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Posts Tagged ‘Happy birthday’

The kid is alright!!

Posted in Football, Happy birthday, tagged , , , , , on August 31, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Raymond Beiriger (with ball) comes off the field after scoring against Chimacum. (John Fisken photos)

Raymond Beiriger (23) comes off the field after scoring against Chimacum. (John Fisken photos)

Beiriger with Wolf coach Tony Maggio.

Beiriger with Wolf coach Tony Maggio.

It was Coupeville’s version of “Rudy.”

Last fall, the Wolves capped off a 54-0 rout of visiting Chimacum by giving the ball to one of its hardest workers, an unheralded senior who hadn’t had much of a chance at the spotlight.

Raymond Beiriger, who celebrates a birthday today, was the guy who showed up for every practice, put in work and then stayed around afterwards to help put the equipment away before even thinking about leaving.

Every high school program needs a kid who plays his heart out, regardless of whether he’s a sandwich (or a few hundred sandwiches) away from being an imposing figure on the gridiron.

So it was nice to see CHS coach Tony Maggio call Beiriger’s number, and then watch his teammates celebrate and jump Beiriger after he plunged in for a touchdown run.

In typical fashion, after the game had ended and the local media waited to interview him, everyone had to wait.

Why? Raymond was busy putting equipment away, same as he did after every game, win or loss, big moment or not.

Now, he’s a Coupeville grad and off to other things. But he will always have that moment, when he took the ball and found the promised land.

I hope it meant as much to him as it obviously seemed to mean to his coaches and teammates.

And I hope he has an excellent birthday just days before CHS kicks off a new fall football season.

He was one of the best to wear the red and black, and that was true even before he scored.

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Julia Felici — Cookie Monster approved!!

Posted in Cheer, Girls Basketball, Happy birthday, tagged , , , , on August 30, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Julia Felici

Julia Felici

Athlete. Role model. Loving aunt. In-freakin-credible cookie baker.

Julia Felici is all this and so much more.

The Coupeville High School grad, who celebrates her birthday today, did a lot of things during her time as a Wolf and did them all well.

Cheer, track, basketball, softball, Homecoming royalty and then it’s on to her work with The International Order of the Rainbow for Girls.

She doted on nephew Drake, had the good sense to be close friends with the impeccable Mekare (Greatest Living Person?) Bowen and was one of the biggest fans of her fellow classmates, showing up at practically every athletic event she wasn’t already playing or cheering at.

Two moments will stand out for me when it comes to Miss Felici.

On the basketball court as a junior, she was a scrappy ballhawk. Only one thing was missing — she rarely shot the ball, always looking to set up her teammates.

Late in the season, Wolf JV coach Amy King was trying to make sure every girl on her roster had reached the scoring column, and she tried to feed the ball to Felici.

The first couple of times failed, as Felici dished the ball to an open teammate, playing smart, unselfish basketball.

And then, out of nowhere, came the moment.

Felici caught the ball, started to pass and instead spun, and, channeling Kobe Bryant for a moment, pump-faked her defender out of her shoes and drained a sweet fall-away jumper from the top of the key.

King’s jaw hit the ground, the people in the stands went bonkers and Felici, shy smile flickering across her face, merely turned and charged back down court to pick up her man on defense.

The second moment, however, might have been the sweetest.

That came when Julia baked me a batch of mind-melting chocolate chip cookies to “bribe” me into running a story about a middle school dance she was putting on as part of her regular community service.

I still dream about those cookies. Epic, technicolor dreams of cookies running and jumping in the clouds and then splashing down into my mouth.

Well, yes… Moving on.

Now, as she heads off to college and further adventures in being awesome, let’s take a moment to wish Julia the best.

And, if she ever finds herself with too many cookies just sittin’ around the house, possibly going to waste, um, you know where I live and may I remind you, I have a VERY big mailbox.

Just sayin’.

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The day joy was born!!

Posted in Cheer, Girls Basketball, Happy birthday, Track, tagged , , , , on August 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Bursting with spirit are (l to r) Nicole Becker, Lucas Etzell and Jai'Lysa Hoskins.

Bursting with spirit are (l to r) Nicole Becker, Lucas Etzell and Jai’Lysa Hoskins.

Loud 'n proud.

Loud ‘n proud.

"Ooh, when I get off this bench, I'm coming for you all!!"

“Ooh, when I get off this bench, I’m coming for you all!!”

Sweetest smile, nastiest elbows in the biz.

Jai’Lysa Hoskins was born to be a cheerleader. Bright, personable, friendly, outgoing, full of spirit, with a laugh that could be heard across the gym.

But she was also a tough-as-nails competitor on the basketball court and track oval.

Blessed with lightning bolt speed, Hoskins helped Coupeville High School’s relay teams blitz to state medal-worthy times.

When it came to hit the hard-court, she laid down the wrath of her elbows on anyone stupid enough to get between her and a rebound.

Jai’Lysa would always pick up her opponents after they hit the ground, but she would make sure they often found that floor first.

You DID NOT try and take the ball away from her.

As the former Wolf great, one of the most joyful of CHS alumni, celebrates her 19th birthday today, we send Jai best wishes and turn to her close friend, Nicole Becker, for a few words on what Miss Hoskins means to her:

Today happens to be my best friend’s, partner in crime, jelly to my toast, milk to my cereal, laces to my shoes, my sister’s birthday.

17 years ago I was blessed to have her come into my life and amazingly today she’s stuck it out with me.

19 years ago you appeared in this world and have changed lives little by little.

Jai, I am so excited for what this year of life has in store for you and I love you ’til death do us part.

You’re my person. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Now let’s have fun!!

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More Payne! Less pain!!

Posted in Baseball, Football, Happy birthday, tagged , , , , , on August 28, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Cole Payne, a man for all seasons.

Cole Payne, a man for all seasons.

If there’s a birthday cake, no one let him near the knife.

Coupeville High School junior Cole Payne is a pro at everything he does — football, baseball, being a freakin’ American hero — but he’s also pretty skilled at hurting himself.

Frequent injuries have been the only thing slowing down his rise to being a full-fledged star.

In fact, his latest surgery, which came just days before his birthday, will knock him out for the complete football season. That’s a huge blow to the Wolves.

When he was healthy last year, Payne was a heat-seeking missile on the gridiron.

If you had the ball and tried to run away from him, you usually ended up planted face-first in the turf, wondering how that freight train that just hit you managed to get on the field.

Cole was equally potent on the offensive side of the ball, both as a receiver and a runner.

But, while football coach Tony Maggio may (secretly) shed tears over the loss of Payne, there is a silver lining.

Having surgery on his bum shoulder at this point of the year should give him plenty of time to get back to full health by baseball season.

And it is as a boy of summer that Payne, like older brother Morgan, really shines.

Whether as a pitcher or, more often these days, as a catcher, he’s a sweet-swingin’, fleet-footed two-way terror, capable of turning the tide in favor of his squad on both offense and defense.

With five key seniors, including Morgan, having graduated, Cole should move into a leadership position and be at the forefront of Wolf baseball the next two seasons.

That is how we want to see him, on the field, kickin’ fanny and takin’ names, not on the sideline, arm in a sling.

I’m not saying he can’t be entertaining as he works those sidelines, but we want more Payne and less pain.

So happy birthday, Cole, and here’s to a bright future. May it include as few doctors as possible.

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He is legend!!

Posted in Happy birthday, Memories, tagged , , , on August 25, 2014| Leave a Comment »

He is legend.

The voice of a generation (of journalists).

I blame Fred Obee.

If it wasn’t for him, you probably wouldn’t be reading these words now. And a lot of newspaper editors would have spent less time waking up with night sweats, screaming, for the past 24 years.

Journalism wasn’t my first choice. Cooking was.

But, a sudden move from Tumwater to Whidbey Island in the middle of my senior year of high school, liberally seasoned with the fact I’m not really all that special a cook, threw things all asunder.

And then, a fateful phone call from a tired Whidbey News-Times Sports Editor seeking a high school kid to cover one basketball game launched me into another world, and here we are, billions of words (some better than others) later.

There are many people who have been big influences on me during my torrid, on-again, off-again, screaming and kicking, bridge-burning odyssey through the world of journalism. None stands taller than the one-time editor of the WNT.

We danced the dance for three years — me a painfully green, no-college-ever-cause-it’s-for-sellouts “freelance reporter” (which means I camped out in his office and annoyed him until he gave me a story), he a well-respected newsman with a rapidly expanding migraine no Coca-Cola would solve.

Until that fateful day, when, after scintillating stories on dead starfish and Bigfoot hunters, hours of hand copying marriages and divorces at the court house and one ammunition-and-toxic-paint-fueled fire from Hell that landed me on the front page, he named me Sports Editor.

It was then that the fun really began.

Fred was quick. He was nimble. He was the best boss a 21-year-old idiot could have.

Somehow, he never fired me over the course of the next two years, through too-big headlines, poetry on the sports page and several thousand pieces of carefully crayon-scrawled hate mail from a couple of morons who couldn’t understand why I gave girls sports equal coverage with boys sports.

I won him some awards, gave him some angina and had a mid-life crisis at 23 (the first of many) and went to work on a mussel processing boat in Penn Cove.

Cause I’m a freakin’ moron.

But I never stopped writing, never stopped seeing how much I could chafe the folks in charge by loudly declaring, “Touch a word of my prose?!?! How dare you … from God’s lips to my fingertips!!!!!”

That always went over well.

And now, I answer to no one but my readers, a free man here at Coupeville Sports for the last two years.

All because one guy, who celebrates his birthday today, saw enough in me to keep me around even during the angina.

If I am a writer, it is largely thanks to his guidance, to his unwavering support, to the moments when he took me aside and gave me tips and the times when he just rolled his eyes, laughed and let me go on my merry way, knowing I would need to crash and burn sometimes to get the lesson.

Fred Obee is a towering figure in my development as a writer.

Maybe some day he’ll forgive me for all the angina.

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