Sports provided a spark for Natasha Bamberger (left), launching her to a life rich in personal and professional success. Current Wolves like Alana Mihill (center) and Catherine Lhamon follow in her footsteps. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
I believe in you.
One week from today, on the morning of Monday, August 26, a new high school sports year officially begins. And I want to see every single Coupeville student in grades 9-12 at a practice.
EVERY … SINGLE … ONE.
OK, technically, football kicks off practice five days earlier, on Wednesday, Aug. 21, but let’s not get caught up in technicalities.
Anyway, a week from today, Wolf boys tennis, volleyball, girls soccer, cheer, and cross country athletes join their gridiron compadres, and the countdown to the beginning of fall sports is fully underway.
But let’s get back to my point, which is a simple one.
If you are a student at CHS, I want to see you play a sport.
Whether you’re a life-long athlete, or have never stepped onto a field or court before, opportunity abounds in Cow Town. Take advantage.
Your school has a small student body, one of the tiniest in 1A (which is why CHS will likely move down to 2B next school year), and it’s set up for everyone to shine.
For one thing, there are no cuts at this school. You show up, you stay around, you are on the team.
You play, you — and your parents, and your grandparents, and all your Instagram followers and on and on — will see your name on the internet.
Often.
Coupeville Sports is unique in that it covers every level of athletics in this town plopped on the prairie in the middle of a rock anchored in the water in a far-flung corner of the Pacific Northwest.
You play varsity? You’ll see your name (and probably your photo).
You play JV? You’ll see your name (and probably your photo).
You play C-Team? You’ll see your name (and probably your photo).
State champion or role player? You will be celebrated, you will have something to read today, something to look back at years from now (unless the internet implodes).
Sports build confidence, they help/force students to stay on top of their classroom work (if you want to stay eligible), and they offer a unique way to interact with others.
With CHS having increased its fall sports offerings by bringing back cross country last year after a two-decade absence, there is something for everyone.
If you look at me and say “I have no skills. I can’t play volleyball, or football, or soccer, or fly through the air and do double back-flips like a cheerleader,” I would say two things back to you.
First, “You’d be surprised what you can do with no skills.”
I have seen CHS tennis coach Ken Stange take countless players, girls and boys, put a tennis racket in their hand for the first time in their lives, and transform them.
They walk on the court not knowing how to keep score, or the proper way to swing, and, four years later, they walk off with athletic letters, awards, and a confidence which has bloomed ten-fold.
Let the magic man do what he does.
And second, if you can put one foot in front of the other, or at least come reasonably close, cross country offers a safe harbor.
Of all sports, cross country and track and field offer maybe the easiest access point for someone who claims to be a non-athlete.
You essentially compete against yourself, each PR along the way a personal validation.
Whether you’re the quietest, smallest, library-lovingest young girl or boy, or the student who got an eight-inch growth spurt over the summer break who is trying to adjust to their new height, the trail was meant for you.
There’s no contact, you don’t have to suddenly learn a bunch of rules, no one expects you to digest a playbook.
You run, and you’d be amazed where it will take you.
We have had two NCAA D-1 scholarship college athletes emerge from Coupeville in the 2000’s, and Kyle and Tyler King landed at Oklahoma and U-Dub thanks to running.
No less impressive, in its own way, is listening to the kid who finished 97th in a high school race, the kid who rarely talks, light up like a Christmas tree when they realize they beat their previous-best time by two seconds.
But this conversation isn’t just for the first-time athlete.
I’m also talking to the Wolves who aren’t going to play because they want to get (or hold) a job, want to take driver’s ed, or offer a billion other “reasonable excuses.”
Don’t. Just don’t.
You will get to spend a great deal of your life working. Work is overrated.
You will get to spend a great deal of your life driving. Driving is overrated.
But you only get four years of high school sports. Twelve seasons total. It will be over faster than you expect.
At this point of your life, my words won’t mean the same as they will in 10 years, in 20, or 30.
It’s then you will have regret, then that you will wish you could go back.
You’ll be stuck in traffic on a freeway somewhere, on a way to a job you don’t want to go to, and it will hit you then.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
When you’re sitting in that car, on the way to that job, you could instead reflect on all your memories from a better time, a time when you were a high school athlete.
You are young right now, somewhere in the 13-18 age group.
The decision is yours to make. Choose wisely.
There are a million reasons to play sports during your high school years. Find the one which means something deeply personal to you.
But play. Just play.
I believe in you. Believe in yourself.
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