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Stakes of the Game
Chapter Fourteen: Epitaph Glen Dykstra, too, is a dairy farmer, like his father and his father's father. He is married to Alice, and each of their three children have become all-state athletes at Lynden Christian. Six years after the 1976 championship season, a Lynden Christian boys basketball team employing the same selfless style and demonstrating the same kind of teamwork, sportsmanship and unflagging support of one another, won the state championship again. That team was coached by Kent DeHoog ... Bill's son. On March 25, 1976, just three weeks after coaching Lynden Christian to its first state title in any sport, Bill DeHoog paid that impromptu visit to the school's spring-sport athletes as they practiced -- a few precious moments that, in the hours and days to come, would seem poignant. Because then he went out to prune his backyard cherry tree, the one he had groused about for weeks ... and died of a heart attack. He was mourned by thousands, eulogized at great length by the media, remembered not just for his accomplishments as a coach but for what he stood for as a man. Those who knew him well say that he seemed truly happy in those final three weeks, not just because of the championship, but for the players on his team who had won it. They also say he truly loved those players.
All 12 of them.
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