Coupeville Sports

New helmets are nice, but they’ll look nicer if you’re hoisting them skywards while standing on the field at the Tacoma Dome.

The defending 1A state football champs have only 11 more students than Coupeville.

Numbers don’t win championships. Desire does.

In the 2014-2016 counts, the Wolves represent the smallest 1A school in the state (though 12 of the 64 schools which will play at the 1A level actually have fewer than Coupeville’s 225 students, but have opted to forgo being a B school to play up instead).

Freeman, which rolled Mount Baker 31-13 in the Tacoma Dome, capping a 13-0 season, has 236 students.

Unless those 11 students are all 6-foot-3, 300-pound linemen, Coupeville is basically on an even playing field with the state champs.

Except…

When there is talk of canceling summer practices because of a lack of turnout, you realize the gap between Coupeville and Freeman is far bigger than a few bodies.

I will guarantee you that the players at Freeman, like those at King’s, like those at national 3A power Bellevue, are on the field, in the weight room, as much as is allowed.

At a certain point, as a player, you have to ask yourself what you want.

Do you want to coast into the season, pick up a few wins, lose a few games you could win, and write off the season as something you did, when you had the time?

Or do you really want to take advantage of moving into a new league where you won’t be playing 2A schools and big-money private academies any more?

Do you want to take advantage of the fact you have moved from District 1, where King’s and the Bellingham schools sit, to District 3, where Coupeville is now one of just eight teams?

Do you want to do something more than just put the uniform on two weeks before school starts and go through the motions?

Do you have what it takes down deep to live up to the players who wore those uniforms in the past? Can you play like Brad Sherman, compete like Virgil Roehl, bust heads like Murph Cross?

Well no, you probably can’t bust heads like Murph Cross, cause everyone is a pantywaist now and you’d get ejected from the game for playing ultra-old school, but you get the point.

Do you care? Really care?

Are you content to end your football career in the fog on the Cow Town field in October, or do you want to lift your helmets while standing on the turf in the Tacoma Dome in November?

You, the Wolf players, have the power. Not the coaches, not the fans, not idiot writers.

You, and you alone, will decide how far you want to go. How much effort you will put in. How much time you will commit.

If you are willing to work, to fight, to grab underclassmen and drive them to the weight room, to refuse to accept anything less than a full commitment from every man who wants to put on a Wolf uniform, you can surprise a lot of people.

They are NOT more talented in Freeman. They are NOT growing some rare strain of genetically-gifted athletic gods in Rockford.

But they are working their asses off while you sit on yours.

They care in Freeman, which is why they have a state title banner hanging at their school.

There are no championship banners hanging in the CHS gym, and, right now, it’s fairly easy to see why.

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