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.
