“Come on, old man! Better score now, cause I’m coming for all your records later!!” (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)
We are at a rare moment in time.
Logan Downes stands just 36 points away from claiming ownership of the greatest individual record for male athletes at Coupeville High School.
He enters play Friday at home against Mount Vernon Christian with 1,102 points, chasing Jeff Stone and Mike Bagby, who both totaled 1,137 during different time periods.
With all due respect to other pursuits, basketball is God’s Chosen Sport, one which has been front and center at CHS for 107 seasons.
Little did Altus Custer, Ben Gaskill, and company know, but when they ambled on to the hardwood to drill South Whidbey in the first game of 1917, they were launching the sport which more than any other defines Cow Town.
Now, 107 seasons later, through innovations great and small (the three-ball, the water bottle, longer shorts), the hoops life has endured.
I have documented 416 Wolf boys who have scored at least one point in a varsity game, from Jason McFadyen to Banky Fisher, Jason Legat to Timm Orsborn, though we know there’s still a chunk of missing names out there due to lost info from the early decades.
Is it really 500? Likely. 600? Possible.
The search goes on, the dream of a pile of scorebooks being unearthed in a barn, or a granddaughter cleaning out Gampa’s attic, keeping the fire burning for stats hounds.
But, other than Tom Sahli’s missing sophomore season from 1951-1952, we’ve been able to find every major moment in Wolf Nation’s hoops history.
The men of the ’20s and ’30s deserve to be remembered, but none of them could have put up numbers to match the offensive juggernauts which came later.
So, over the course of the last four years, as Logan Downes has morphed from a raw freshman playing during a Covid-shortened campaign to a seasoned senior slashing defenses into ribbons, we have watched him rise up the list.
Making history, a bucket at a time.
I update my scoring stats after every game, instead of waiting until the end of a season, for one big reason.
It allows me to watch history unfold in real time.
Zane Oldenstadt, a key role player known for his defense, drops in a bucket against La Conner, and moves into a seven-way tie among players with 28 career varsity points.
He joins Rick Marti, Toby Martinez, Daniel McDonald, Joe Rojas, Todd Smith, and Scott Sollars, and, in that moment, we remember different decades, different styles of play, different stories.
Those players live again in our memories thanks to a stats obsession.
Chase Anderson passes his dad Craig on the list, and Cole White joins his dad Greg as the only father-son combo to both be among the top 100 scorers of all time, and history is made real thanks to numbers.
Night by night, game by game, bucket by bucket, there is the ebb and flow, each player rising until the moment when they step off the floor for the final time, their numbers frozen in amber.
But each number tells a story, is part of a tale which never ends.
Hawthorne Wolfe, who was seemingly on his way to the scoring title until Covid claimed a year’s worth of games, sits at 800 and we remember he got those final points on a majestic three-ball at the state tourney.
Joe Whitney, maybe the best to ever wear a Wolf uniform, sits at #35 with 601 points, and we remember how he moved away before his senior season, off to win a state title with Lynden.
Or Jason Bagby, a rampaging force of nature, forever stuck at 499, a free throw shy of 500.
Gavin O’Keefe, part of a family (with and without the O) which pops up all over the chart?
He scored 149, and looking back, we remember how he fought, time and again, to get back on the floor as injuries stole chunks of his career.
It’s Hunter Bronec, with 54 points and on the rise, tied for a moment with CJ Smith, the duo a bucket behind Drew Chan, DeAndre Mitchell, and Daniel Olson.
I covered all five of those players live, but there is also Dave Stoddard and Ellis Schultz at 54, two names which I don’t know, but will likely send me on a journey into the past.
And what of the seven players I know of who scored but a single point, slipping a free throw through the twines to join the hardwood brotherhood?
I saw Oscar Liquidano hit his charity shot live, but wonder about Paul Baher, Bill Engle, Robert Engle, Bob Franzen, Meryl Gordon, and Raleigh Sherman — what did that shot mean to them?
This is why I have little patience with those who tell me I put too much emphasis on tracking point totals (in a game won by … scoring points) or celebrating milestones.
Because when we do so, we honor not just the player in the moment, but every player who has worn the uniform.
It’s one giant Afghan, and you pull one thread, you dislodge a dozen others.
If Logan gets to the mountain top, and then turns to the job of chasing Brianne King, Novi Barron, and Makana Stone — the top three scorers in school history regardless of gender — it takes nothing away from Jeff Stone and Mike Bagby.
Instead, it turns the spotlight back on them for a night, just as Pete Petrov, Denny Clark, and Corey Cross have been remembered as Logan slid past them.
Team glory is forever, league and district crowns and state playoff success captured on the Wall of Fame in the gym and driving reunions in later years.
Individual records are set to be broken, and, eventually, almost all of them fall.
Mike Bagby has been on the mountain top for 17 years, Jeff Stone for 54.
Many came for their marks, and now, one seems likely to finally plant his flag alongside theirs.
By celebrating the record, we honor Logan and all of the work he has put in since the first day he picked up a basketball.
But we also honor the men who came before him, and we offer a target for the little boys jumping up and down in the bleachers who want to be part of this same ride.
Who’s got next?
Does Liam Lawson have next? Or maybe Brady Sherman?
Or is there a 6-foot-7 eighth grader out there who wants to keep me writing by convincing his parents to move to Coupeville?
Wins and losses, sacrificing your body to collect charging calls, making the smart entry pass, time spent with teammates and coaches, all important building blocks.
But the game is simple at its core. You put the ball through the hoop more times than someone else.
And when a player does that better than anyone who has come before him, you celebrate the moment and the man.
Because to do so, honors every player, past, present, and future.
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