Hall o’ Fame inductees (clockwise from top left) Makana Stone, Ray Cook (wearing glasses), Natasha Bamberger and Bob Fasolo.
The Mack Daddy himself, Bob Fasolo, workin’ the waves.
Central Whidbey Little League coach Chris Tumblin (left) prepares to join the dog-pile after winning a state title in 2010.
When we’re down the road and we look back, it’s going to be hard to top the class that enters the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame today.
It features the greatest runner in CHS history, the strikeout king, the single most electrifying play I have personally witnessed in 25 years of covering sports, a team that shocked the state and the original Mack Daddy.
The bar has been set, and our fourth class is one for the ages.
Without further ado, we welcome Natasha Bamberger, Ray Cook, Bob Fasolo, Makana Stone and the 2010 Central Whidbey Little League Majors baseball team.
Their new home?
Look to the top of the blog and the tab marked Legends. Cause that’s where they all belong.
Ray Cook was a star when I was in kindergarten, but his accomplishments still astound.
When we talk about great pitchers who wore the red and black for CHS, we can talk about Ben Etzell and Aaron Curtin, about Brad Miller and Brad Haslam, about a lot of guys.
But, up there, by himself, at the very tip top, is Cook, who left behind a string of dejected batters.
He struck out 16 while tossing a perfect game, whiffed 17 in another game, but saved his best for the biggest moment.
Pitching in the 1976 district title game, he went 13 innings(!) to get the win, gunning down an eye-popping 21 batters.
He was Cow Town’s Nolan Ryan, and his name should be invoked every time a modern-day hurler starts settin’ ’em up and sittin’ ’em down.
If Cook ruled the ’70s, Natasha Bamberger owned the ’80s, winning four state titles as a track runner, putting her name on the school record board (where it still sits) and then doing something no Wolf had done.
Running at the A/B state cross country championships Nov. 9, 1985, she faced down 123 other runners and bested them all, breaking the tape in 19 minutes and 51 seconds.
It would take 25 years before another Coupeville runner would match her feat, when Tyler King won the 2010 1A boys XC title.
When CHS installs a new track that is currently in the planning stages, they should name it in honor of the greatest runner the school ever saw. Micky Clark Field should be encircled by the Natasha Bamberger track.
Someone get on this.
Our third inductee is a young woman who, in three years, has proven to be the single most dynamic athlete I have covered.
While Makana Stone’s career is far from over, and her time to be inducted as an athlete will come later, today we honor a play she pulled off during the 2014-2015 CHS girls’ basketball season.
Now who knows, the videotape may tell a slightly different story, and, if it does, don’t bother me with the facts. I’m printing the legend, the way I remember it happening.
Stone, midway through an MVP season in which she led her squad to its first league title in 13 years — a campaign in which the Wolves won every league game by double digits — was on fire. As usual.
Then she ripped out our eyeballs and dunked them into awesome sauce in a way I have never witnessed.
Flying high above the crowd, she hauled in a rebound, then spun and fired the ball nearly the length of the court, hitting teammate Kacie Kiel in mid-stride.
A lone defender, scrambling to get back, veered into Kiel’s path, causing her to stumble as she put up the layup. The ball skittered off the rim and then…
Sweet succotash!!!
Any other player, having made the pass, would have stayed at the far end of the court. The play was done, and you’d already be back on defense.
Stone, however, took off like a bolt of lightning as soon as she fired the ball, and she came flying like a bat out of Hell, running the length of the floor in a few graceful strides.
The ball hung on the rim and then Makana was there, swooping in, snagging the rebound and popping the ball back up and in as every jaw in the gym ricocheted off the floor.
Making half that play — either half — is the sign of a top-notch player.
Pulling off the entire thing, and then immediately backpedaling on defense as Klahowya’s collective soul lay stone-cold-dead on the floor — that’s legendary.
Our fourth inductee is already the coolest cat in the hall.
The late Bob Fasolo could do it all.
Street baller. Surfer dude. McConaughey before McConaughey was McConaughey.
Both of his sons, Rob and Eddie, were gifted basketball players, and they learned their skills from the man who always had a grin under the beard, especially when he just broke both of your ankles.
If you didn’t meet Bob, it might be hard to understand what an impact he had on others, athletically and just in general life. And, if you didn’t meet him, your life is a lot less blessed.
He was the Mack Daddy, the pimp king, the guy who was just cooler than everyone else around him, whether he was shredding waves or just giving me good-natured grief at Videoville.
I miss the dude, but I know he’s out there tonight, one with the waves.
And, to cap things off, we’re going to crowd the stage for our finale.
In 2010, three coaches and 13 players went on a trip no one expected.
Representing little ol’ Coupeville, they stared down big city squad after bigger city squad, and whipped them all.
It wasn’t just that they won a state little league title, but the way they did it, storming from behind in nearly every game and then celebrating like mad.
They weren’t given any respect at the start of the tourney, but they earned it every step of the way, and their run, both for the title and the way they won it, stands as one of the greatest athletic accomplishments this town will ever witness.
And they stayed together, with nine of the 13 playing for CHS in their senior seasons, and eight of those players suiting up all four years.
Playing as a team, as brothers, they exited the field July 24, 2010 as state champs, and they went on to become the core of a Wolf baseball program that is in a very good place five years later.
Let’s give it up, for the champs. Inducted, together, as a family:
Chris Tumblin (Coach)
Brad Trumbull (Assistant Coach)
Ramon Villaflor (Assistant Coach)
Kyle Bodamer
Brendan Coleman
Aaron Curtin
Ben Etzell
Korbin Korzan
Brian Norris
Morgan Payne
Carson Risner
Wade Schaef
Paul Schmakeit
Kurtis Smith
Aaron Trumbull
Jake Tumblin
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