It had all the trappings of a ritual played out many times over, with a bit of a twist for 2009. It was the pre-Spaghetti Bowl appearance at the local Kiwanis Club breakfast for Bothell High football coach Tom Bainter and his rival at Inglemoor High, the seasoned veteran Frank Naish.
Good-natured throughout, Bainter and Naish fell all over themselves complimenting one another, Bainter offering at least one weakness of his second-ranked Cougar 11 and Naish going old shoe, old school with a story about how a pair of twins tend to confuse him during practice.
Naish’s principal, Vicki Sherwood, was also in attendance. Frank took the opportunity to appeal to her to rid the Vikings’ school of teachers who also happen to coach the Falcons of Woodinville High. Bothell principal Bob Stewart introduced the pair, noting his years of service at Inglemoor before his assignment at Bothell. Bob’s wife, Gretchen, related that having a husband at Bothell and two students at Inglemoor makes life interesting for her at the traditional Spaghetti Bowl.
Dick Ramsey noted that he had been around the school district so long, following high-school sports, that Inglemoor hadn’t even been built when he saw his first game in Bothell. Retired Inglemoor principal 94-year-old Si Siverson, a Kiwanian, reminded Ramsey that Si had opened the school.
The gridiron rivalry goes on for real this Friday night at 7 p.m. at Pop Keeney Field. Before kickoff, the Kiwanis club will put on another spaghetti feed next to the stadium at the Anderson School cafeteria from 4-7 p.m. It has become a popular event for parents and townfolk who follow the schools and are regulars at least for this one high-school game each year.
Naish was fresh from his single-digit victory over Woodinville, the Vikings having come from behind the week before in a 27-26 overtime win. “They just keep on playing, never quit,” Naish repeated himself reviewing his 2009 edition. The Cougars knocked over Ballard, 42-7.
Each coach expanded on their respective teams. Bainter is in his 10th season, and noted that when he first took the coaching job, his Cougars were usually quick and fast, possibly a little undersized. He described the 2009 squad as comparatively a bit oversized “with athleticism.” Bothell’s “smallest” lineman, for instance, weighs in at 218 pounds, a far cry from an average of 170 pounds in his first season as head coach.
Bothell has three seniors who are Division 1 college-football prospects, two of whom have committed to the Washington Huskies. The starting left tackle is 6-foot-4 and 310 pounds. Inglemoor’s Naish nodded in the affirmative that Inglemoor’s scouting report had already taken note that Bothell tends to run block to the left and pass to the right as a result.
Taking the position of “home team” coach in this intra-district battle, the understating coach Naish compared his “no-name” team as being “not real big.” He has one college prospect on the line at 260 pounds. Practices can be interesting, he added.
The Vikings have identical twins in Shamus and Shawn Mukai. For a while, coaches were unsure of which twin was which participating in a particular drill and suspected that Shawn and Shamus might be exploiting the situation just for fun. Naish said one now has to wear gray shoes, the other, the traditional blacks.
Naish reported that Inglemoor has six seniors on the team who do well in the classroom, all with grade-point averages of 3.85 or better. Quarterback Derek Wagner at 5-7 holds a 3.95 GPA, Naish boasted.
Sounded to me like the wily Naish might be setting the stage for a Friday night upset at Pop Keeney.
Vote by mail
Pardon the play on words here, but voting by mail probably wasn’t even thought about in the early days of the 20th century when only males had the right to vote in this and most other states. In King County, almost 100 years after an all-male state legislature first voted women the right to vote, we will be electing city council and other non-partisan officeholders next month entirely by mail ballot.
I’ll bet you didn’t know that when Carrie Shumway was elected to the Kirkland City Council in 1911, she was the first woman ever to hold an elected city office in this state. Bothell’s own Patty Murray was the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Washington state, and is completing her third, six-year term in 2010.
The woman’s suffrage movement in Washington state was a primary exhibit theme this fall at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma. The on-again, off again woman’s right to vote in this state is an interesting story.
John B. Hughes was owner-publisher of the Northshore Citizen from 1961 to 1988 and is active in local nonprofit organizations.
