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| Originally
published December 25-26, 2001 :: Home Sports Editor's Note: The story of the Six Iron Lyncs is a labor of love for writer Scott Sandsberry, who researched the events and people involved in 1977, 1985 and again in the fall of 2001. It's a compelling story of ordinary young men struggling to deal with the expectations of a small community that placed inordinate weight on athletic endeavors ... and a school administration working to maintain integrity and high standards during a decade in which those often clashed with lifestyles. Scott and I are in agreement that it is the greatest high school sports story we know of. We hope, after reading the story, that you agree. -- Mike Anderson |
A Season of Change
Hoops, hard work, hard
choices permeated
By
SCOTT SANDSBERRY
Chapter One: Prologue -- March 25, 1976 A handful of players were off to the side, hefting bats and taking casual cuts as they awaited their turn in batting practice. One, though, had his attention drawn elsewhere -- to a small, blond-to-graying man perhaps 100 yards away, standing atop the bleachers overlooking the school's football field and track. "Hey," the player said to the others. "Is that Buff?" One of the others stepped closer. "What?" "Over there, top of the bleachers. Isn't that Mister DeHoog?" "What's he doing?" They didn't know. A decade later, one would say it looked like Bill DeHoog was memorizing the scene -- the small group of athletes on the track in their singlets and shorts, the baseball practice off to his left, maybe the aura of the afternoon itself. The coach stood for several minutes before slowly descending the bleacher steps and walking around the track, all at that same, unhurried pace. He responded with an easy smile to the track athletes who greeted him as they passed, and made his way over to the edge of the baseball field, where he briefly exchanged pleasantries with several players. They all knew him, of course. He was Mister DeHoog to some, Coach DeHoog to others, "Buff" behind his back to the boys who heeded his directions and ran his plays on the basketball court. But the nickname -- the meaning or origin of which no one seems to remember -- was not meant in a derisive way. Athletes have nicknames for the coaches they despise and the coaches they love. Bill DeHoog, a 53-year-old man who looked older, seemed younger and rarely raised his voice in anger, was loved. He didn't stay long that day. He had to go home and prune that stupid cherry tree in the yard, a chore he'd been grousing about for weeks -- using that same phrase to describe it -- even during the basketball season that had ended three weeks earlier. Oh, what a season that had been. Perhaps the most memorable basketball season -- or, at least, the most dramatic climax -- of any in Washington prep history. DeHoog had coached a Lynden Christian High School team whose cast and culmination have become so entwined in state sports lore that history has bestowed upon it a title. Its tale was not solely about basketball. It was also a confrontation between a Christian school, steeped in reverent tradition, and the very era in which it existed. It was a portrait of principle. A study in hard choices. It was the season of the Six Iron Lyncs.
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