Jeff Humphrey (left) and Ben Garcia craft Coupeville High School’s history at Whidbey Signs. (Contributed photos)
The baseball header, which sits front and center here, will have 18 title boards under it, ranging from 1960-2015.
White boards represent league titles, black are district titles and red are state accomplishments.
It’s like waiting for Christmas.
Having put considerable time into this project, it still seems a little unreal that by this time next week, my efforts to recover and celebrate Coupeville High School’s athletic history will have born fruit.
All the research, all the fundraising, all the sweet-talking and back-and-forth discussions will produce what should be an exciting new centerpiece to the CHS gym.
Instead of the handful of banners which currently grace a corner of one wall, we will have an installation which honors 116 titles won by 11 different Wolf sports.
Tennis to basketball, cheer to cross country, the display, which will cover the wall directly opposite the team benches, will allow viewers to see how Coupeville’s successes have played out.
Using the school’s colors, white title boards will honor team league titles, black boards will acknowledge team district championships and red boards will hail state accomplishments.
Those include top 10 team finishes at state, as well as the 18 state titles in CHS history — two individual state titles in cross country, 14 individual titles in track, one relay state title and the 2006 team state title won by Wolf cheer.
With all the work done, what remains is the installation, which the Whidbey Sign Company plans to do the middle of next week.
Seeing the project completed (though new titles will continue to be added in the years to come as Coupeville wins them) will be huge for me.
The past year has been a rough one at times, and having this project to fall back on has been huge.
The positive result of what we’re doing helps to balance my own personal negativity, and, for that, I am appreciative.
But, deep down, this has never really been about me.
I didn’t attend CHS or play sports here (my high school tennis days were played out at Tumwater), but I have written about the Wolves on-and-off for the past two-decades plus.
I have witnessed great athletes, and better people (and a few turds, but hey, every school has to have a turd or too) and this is who the project is for, ultimately.
It’s so past generations know their accomplishments haven’t been forgotten, and current athletes and coaches have something to aspire towards.
It’s for Jeff Stone and Corey Cross and Bill Riley and Keith Jameson and it’s for Ashley Ellsworth-Bagby and Lexie Black and Mindy Horr and Amy Mouw.
It’s so people know how incredible Natasha Bamberger truly was, a 95-pound whippet who sprang from a small school on a rock in the middle of nowhere, ran people into the ground ruthlessly and won five state titles.
It’s so they remember a day in 2006 when four Wolves — Kyle King, Steven McDonald, Chris Hutchinson and Jon Chittim — meshed together perfectly, made every hand-off count, every step matter and emerged as the best relay team in all the land, brothers camped out at the top of the victory stand.
It’s for every kid who pulled on a Wolf uniform, in every sport, and refused to back down against bigger, richer schools.
For every coach who could have made more money on the mainland, but stayed in Cow Town for a year, a decade, a lifetime, and gave their all to your young men and women.
For every cheerleader, for every fan, for every parent and bus driver and teacher and administrator and score-book keeper and shot-clock runner.
It is your history, it is our history, and now, it will be front and center the way it always should have been.
Thank you.
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