Coupeville vs. South Whidbey. Choose the right path, Falcons, and this could be a regular occurrence. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
Boom goes the dynamite, indeed.
The 1A/2A Cascade Conference, Coupeville’s old home, is no longer dying, it’s 99.2% dead.
First, everyone refused to play ATM in football.
Then Lakewood pulled up stakes in the middle of the night and fled to the Northwest Conference.
Finally, South Whidbey asked for, and was given approval, to play football as an independent for an undetermined time in an attempt to rebuild its fractured program.
All of that mere cracks in the crust, leading up to the earthquake which erupted Thursday, when news surfaced that King’s and Cedar Park Christian applied to transfer to the Emerald City League.
What was an eight-team league, with four 1A schools and four 2A ones, is one small AD vote from being a five-team league, with just two 1A schools in South Whidbey and Sultan.
One of whom doesn’t play football against league foes.
If King’s and CPC bolt, the Cascade Conference likely splinters for good, something the league’s president, Jason Frederick, acknowledged in an interview with The South Whidbey Record.
From the outside, I see this as a huge positive, not a negative.
The Cascade Conference was always an unwieldy Frankenstein mish-mash.
You had small, rural 1A schools (Coupeville, South Whidbey, Sultan) trying to compete with ginormous 2A schools like Cedarcrest and private schools (ATM, King’s and, recently, CPC) who are allowed to operate under a different set of rules.
Private, religious-orientated King’s and CPC joining the high-end Emerald City League, which currently houses nine Seattle schools which are all, wait for it, private and religious-orientated, is tailor-made.
And the likely collapse of the Cascade Conference gives South Whidbey AD Paul Lagerstedt a perfect opportunity to do what former Coupeville AD Lori Stolee did four years ago — rewrite their school’s destiny.
I’ve said it before and I will say it a million more times (I’m obnoxious like that). The Falcons need to fly the coop and come home.
Mr. Lagerstedt,
Join Coupeville in the Olympic League starting next year and be the AD who made South Whidbey relevant again.
If the Cascade Conference doesn’t die today, it will die tomorrow. You know that deep down in your soul.
There’s a slim chance you could try to join the jump to the ECL, but that makes such little sense I’m not going to even entertain the notion.
I’ll just be back here rolling my eyes until they disappear into the back of my skull.
What you want is a stable league, one which offers SWHS a fighting chance in every sport. An opportunity to be the big dog in some and scrap in the rest. To play other similarly-sized PUBLIC schools.
The Olympic League is what you want. The Olympic League is what you need.
Heck, bring Sultan along if you like. Pounding on the Turks is always a good time.
Do it for a better playing field. Or just do it for the money.
You reinstate your greatest rivalry — Coupeville vs. South Whidbey, Cow Town vs. Hippie Land, Wolves vs. Falcons — in a meaningful fashion, with two 1A schools which sit just 25 miles apart fighting for league supremacy, you make the cash registers ring.
Rivalry games bring in the biggest bucks, and I absolutely guarantee you more cash hits ticket-taker hand for Wolves vs. Falcons than any random game you play against Granite Falls or some obscure Canadian team.
If we’re back in the same league, that’s 10 gates for the sports which charge (the annual football clash and likely three contests apiece in girls basketball, volleyball and boys basketball.)
What do you want? Four paying customers traveling here from the wilds of Granite Falls or a steady stream of cars surging up (or down) the Island?
Heck, you’ll get more fans from Port Townsend and Chimacum (whose fans travel well, and are closer) than you will from schools in Seattle and Everett.
A renewed rivalry, with more at stake. Increased money. And topping it all off? A chance to compete for league titles.
Face it, you have not been putting up championship banners in the Cascade Conference, any more than Coupeville did when we were in the same boat.
Join the Olympic League and you’ll be the second-biggest school (after Klahowya) in terms of student body size. That’s a huge boon.
And, by removing ATM and King’s, you instantly put your good programs back in the title picture and you give your weaker sports a fighting chance to rebuild.
Winning titles is huge.
Having a realistic shot, where every day every one of your programs feels genuinely competitive, is even bigger.
Now, you are guaranteed nothing.
Coupeville and Klahowya are not going to surrender without a fight (good luck trying to dethrone the state title-winning Eagle soccer dynasty), nor will Chimacum softball or Port Townsend track and field, for that matter.
But you instantly go from a constant battle for third-place to a constant battle for first-place, which builds morale, which builds numbers, which circles back around and builds pride.
You think you’re hot stuff?
Good, come prove it against schools similar in size and mentality, and stop bashing your brains out while the private schools play (legally) by their own rules.
And yes, I hear some trepidation about having to catch the Coupeville to Port Townsend ferry if you join the Olympic League.
Small potatoes.
When Coupeville catches the Clinton ferry and travels to Silverdale to play Klahowya (comparable to South Whidbey hopping over to PT or Chimacum), game times are adjusted and varsity often plays before JV.
Small ways to work around the fact we all LIVE ON AN ISLAND in the first place.
You need us. We need you.
It makes sense in every way possible.
So be brave. Be forward-thinking. Be the AD who makes South Whidbey High School sports relevant again.
We’re waiting for you (with a can of whup-ass at the ready),
Your Coupeville friends
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