Coupeville High School’s track and field record board, freshly updated and ready to provide inspiration to new stars. (Photo by Dawnelle Conlisk)
Time has not caught up with Natasha Bamberger.
It’s been several decades since the Coupeville supernova won her fifth, and final, state title as a runner, but school records she set way back in 1984 still stand as we careen towards 2020.
With the 2019 track and field season in his rear-view mirror, Wolf coach Randy King has updated the school’s record board, and there are many tales to be told.
The past spring was full of success, with 10 of 35 records falling.
The biggest splash came from Maya Toomey-Stout and Mallory Kortuem, who slapped their names on the big board in four events each.
Both Wolves capped their junior seasons by claiming possession of two individual marks (long jump and 100 for the former, pole vault and 400 for the latter), while helping 4 x 100 and 4 x 200 relay units snap previous bests.
Hot on their heels was Danny Conlisk, who shattered marks in the 100, 200, and 400 as a senior, then went out and won state titles in the last two of those events.
That trio join Chad Gale (long jump, 110 hurdles, 300 hurdles) and Lindsey Roberts (100 hurdles, 4 x 1, 4 x 2) as the only Wolves who currently hold three or more school records.
Speaking of Mr. Gale, his performance in the 300 hurdles joins a 4 x 100 relay team of Bill Carstensen, Tony Killgo, Jay Roberts, and Rick Alexander, as the second-oldest records still standing.
Both marks were set in 1986, two years after Bamberger torched the joint in the 1600 and 3200.
On the boys side of the board, there are no remnants of the ’90s left, though four of 17 marks still hail from the ’80s.
The girls go in the other direction.
While Bamberger’s records are the last from the ’80s, there are still four marks remaining from the ’90s, with Jennie Cross (shot put, discus) about to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of her titanic throws.
And, in a delightful quirk of fate, all three Hoskins sisters — Jai’Lysa, Ja’Tarya, and Ja’Kenya — are on the record board, and all pop up in a different relay event.
When new names go up on the board, it inevitably means someone has to come down, and it still strikes me as odd to watch great athletes such as Jacob Smith, Lauren Grove, and Sylvia Hurlburt be removed.
While their records may have been broken, though, the passage of time and the altering of the big board doesn’t take a single bit of shine off their careers, or that of Janiece Jenkins or Kim Warder, or any of the others who once held a spot atop Wolf history.
The board exists to immortalize the big moments, and to give the next generation — and there is always, relentlessly, a new generation coming — something to aim at.
When Lauren Grove was on the cusp of her freshman year, she looked up at the record board and told me, boldly and with absolute conviction in her voice, “I will be up there.”
She made it, in multiple events. When she finished her prep track career, she walked away, head held high, exactly the way she deserved to exit.
Right now, very likely, there is another 8th grader, staring up at the new, updated numbers, and saying to themselves, or someone else, “I will be up there.”
Likely standing right behind that young girl is Maya Toomey-Stout, slight smile on her face as she savors that momentary pause between volleyball practice and going out to train on the track by herself in the fading light.
The words of “The Gazelle” are probably half-whispered.
“You have to go through me first.”
And thus another chapter begins to unfold.
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