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Posts Tagged ‘Whidbey Island’

Epic run, big reward!!

Posted in Fundraisers, Running, tagged , , , , on July 31, 2017| Leave a Comment »

James Steller

James Steller is running for the kids.

He plans to circumnavigate Whidbey Island by foot — that’s 160 miles of running — over Labor Day weekend, while raising funds for the Community Foundation for Coupeville Public Schools.

Steller, a distance runner who has competed in everything from a 5K to a 120-mile stage race, is attempting to go where no one else may have gone before.

After checking with local historians and scouring the internet, Steller believes he will be the first to attempt the feat on foot.

The run, set for Sept. 1-3, is being organized as a fundraiser for the foundation, which supports school children in need, gives grants to teachers and awards scholarships to graduating seniors.

Steller will launch his run from Mickey Clark Field at Coupeville Elementary School, and the plan is to run to Langley on day one.

Day two will send him back to Coupeville, with day three (after a “power breakfast of cinnamon rolls from the Knead and Feed”) featuring a run North to Deception Pass Bridge, then back again.

He’ll be following perimeter streets, trails and beaches, and plans to update his progress on the Foundation’s Facebook page as he runs.

“Well, at least when there is cell service,” Steller said with a laugh.

While a regular 26.2 mile marathon is enough to scare off most people, averaging 50+ miles a day for three straight days is a monumental challenge.

“I am not sure if I can do it, but that is what inspires me to start,” Steller said. “I think this will be great for our community, the schools and the foundation and a great way to kick off the new school year!”

After moving to Whidbey Island in 2001, Steller, whose son Grant currently attends Coupeville Middle School, picked up the running bug.

He ran his first marathon in 2004 and has gone on to compete in more than 70 events, tallying 1,300 miles of competitive racing. Not to mention the thousands more run on his own time.

Over the years, Steller has competed in prestigious events like the Boston Marathon, while also taking on the challenge of unusual events such as a marathon where racers ran up the Matterhorn.

He joined the Community Foundation for Coupeville Public Schools after seeing the impact the organization had, then concocted his own way of giving back to the community.

“It was seeing the care and excellence of the teachers in the district that inspired me to get involved, join the Foundation board, and concoct this crazy attempt,” Steller said. “They have made a true difference in our community – and this seems like a great way to support them.”

The goal is to raise at least $5,000 for the Foundation, with he and his family agreeing to match any donations up to $2,500.

Donate $100 and you’ll be entered into a random raffle for a two-night stay at Steller’s guesthouse, which overlooks the water and the Olympics.

For more about Steller, his run, and how to donate, pop over to:

http://www.4coupevilleschools.org/circumnavigate-whidbey-is.html

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Girls, hoop it up!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , on March 16, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Release the Kracken!

Want to play select basketball but don’t want to spend every day traveling off Whidbey for practice?

You’re in luck, at least if you’re a girl in grades 2-7 (or the parent of said girl).

Whidbey Elite, a competitive AAU program, is launching in Oak Harbor, and hopes to draw players from the entire Island.

Tryouts are Mar. 28 at Oak Harbor High School and the season runs April-August.

The squad will practice twice a week, with an optional third training day, and compete in tournaments throughout the Pacific Northwest,

For all the particulars, info registration or to contact team officials, hop over to:

http://www.whidbeyhoops.com/

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One team to rule the Island!!

Posted in Boys Basketball, Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , , on February 1, 2017| Leave a Comment »

David and Amy King (John Fisken photo)

   Amy and David King are the masterminds behind Whidbey Island’s most successful high school hoops program. (John Fisken photo)

Wins and losses don’t lie; Whidbey Island is in the middle of a basketball funk.

With one noticeable exception — the Coupeville girls — our six high school varsity hoops squads have spent the past five years doing one thing, and one thing only, on a consistent basis.

Lose.

This is not opinion, this is fact.

There are the CHS girls, who have won 61 games and counting (they’re 14-3 this season) and then you fall off a cliff and keep rolling until the bottom.

From 2012-2013 to today, these are the numbers for the past five seasons for the Coupeville, Oak Harbor and South Whidbey programs:

Team Wins Winning seasons Seasons with 10+ wins Playoff wins
CP girls 61 3 4 2
SW girls 38 0 2 1
SW boys 36 0 0 2
OH boys 26 1 1 2
CP boys 23 0 0 0
OH girls 21 0 0 0

So, that’s four winning seasons out of a possible 30, with the Wolf girls having ripped off three straight and the only other one coming courtesy of the 2012-2013 Oak Harbor boys.

There’s a chance the South Whidbey girls will hold on to notch a fifth winning season, but the odds are stacked against the Falcons.

They’re 10-9 right now, but face juggernaut King’s in their regular season finale, which means it’s 99.2% likely they’re at .500 heading into the playoffs.

Bothered greatly by injuries, it appears unlikely South Whidbey has the depth to make a sustained playoff run, so a winning season is not getting very good odds in Vegas right now.

So, why is one team doing so well when the other five are not?

It’s true that the Coupeville girls benefited from having a transcendent player the past four seasons in Makana Stone, but other programs have been blessed with skilled hoops stars during the same time frame.

South Whidbey had Hayley Newman, Chase White and Lewis Pope, Oak Harbor suited up Dyllan Harris and Brynn Langrock and Coupeville had Wiley Hesselgrave and Mia Littlejohn.

You could argue those players were and are good, sometimes very good, but not truly great like all-timers Lindsey Newman, Pete Petrov or Brannon Stone, who led their teams to big-time success on and off Whidbey back in the day.

So, with apologies to Pope, who certainly seems to be getting there, we’ll say Stone is the one true all-timer to play on Whidbey in the past five years.

But, while say, South Whidbey fell sharply off after Hayley Newman’s departure in 2013, the Coupeville girls have responded to Stone’s graduation with a ten-game winning streak, a third-straight league title and strong hopes of a return visit to state.

So I think the Wolf girls success springs from something deeper.

All of our local coaches, at all three schools, seem to be hard workers, often innovators and deeply committed to their programs.

I’m not dogging on any of them, but I am giving a shout-out to David and Amy King, who have run the CHS girls program for five seasons now.

Their style works, and it shows both in wins and losses and in the way the Wolves are booming in numbers.

Players are staying for the full four years, new players are joining, players (on both varsity and the equally successful JV) are buying in to a team-first, every-player-has-a-role-and-accepts-it mantra.

Maybe it’s the unique situation of having a husband/wife duo running a program, maybe it’s their backgrounds as life-long hoops players and coaches, maybe they just have a magic touch.

So, other coaches, my suggestion? Study what the Wolf duo is doing. Take notes and maybe think about implementing some of their ideas into your own programs.

Cause right now, over the past five years? They’re the ones doing things right.

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Let’s shake it up!!

Posted in Ranting and Raving, tagged , , , , , , on November 27, 2016| 1 Comment »

It's a big, wild world of mascots out there. It's time to think beyond Wolves.

It’s a big, wild world of mascots out there. It’s time to think beyond Wolves.

We are the Wolves, but so is everyone else.

Coupeville High School shares a mascot with at least six other Washington state high schools, including one rival we face a lot.

That’s Sequim, the school which produced current CHS Athletic Director Willie Smith.

But if Coupeville were to play Black Hills, Eastlake, Muckleshoot Tribal, South Kitsap or Wapato, it would offer an equal amount of confusion.

And that’s not to mention our former Cascade Conference rival, the Cedarcrest Red Wolves, or the schools — Goldendale, Heritage, Jackson, Morton-White Pass and Tekoa-Rosalia — which celebrate Timberwolves.

Frankly, it’s time to mix things up.

The closest real wolf pack as of June 2016 is halfway across the state, with the vast majority of wolves camped out in upper Eastern Washington these days.

We have no real connection to the animal here on Whidbey, and that’s never going to change, barring a wild and illogical plan being hatched to relocate a pack to Deception Pass State Park to weed out the weaker tourists.

It’s just a mascot we have for no particular reason (much like Oak Harbor’s Wildcats and South Whidbey’s Falcons) and it lumps us into a large gray mass in the middle.

Now would be a great time to change mascots, build a new brand, sell a lot of merchandise and catch everyone’s attention.

How, you ask?

By actually hailing our heritage or surroundings and doing so in a fun manner that would get people talking (and t-shirts flying out the door).

By being unique.

Let’s break from the pack (nudge, nudge…) and join the likes of the Davenport Gorillas, the Quincy Jackrabbits, the Ridgefield Spudders or the Northwest Yeshiva 613s.

And yes, that last one is real. The school is offering a shout-out to the number of commandments in the Torah.

While calling ourselves the Coupeville Head-Loppers (in tribute to Isaac Ebey’s final encounter with the natives) would probably be frowned upon, imagine if we were the Coupeville Clams (Killer Clams?), Sea Captains or Mussels.

For one thing, the new student chant “We are the mighty, mighty Mussels” practically writes itself.

Heck, there are enough cows (“Bow Down to Cow Town”) and Raccoons (“Rabies, Rabies, You’re all Gettin’ Rabies”) in our town that both make more sense than Wolves.

Or, pay tribute to the Puget Sound mosquito fleets (“The Coupeville Mosquitoes drained the life blood out of the Cowboys”).

Choose creatively — don’t wuss out like Port Townsend did when they replaced Redskins with RedHawks, passing on Riptides and Sasquatch — then craft a memorable logo.

No one outside of our immediate fan base is buying Coupeville Wolves merchandise.

The Coupeville Cows, with a cartoon heifer doing the Heisman pose, or the Coupeville Killer Clams (with a saucy cartoon mollusk striking an Arnold Schwarzenegger pose?

We’re talking Biloxi Shuckers or Hartford Yard Goats style money for days.

Translation: 17 random guys in Michigan who couldn’t tell you where Washington state was on a map suddenly all want to wear your gear.

We’re sitting on a financial windfall here, and we just need someone in power brave enough to stand up and say, “I have seen the future … and it’s full of mighty, mighty Mussels, baby!!”

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Help tomorrow’s spikers, today!!

Posted in Volleyball, tagged , , , , on October 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »

(John Fisken photo)

   Rise up and help make volleyball on Whidbey Island super successful. (John Fisken photo)

The Whidbey Volleyball Club needs you.

Once it’s fully up and going, the new organization will offer playing opportunities to Island players from ages 10-18.

But, as things kick off, there’s a need for coaches, equipment and places to play.

With tryouts in late Nov. and the season running through spring, the club is competing for playing space with basketball, and is looking for options outside of the high school and middle schools.

The club is also looking for organizations which would be interested in helping Whidbey Volleyball cover the costs of equipment and anyone interested in joining the coaching staff.

If you can help with any of the issues (playing space, equipment or coaches) contact whidbeyvolleyball@gmail.com today.

Cause, the community that spikes together stays together.

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