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26 years later, still the gold standard!!

Posted in Football, tagged CHS Wolves, Class of 1990, football, Jason McFadyen, Ron Bagby, Todd Brown, undefeated on August 26, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Wolf QB Jason McFadyen runs the offense during the last truly great CHS football season. (Photo courtesy Carmen McFadyen)

It came from the dusty "archives" -- Ron Bagby's football contract for the 1990 season.

It came from the dusty “archives” — Ron Bagby’s football contract for his undefeated season. (Jack Sell photo)

The core of the 1990 Wolf gridiron squad. (Photo courtesy Noah Roehl)

Ron Bagby made $86.80 per game in 1990, while delivering arguably the best football season in Coupeville High School history.

That’s just one of the facts I discovered this morning, while digging through several boxes of long-buried, and mostly hand-written, Wolf gridiron records.

The boxes were recovered, Indiana Jones-style, after CHS Athletic Director Willie Smith led me through a maze of back rooms ripe with the smell of history (or maybe just unwashed uniforms).

“Don’t breathe through your mouth!!!” he giggled.

While the mass of paperwork stashed in the boxes should spur several stories, the one which immediately jumps forward is the tale of the ’90 football squad.

With the recent installation of the school’s new Wall of Fame in the CHS gym, current players can gaze upwards towards two football league titles — 1974 and 1990 — both won by teams which went undefeated in the regular season.

While CHS fell 34-14 in its 1990 state playoff opener, falling to visiting Rainier on a brutally windy prairie afternoon, that squad still looms large in Wolf lore.

Through the remainder of Bagby’s 26-year coaching career, and much shorter stints by his successors — Jay Silver, Tony Maggio, Brett Smedley and now first-year man Jon Atkins — Coupeville has never made it back to state in football.

While the school’s basketball, track, baseball and tennis teams have continued to pile up league titles and bring home state trophies, the football program has been on a bit of a dry streak.

As they aim for their own shot of glory in 2016, they can look back to ’90 for inspiration.

It was a year when Coupeville claimed 10 of the 23 spots on the All-League team, yet somehow Bagby was passed over for Coach of the Year by the Northwest B League.

Linemen Chris Frey and Mark Lester and running back/defensive back Todd Brown were All-League on both sides of the ball, while four other Wolves got the nod at one position apiece.

Matt Cross (offensive line), Brad Haslam (kicker), Todd Smith (defensive end) and Frank Marti (linebacker) joined the two-way honorees.

Concrete, which held Coupeville to a season-low in points (while still losing to the Wolves) had seven All-League picks, with Darrington (4), Friday Harbor (2) and Orcas-Lopez (2) rounding out the rosters.

The biggest surprise in 2016 is looking at an All-League sheet and seeing Darrington’s Rob Wales listed as Coach of the Year during a season when Bagby’s marauders beat the Loggers 18-8 and went (ahem) undefeated.

Moving on, the 1990 season is one of the rare ones for which I’ve actually discovered a fully-detailed team stat chart.

No poking through piles of papers, adding things up by hand, and then discovering at the last second that yes, we are missing a stat sheet for game #4 and David can feel the brains leaking out of his ear.

Now, of course, one caveat.

While the offensive stats are all there, I could find only a smidgen of the defensive ones. So, no tackles or sacks, just interceptions.

Hey, it’s a start.

The tale of the tape:

Coupeville beats Sultan 35-6
Coupeville beats Cascade sophomores 29-22
Coupeville beats Mariner sophomores 44-22
Coupeville beats Snohomish sophomores 25-6
Coupeville beats Friday Harbor 28-21
Coupeville beats Concrete 10-0
Coupeville beats Darrington 18-8
Coupeville beats Orcas-Lopez 36-0
Coupeville beats La Conner 41-22

Team stats:

Total points: 266-107 in favor of CHS
First downs: 148-71 in favor of CHS
Passing: 61-113 for 933 yards and 8 TDs
Rushing: 359 carries for 2,340 yards and 28 TDs
Total Yards: 3,273 (364 a game)

Individual stats:

Passing:

Jason McFadyen 60-108 for 892 yards and 7 TDs
Frank Marti 1-2 for 25 yards
Brad Haslam 1-3 for 16 yards and 1 TD

Receiving:

Ben Biskovich 22 catches for 345 yards
Brian Barr 13-209
Marti 11-183
Haslam 11-62
Todd Brown 2-7

Rushing:

Brown 156 carries for 1248 yards
Marti 80-522
Haslam 45-273
Kit Manzanares 27-170
McFadyen 17-88
Jason McManigle 3-20
Les Hall 6-19

Touchdowns:

Marti 12
Brown 11
Biskovich 4
Haslam 4
McFadyen 3
Barr 1
McManigle 1

PAT:

Haslam 22

FG:

Haslam 2

INT:

Biskovich 5
Barr 2
Haslam 2
Marti 2

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Blast from the past!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged 1991, baseball, Brad Haslam, CHS Wolves, Jason McFadyen, league title on May 3, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Jason McFadyen, back in his homer-hittin’ CHS baseball days. (Photos courtesy the Carmen McFadyen Archives)

The end of the road for the ’91 Wolf baseball squad.

What a difference 25 years makes.

In the gap that exists between this year’s Coupeville High School baseball squad winning a league title and the last Wolf diamond squad to do so, technology has exploded, countries have fallen (and risen), the Cold War ended and baseball players started looking like they were wearing pajamas.

But fashion trends aside (modern-day players need to pull their pants up and start showing their socks again, and that’s my rant for the day…), how do these two squads compare?

Well, from looking at score-books, the ’91 squad was a heck of a lot more dominant, for sure. At least in terms of inflicting beat-downs.

Record-wise, they’re kind of similar.

Playing in the six-team Northwest B Conference at the time, the old school Wolves went 9-1 in league play, losing only to Darrington in their finale.

By comparison, today’s squad, competing in a four-team 1A Olympic League, sits at 7-1 with one game left.

But the ’91 squad won 12 of 13 at one point, slicing through opponents on their way to finishing 13-6 after a remarkably tough playoff loss (more on that in a bit).

The current squad is 10-9 and guaranteed at least three more games, two in the playoffs, so they can tie the win total, but have already lost more games and haven’t been able to put together a streak to match the ’91ers.

What really sets the two teams apart is their offense.

While today’s team has outscored opponents 106-90, the ’91 team bopped foes to a 145-79 tune, and that’s skewed a bit by the 16 runs they gave up in their playoff loss.

The modern-day Wolves have poked out a fair amount of singles, but their big blows have been limited to doubles and an occasional triple.

In ’91, Coupeville hit the long-ball, and they hit it regularly.

As I deciphered the book and newspaper clippings from the time, I found at least four Wolves — Brad Haslam, Jason McFadyen, Matt Cross and Frank Marti — who went yard that season.

After being shut-out twice by Sequim on Opening Day, Coupeville only scored fewer than four runs in a game once the remainder of the year.

Along the way, they carved up Grace Academy for 16 runs, La Conner for 14 and 13, Winlock for 13, Sultan and Concrete for 12 apiece and Friday Harbor, Concrete and Orcas for nine in separate games.

In those 10 league games (two each against Darrington, Friday Harbor, La Conner, Orcas and Concrete) they outscored their foes by an 84-25 count.

So, through 19 games, the ’91 squad averaged 7.63 runs per game (while giving up 4.16), while the ’16 team sits at 5.58/4.74.

The two teams also differ in their pitching styles.

Senior CJ Smith is the epitome of calm, cool and collected as the staff ace this year.

The ’91 team featured some Marti and a lot of Haslam, who was a raging inferno on the hill, a scary, scary giant who flung a no-hitter and topped double digits in strikeouts in more than two-thirds of his starts.

Where this year’s team would like to differ the most from the ’91 squad, though, is in playoff success.

Back then, the Wolves were primed to make a long run, only to fall a strike short.

Coupeville opened the regional playoffs at Marysville, playing a Winlock team which carried a 9-9 mark into the game, but had won its final six games.

The Wolves, getting a big day at the plate from seniors McFadyen and Chris Frey, who combined for seven hits, charged out to a 13-6 lead heading into the seventh and final inning.

Faced with the possibility they would be playing a second game in the same day if they won the opener, Coupeville’s coaches had juggled their pitching staff to deal with inning restrictions then in force.

That kept Haslam off the mound until the team fell apart in the seventh, and, by the time he took the ball, things were getting out of control.

Having surrendered four runs thanks to a run of errors (the Wolves had nine miscues on the day), CHS clung to a 13-11 lead with two outs and two strikes.

Not yet in a flow, Haslam missed on a pitch and Winlock took advantage, hammering a two-run single up the middle to send the game to extra innings.

Once there, the Wolves bats utterly deserted them for one of the few times in their miracle run, and they fell 16-13 in 10 innings.

The loss, while painful in the moment, capped one of the most successful school years for boys sports in the 116-year history of the school.

McFadyen had quarterbacked the Wolf football team to a 9-0 mark, a league title and a home state playoff game, then moved to the basketball court and sparked CHS to the tri-district playoffs.

Talked into joining baseball at the last second, he made it three-for-three that spring, then departed along with Frey, Marti and hot-hitting Brian Barr.

As we look back at ’91, there’s also one semi-tenuous connection between the two programs.

Jon Crimmins, who was a varsity bench player as a sophomore in ’91, is now a dad, and his son Aiden, plays for the Wolf JV in 2016.

And why do I bring that up?

Because it gives me the chance to recount this story from the ’91 playoff game.

The elder Crimmins and his teammates were all given per diem money for food when they went to regionals, but he and fellow sophomore Keith Currier opted to spend most of their money on baseball cards.

“We sat around the hotel room and opened packs of cards all day. That was my playoff payoff!,” Jon Crimmins said with a laugh.

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Prairie legends, one and all!!

Posted in Hall o' Fame, tagged Ben Biskovich, CHS Wolves, Greg Oldham, Hall of Fame, Homecoming, Jason McFadyen, Katie Smith on October 11, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Katie Smith (top, right) with mom DeeAnna and fellow Hall inductees (l to r) Jason McFadyen, Ben Biskovich, Greg Oldham and (representing the 1992 CHS football team) Chris “Kit” Manzanares.

Big wins, big personalities.

The members of the 16th class to be inducted into the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame all possessed the second, which helped them achieve the first.

Regardless of the sport, and most of them crossed over to multiple activities, they remain high achievers in “real” life whose impact on Wolf Nation still lingers.

So we welcome to the podium Jason McFadyen, Greg Oldham, Katie Smith, Ben Biskovich and the 1992 Homecoming Miracle.

In future days, you’ll be able to find them at the top of the blog, under the Legends tab.

McFadyen and Biskovich will always be linked by their days playing catch for the 1990 Coupeville High School football squad, the last Wolf team to go undefeated, but they both accomplished a ton in other areas.

Biskovich, who has gone on to be a partner in three physical therapy clinics with wife Karin, is a successful runner these days, keeping alive the legacy of his days as a Wolf, when he was a state finalist in the 110 high hurdles.

A captain in football and basketball, he remains one of the hardest-working players ever to grace CHS, albeit it one who did so with eyebrow firmly cocked, Fonzie-style.

“Have a great time, it goes fast,” Biskovich told me in an interview. “Train, practice and play like you’ve got something to prove, like you’re fighting for a roster spot and don’t want to be taken off the field or court, so that afterwards you have no regrets.

“Win or lose, you can look at yourself in the mirror and say, “I could not have done anything more.”

That was a philosophy shared by his quarterback.

A four-sport letter winner at CHS (football, basketball, track, baseball), McFadyen was the brains that drove the Wolf gridiron squad, but garnered much of his glory on the basketball court.

Two-time team MVP. Two-time selection to the league’s All-Defensive team. First-Team All-Conference.

And he can still bring it, as he proved by leading his squad to a title in the most recent Tom Roehl Roundball Classic, a tournament which annually brings back a who’s-who of former Wolf stars.

McFadyen, who these days runs Windermere’s property management division and is the President of the Greater Oak Harbor Chamber of Commerce, was a winner back in the day, and remains a winner in the present.

Our third inductee, Oldham, put together a five-year run that few, if any, coaches at CHS, can match.

Taking over a successful Wolf girls’ basketball program — previous coach Willie Smith had led the program to the school’s first-ever win at state in any sport in 1999-2000 — Oldham went on a tear, winning nearly two-thirds of his games.

From 2000-2001 to 2004-2005, his squads went 85-43 overall and won at an even higher clip in Cascade Conference play, where they were 45-11.

Led by stars such as Brianne King, Ashley Ellsworth-Bagby and Lexie Black, the Wolves won a school-record 23 games in 2001-2002, reached the state semifinals and eventually claimed a pair of state tournament banners that grace the gym wall.

Now a college coach, Oldham’s impact during his time at Coupeville can not be denied.

The same could be said of Smith, one of the most underrated of all Wolf athletes.

Katie, a graceful young woman who has gone on to be an all-star aunt to her many nephews, was that rock-solid athlete (and person) who every team needs at its heart.

Whether she was playing basketball, volleyball, softball, or (late in her prep career) dazzling folks on the track oval, Smith was a team leader who led by example and not by screaming.

Part of a huge clan of athletic over-achievers, some of whom will probably join her in the Hall in the coming weeks and months, Katie is prairie royalty, with Sherman blood flowing through her veins.

She honored the legacy, and has always made her family and town very proud with the way she carries herself, on and off the athletic field.

A Coupeville Hall of Fame without her? Not much point.

And, as we reach the end of today’s festivities, five days before the 2015 Homecoming football game, we take a trip in the way-back machine to pay tribute to one of the greatest comebacks I have ever witnessed in person.

It was Oct. 30, 1992 and Gina (Dozier) Slowik was the senior class queen, while on the field, the Wolves trailed league rival Foster 21-6 with only a quarter to play.

Cue the fog. Cue the comeback for the ages.

Scoring three touchdowns, and then sealing the deal with an interception in the end zone at the final buzzer, Coupeville roared back for a 25-21 win that still seems amazing 23 years later.

Wolf quarterback Troy Blouin started things with a one-yard keeper, but the two-point conversion failed.

No problem, as Coupeville pulled off a trick play in which Blouin pitched the ball to running back Todd Brown, normally known for slamming face-first into would-be tacklers.

On this night, though, Brown pivoted and fired a bomb, dropping a 32-yard scoring strike into the arms of Kit Manzanares.

Nothing would be easy, however, as the Wolves promptly missed the extra point, leaving them down 21-18.

Wolf coach Ron Bagby unleashed defensive Hell in a wild bid to get the ball back, and it worked better than anticipated, as Foster fumbled the ball and it skipped into the end zone.

To this day, no one is really sure who landed on the ball, but he was wearing red and black, and the resulting touchdown sent the crowd into a tizzy.

But, even as the ramshackle CHS press box (nothing has changed in 23 years) was rockin’, Foster got two more chances to rewrite the miracle.

The first failed on fourth down, but, after a Wolf fumble while trying to run the clock out (Bagby may have had a stroke at that moment…), Foster had time for a Hail Mary.

The ball went up, the crowd went eerily silent, the ball descended, confusion reigned and then Blouin shot out of the pack, holding the ball aloft, restarting his coach’s heart and igniting pandemonium.

Legendary.

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Bring ’em home!!

Posted in Football, tagged 25 years, anniversary, Brad Haslam, CHS Wolves, Concrete, football, Frank Marti, Jason McFadyen, undefeated on July 31, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Wolf QB Jason McFadyen operates under center during the undefeated 1990 season. (Photo courtesy Jason McFadyen)

Artifacts from the olden days — a preseason memo from Wolf coach Ron Bagby and a program from the home state playoff game. (Courtesy Tom Roehl Archives)

I took a photo of a 25-year-old photo. I got skills.

Let’s throw a party.

The greatest football team in Coupeville High School history, the undefeated 1990 squad, hits a magical milestone this year.

It will be 25 years since that Wolf squad, led by the precision passing of Jason McFadyen and an unstoppable running attack, went 9-0, outscoring its opponents 258-107.

While they fell to Rainier in a home state quarterfinal playoff game played on a windswept Mickey Clark Field Nov. 10, 1990, they remain the gold standard.

No Wolf team has come close to that win total since then, and that trip to the state playoffs, the fourth in school history, was also the last one a CHS gridiron squad has earned.

Which is why we need to take a moment this season and acknowledge that squad.

And, in a moment of perfect symmetry, I have the ideal time.

Coupeville plays four home games this coming season, all in October.

The first three are 1A Olympic League contests (Oct. 2 against Port Townsend, Oct. 9 against Klahowya and Homecoming Oct. 16 against Chimacum).

The regular-season finale, though, on Friday, Oct. 30 is a non-conference affair against Concrete.

Which would be the perfect game to honor the ’90 squad, since back then Concrete was a fellow Northwest B League opponent, and the Wolves beat Concrete 10-0 in the season’s biggest win.

Frank Marti capped a 122-yard rushing performance with a one-yard touchdown plunge in the fourth quarter, then Brad Haslam dropped the punctuation mark with a 34-yard field goal.

Wins over Darrington, Orcas Island and La Conner would cap the regular season, but win #6, coming over the power team in the league, was the one that shocked the world.

So, we need to make this happen.

Whether it’s the Coupeville Booster Club, school officials, current football coaches, the players on that team, or us, the fans, we have three months to make this a reality.

At halftime on Oct. 30, the ’90 squad should come back to claim the Cow Town field.

So, here, from that playoff roster, are the guys we’re looking to find.

If you know them, if you are them, spread the word. We’re gonna make this happen.

1990 Coupeville Wolves:

Coaches:

Ron Bagby
Brian O’Hara
Tom Roehl (RIP)
Jon Prater

Manager:

Brent Fitzgerald

Seniors:

Brian Barr
Ben Biskovich
Sean Dillon
Chris Frey
Les Hall
Mark Lester
Frank Marti
Jason McFadyen
Ryan Samplawski
Aaron Williams

Juniors:

Danny Bonacci
Matt Cross
Brad Haslam
Van Kellems
Ben Russell
Todd Smith
Nate Steele
Tracy Wilson

Sophomores:

Troy Blouin
Todd Brown
Ted Clifton
Eric Lester
Craig McGregor
Gerald McIntosh
Jason McManigle
David McMillan

Freshmen:

Ross Buckner
Scott Gadbois
Scott Kirkwood
Kit Manzanares
Jerimiah Prater
Virgil Roehl
Joe Staples
Kevin Steiner

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“I believe I am a good father because of my parents!!”

Posted in Boys Basketball, Football, Where are they now?, tagged Basketball, CHS Wolves, Concrete, football, Jason McFadyen, Ron Bagby, Tom Roehl, Windermere on January 1, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Jason McFadyen with daughters Kate (left) and Pearl.

The Four Amigos — back (l to r) Ben Biskovich, Frank Marti, front (Sean Dillon, McFadyen).

It is one of the most memorable images in Coupeville High School sports history.

The photo, from late 1990, shows Wolf football coach Ron Bagby tilting into the wind, watching perhaps the greatest gridiron squad in school history fall in a home playoff game.

The look on his face is one of hope fighting with resignation, and it defines what was a 20+ year career.

CHS was undefeated and ranked fifth in the state going into that playoff game, due in no small part to senior quarterback Jason McFadyen.

A captain who lettered in four sports (football, basketball, track and baseball) while winning numerous awards before graduating in 1991, he remains one of the best to ever carry the Wolf logo into battle.

25 years later, one moment remains firmly lodged in McFadyen’s memory.

“The game that stands out the most is the game at Concrete,” he said. “They were Coupeville’s biggest rival until we switched leagues in the early/mid ’90s.

“Unless I’m mistaken, until we beat them that year no Wolf team had done so — and we beat them handily.”

While he sparkled on the gridiron, the hard-court is where McFadyen’s heart has always lived.

A team captain, he was named First-Team All-Conference as a senior and was the team MVP his final two seasons. His defensive prowess was legendary, twice netting him a position on the league’s All-Defensive team.

“I just always loved it, from my childhood days of shooting hoops till midnight in my backyard with my best friend, Chad, to the days when I “found” a key to the gym and was able to shoot late at night there,” McFadyen said.

And yet, as the years have passed, he has discovered that, as much as he loves basketball, football is the sport that leaves the deepest ache.

“Funny thing is, I thought I’d miss basketball the most after high school, but the sport I missed the most was football,” McFadyen said. “You can play basketball at anytime, join leagues, open gym, but you’ll probably never play full-contact football again…”

McFadyen had a chance to return to his old court this past weekend, when he played on the title-winning team in the annual Tom Roehl Roundball Classic.

Getting a chance to play in the alumni tourney, and honor one of his former coaches, is special for the former Wolf star.

“Coach Roehl was a good coach and an even better person — you can see that in the kind of kids he raised,” McFadyen said. “You don’t really appreciate people at a younger age, but looking back he was definitely someone who deserved respect and appreciation from the kids he coached.

“More speed! Anyone who played for him will recognize that classic quote and repeat it in their best Coach Roehl voice.”

All of his coaches had a big impact on his life, but maybe none more so than Bagby, who ran both the football and basketball programs at the time.

“He always pushed me to be better and work harder,” McFadyen said. “That wasn’t always something we agreed on, but he was the coach, so agree or not, he was right. To this day we remain close friends.

Not that the two didn’t have their moments. But now, years down the road, McFadyen can see what his coach was trying to accomplish.

“One day senior year I got to basketball practice and he was all over me when I didn’t dive for a ball that I could have gotten and he lost it. I mean, it was practice!,” McFadyen said. “For the next two weeks it was like I couldn’t do anything right; he was constantly riding me.

“Finally, we were at Watson Groen and he cornered me in the locker room after the rest of the team had gone out for warm-ups. He asked me what my problem was; I replied, you’re all over me for no reason! What’s YOUR problem, coach??

“He said, “I expect more from you than I do everybody else. Right then, at that moment, I got it. I have never thanked him for that, but I need to.”

But, even with strong coaches, most of life’s lessons came from home, where parents Jack and Carmen McFadyen raised Jason and big sis Aleshia (McFadyen) Mitten.

Along with his All-League honors and MVP awards, McFadyen was an Honorable Mention Academic All American, a US Army Reserve National Scholar Athlete and a member of the National Honor Society.

That dual success, mixing athletics and academics, sprang from the lessons learned from his parents.

“The real mentors in my life were my parents. They taught me responsibility, showed me love, and what it means to be a good person, and eventually a good parent,” McFadyen said. “There wasn’t one game they weren’t at; even if it meant taking off work to drive to Darrington to sit in the rain to watch me play, they were always there.

“I believe I am a good father because of my parents, because of the parents they were.”

McFadyen is now raising two young daughters of his own, eight-year-old Pearl and seven-year-old Kate, and passing on those same lessons.

A licensed Realtor for 12 years, he has worked for Windermere, first in Redmond then back on The Rock that he once fervently sought to escape.

“I was always the guy who wanted to get the Hell off the Island the day after high school and didn’t see myself ever coming back,” McFadyen said. “But, once you get off the Island, you realize there’s no better place to live and raise kids than back home … so I moved back home.”

He’s now happily entrenched on Whidbey with his daughters and “the woman who owns my heart,” Annie Cash.

McFadyen runs Windermere’s property management division, which has taken Best of Whidbey two years running.

He has also served on the Realtor board of directors and the Island County Housing Board and is in his second term as President of the Greater Oak Harbor Chamber of Commerce.

When not working, he stays busy with the women in his life.

And, if his offspring choose to follow in his athletic footsteps, he will be there for them the way his parents were for him.

“We enjoy time on our boat, traveling, golf, and whatever else the girls may think up that day,” McFadyen said.

“I would support my daughters should they decide to get into sports. Both are athletic, and I have coached their T-ball teams,” he added. “But if they decide to get into something other than sports, I will support them completely.”

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