After an injury cut short his playing career, Mendes detoured into coaching, and was a champ at every level.
Two national titles as an assistant at Seattle Pacific University. Two state titles, and two runner-up finishes, as a head coach at Newport High School.
But most importantly to us, he graced the Coupeville High School soccer field for the final eight years of his career, building the Wolf program from the ground up and guiding it to the state tourney several times.
Better yet, he did it with a style and quiet passion that were unmatched. He was The Man, a genuine superstar whose presence on The Rock has been a blessing to all who have gotten to know him.
Our second inductee, Black, joins older sister Lexie in the Hall, reuniting the Black ‘n Blue sisters.
The very definition of laid-back cool off the court, Brittany was a ball o’ fire on the hardwood, helping lead CHS basketball during its heyday of repeat state tourney appearances.
But as good as she was in high school, her life after graduation has taken our appreciation level (it was already high) up several notches.
College basketball in Alaska, where her eyelids would often freeze as she and her sis ran from the car to the gym, was impressive, but her decision to reveal her battle with alcohol — https://coupevillesports.com/2015/01/17/sobriety-is-the-coolest-thing-i-have-experienced/ — showed her class, her grit and her hope to a new generation of gym rats.
As she prepares for marriage to girlfriend Megan King, it is an honor to honor Britt for her game and her life.
Our third inductee was so good, she gets in the Hall despite having played half her career at Anacortes High School.
A family move plucked Riddle from Cow Town after her sophomore year, but the volleyball prodigy still sees her name on the school’s record board three times for her play from 2009-2010.
She holds the Wolf single-game record for kills (21) and service aces (13), as well as the career mark for digs (342), plus she was a pretty dang talented tennis player at the time.
After the move, she led the Seahawks to back-to-back fifth place finishes at the state 2A tourney, winning Northwest Conference MVP as a senior, then signed a college scholarship with St. Martin’s.
While it might have been nice to see Riddle launching herself skyward while clad in red and black all four years, two years was all it took to become a legend. Anacortes had her last, but she’s Coupeville’s forever.
Joining her on the stage is her former coach, Crebbin, who worked the bench for 21 years, impacting several generations of Wolves.
One of the best there has ever been when it came to coaches who worked well with the great unwashed media hordes, she was great for quotes, even better for stats and insight.
On the court, she shaped winners, took teams to great success, and won honors for her coaching.
Off the court, she has transformed lives, traveling frequently to China to work with orphans, often taking her athletes and students with her and giving them a powerful insight into a world they wouldn’t have otherwise experienced.
With two sons in college and two irrepressible young daughters keeping her running these days, she’s “retired,” but is still a frequent presence at CHS volleyball matches, where she can be found at the scorer’s table.
As a coach or an announcer, Crebbin is the gold standard. Of that, there is no doubt.
These days, Wolf fans get to enjoy the hard-charging play of Wiley Hesselgrave, a throw-back to another time, a football/basketball star who hits like a freight train.
Everything he knows, however, came from his big sis, one of the best role players Coupeville athletics has ever had.
Marie did the dirty work on the basketball court, and she did it like a hurricane unleashed.
On the tennis court, she was no less gritty. The longer the match went, the harder she fought, and she pulled out win after win because she simply refused to back down, breaking her opponent mentally and physically.
A supremely nice person in real life who has gone on to serve her country in the military, Hesselgrave is the kind of athlete every Wolf should strive to be.
And we wrap up our induction with one that is personal.
Having worked 12+ years for his mom, Miriam, at Videoville, I saw Lil’ Mikey Meyer grow up, from the tow-headed kid who bounced around the store to the gridiron warrior recording 20 tackles a game for CHS to the father of three he is today.
If he was small for a moment, that was replaced with a muscle-rockin’ beast by high school, but one who was still fragile, even if not all knew.
Mike has been a Level 1 diabetic his entire life and playing football, which drains the body, was a tricky affair. It required great attention to detail, and gave his mom more than one unsteady moment.
But Meyer, and his family, handled all the setbacks by tackling them head-on, kind of like how Mike met anyone foolish enough to try and run to his side of the field.
If you just look at the stats, where the 2000 CHS grad more than earned his All-Conference honors, he would be a worthy candidate for the Hall.
Look closer at what he overcame, and he becomes a slam dunk.
Look even closer at the photos of the three joyous children he and wife Christi have brought into the world, and the athletic stuff is just the icing on the cake.
But hey, everyone, even a talented chef like Mike, needs a little frosting from time to time.
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