The Kitsap Sports Hall of Fame will take in 20 individuals and two sports teams at its annual induction ceremony scheduled for Oct. 4 at Olympic College. Leading the way will be the late Chuck Haselwood, who built an auto dealership that includes a large tract at West Hills in Bremerton.

Haselwood and his widow Joanne Haselwood have been important community activist and have donated large sums of time and money to various projects in the area.

Also to be inducted are Joe Aiken (father of wrestling in the area), Orville Anderson (South Kitsap athlete and basketball coach), Dick Baird (former Olympic High and Olympic College coach, as well as coach at the University of Washington), Jack Dean (boxing), Tom, Bob, Jim and Leon Fox (auto racing), Cal Gilbert (boxing), Darwin Gilchrist (basketball), Melissa Korb (fastpitch softball), Christina Marshall (basketball), Mike O’Brien (football), Marty Osborn (football), Lloyd Pugh (track and field), Dwight Scheyer (football), Art Sperber (horseshoes), Bill Walker (baseball) and Jim Wiley (football).

The 1953 Bremerton High School baseball team and the 1950 South Kitsap basketball team will also be inducted.

Pat O’Day, who as Paul Berg graduated from Bremerton High School in 1953, will be the master of ceremonies. O’Day was the long-time radio announcer for Seafair Hydro races on Lake Washington.

East High basketball with

Eathorne being documented

Some of Hall of Fame coach Les Eathorne’s former East High of Bremerton players have been busy putting together a history of East High basketball (1956-78), putting down in writing and in video much of it.

“They meet about every two weeks at my house,” says Eathorne, who coached the Knights to back-to-back state 2A basketball championships in 1973-74 and was the only basketball coach in East history. “One of them is a computer guy, one is a digger, an information gatherer. They have been working pretty well together. I don’t know what they are coming up with, but they keep asking me, ‘What about this, what about that.’ I tell them as much as I remember.”

There are three main history-diggers involved – Kevin Olson, the sixth man on the 1973 championship team, Rick Torseth, a reserve on that team whose father Bob Torseth was a long-time Bremerton Sun sportswriter, and Bryan Garinger, who was a starter on the 1974 title team.

This all got started after Bob Torseth died. Family members were going through his papers and came across an incomplete history of East High basketball started by former Bremerton coach Gordy Duda, who now lives in Las Vegas.

“It was a history of East basketball up to about 1965-66,” Rick Torseth said. “I passed it on to Les, Kevin, Mark (Eathorne) and Bryan and one thing let to another and we decided we should complete this.”

The group has been going at it for about a year. They have been taken it year by year and at last report were closing in on the finish line. What they discovered is Eathorne, who is 84, has a solid memory and is especially good at story telling. When they realized the benefits of his stories, the began to record them for prosperity.

One of the stories they might have heard dealt with the day in 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Eathorne was on his way to the gym – where else? – to play some basketball.

“I was walking down Warren Avenue when somebody said they bombed Pearl Harbor,” Eathorne said. “I could hear it over the radios. It was a Sunday afternoon. I was going to the gym. A war like that doesn’t stop you from going to the gym. We played like we usually did, then I came home.

“But the next night I was at open gym and I walked across Lincoln Field. It was late and everything was dark. All the lights were off. I started over the hill and down the bank and somebody said, ‘Halt or I will fire.’ I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m a common guy, what is this?’ There were a line of tents and I was right in the middle of them. They ushered me out of there and when I got home I was scared as hell.”

There was a genuine concern that the mainland of the U.S. along the West Coast would be the next target of the Japanese and Eathorne said two days later he and another student, George Campbell, were sent to the roof of the high school building with brooms and buckets. They were supposed to sweep up any incendiaries that were dropped on the roof.

“So here I am, sitting on a building that would burn down, and I’m on top of it trying to stop it,” Eathorne said. “We are up there guarding the place. It was ridiculous.”

Torseth doesn’t know what form the final product will take. He does know that it took a little while for them to realize Eathorne’s stories were an important part of the process. Once they figured that out, they began putting the stories in the history along with entries about each season and final win-loss records, that sort of stuff.

“This is something that could be published in some format, but I hesitate t call it a book. That’s lofty ambition,” Torseth said. “If nothing else, we will post in a Web site, similar to that Bremerton Web site (done by Jim Portune). “

The important thing Torseth said they began to realize is that the history of East High basketball not be lost to history. They want to keep alive the legacy of Eathorne and the program.

Eathorne coached 41 years, starting out in Camas in 1950 and then finishing up with East High and Olympic High. He compiled a 502-378 record, eighth all-time in the state of Washington.

Total Package Hoops

continues to grow dreams

On the web site for Total Package Hoops a saying is posted that pretty much sums up what the organization’s director, Craig Murray, hopes to accomplish with his training of basketball athletes.

“When the team you have doesn’t match up to the team of your dreams, then you have only two choices: Give up your dream or grow up your team.”

Murray, along with his staff of Rick Walker, Kevin Van Hook and wife Megan Murray, insist to grow up teams, including the players on them.

“It’s the dedication, the commitment and the understanding of the vision they (players) have and the vision and knowledge we have,” says Murray as he explains the organization’s intent with its clinics, training and teams (there are 8). “A lot of people can show you how to play the sport, but to teach it and communicate it so a kid can understand it and then put what you teach to what they are doing appropriate for their level, whatever that level my be for that kid, that’s what we do.”

Murray said it’s the ability to evaluate each kid to determine what level of play he, set a vision and then teach to that level and vision that leads to success. He says some coaches can teach but don’t understand how to make the teaching sink in.

“We understand how to get to a kid and get them to understand and then motivate them in a way they need to be motivated,” Murray said. “It takes a lot of patience.”

The other thing Murray stressed is that his organization is dedicated to the welfare of their athletes.

“We care about each and every kid that comes through the door,” he says. “Total Package isn’t just a basketball program. It’s a family organization.”

Murray played at Seattle’s Garfield High School, helping the Bulldogs to a state championship. He played two years at the University of Hawaii and finished his career at Idaho State. For eight years he assisted Barry Janusch with the men’s basketball program at Olympic College. This is the eighth year of Total Package Hoops.

There are currently 11 TPH teams – 6th-grade, 7th grade, two 8th grade, 9th grade and three varsity boys and 8th, 9th and varsity girls – with 135 players involved in the organization.

The top boys team just played in a tournament in Las Vegas and the top girls team just returned from a tournament in Tempe, Ariz.

Megan Murray’s top girls team includes Brittany Gray, Kirstin Michael and Miki Johns of Bainbridge, Darcy Hughes, North Kitsap, Alli Madison, Kennedy High School, Jackie Steiger, Marcus Whitman Junior High, and Emily Bando and Cassie Fawcett of Gig Harbor.

The top boys team includes Tionne Curry of South Kitsap, Kyle Erickson, North Kitsap, Chad Rasmussen, Curtis High School, Jordan Cain, Bellarmine Prep, Ryan Rogers, Auburn Riverside, Ary Webb, Sequim, Austin Jenkins, Gig Harbor, Christian Wesly and Matt Wain, Central Kitsap, and Jimmy Baggett, Bainbridge.

Tara Black good

as gold at state meet

Tara Black of the Olympic Gymnastic Center won three events (vault, beam and floor exercise) and the all-around at the age 13 Level 7 State Gymnastics meet held at Auburn Mountainview High School.

Another OGC gymnast, Mara Ong, won floor exercise and placed second on vault and bars and took second in all-around in the 12-year-old bracket

Seven other OGC gymnasts competed at the meet, including Mary Jane Thompson who placed third in vault in 10-year-old competition, and Katie Baretela, who played third in age 13 in vault.

Greg Mutchler’s OGC team finished third in team competition with a 113.150 score. Auburn won with a 113.975 and Grace Academy out of Tacoma was second at 113.375.

Legion, NK Babe Ruth

combine as Kitsap Post 68

Brent Stenman and Tim Stabler are joining baseball forces this summer to form a combined Babe Ruth-American Legion baseball team that will be known as Kitsap Post 68.

Stenman, an assistant coach at North Kitsap, coached a North Kitsap team to the Babe Ruth World Series two years ago and has coached in the NK Babe Ruth program for a while. Stabler has coached legion ball the past two summers.

Stabler said the senior legion team will draw players from Klahowya, Bremerton, North Kitsap and Kingston. The team will play just over 40 games against Babe Ruth, Legion and Connie Mack teams, starting Memorial Day weekend.

Post 68 will also host the Regional Senior Babe Ruth Tournament at the end of July.

Stabler said he has three kids back from last year’s Post 68 squad – Brad Durham, Jordan Green and Josh Horst. Eli Olson of Bremerton joins the team, as does, Seth Green of Klahowya, Rueben Smith, Chris Jones and Kyle Murray from Kingston, and Robert Jordan and Kramer Uvila from North Kitsap. James Smith, who used to play at NK, also will be on the team.

North Kitsap assistant Mike Jones will also coach.

“We’re excited,” said Stabler of the coaching arrangement. “We get along well together, we both have been head coaches, we both have been through the wars and both are coaching for the right reasons, and we both are willing to be co-head coaches.

Mary Pesco, wife of

OC legendary coach, dies

Forty-six years after legendary Olympic College basketball coach Phil Pesco died of a heart attack, his wife, Mary Pesco, passed on. Mary Pesco was 102 when she died in late March at her home in SeaTac.

Mary Pesco was born in Blaine, graduated from the University of Washington (1927), earned her masters degree from the school, taught high school at Prosser, Centralia and Lincoln, served in the WAVES during World War II and married Phil Pesco in 1947, the year before he became head coach at OC.

She taught at Olympic College and founded the business school at the college. Ten years after Phil died in 1962, Mary Pesco moved from Bremerton to Des Moines and then SeaTac.

Phil Pesco led the 1948 OC Rangers to fourth place in the National Junior College Tournament and is in the Kitsap Sports Hall of Fame.

Mary Pesco left behind this note to all her family and friends:

“Your fellowship and participation in my life brought many moments of joy and happiness. We laughed and cried and sometimes we prayed together.

Do not feel sad for me now that I have continued my journey alone. I am tired and looking forward.

Love and God bless you,

Mary”

Mary Pesco was buried in her hometown of Blaine.

Off-track betting

at A&C Sports Bar

Horse track betting has never been easier to see at east Bremerton’s A&C Sports Bar. Owner Rick Peachy has 10 new 40-inch HD television sets in place to view horse races from all around the country.

“We wanted to make sure the bettors can see their horses coming in (winning),” quipped A&C owner Rick Peachy.

There are a total of 15 TV sets, including a 62-inch wide screen to view the action from tracks like Keeneland (Kentucky), Hawthrone (Illinois), Hollywood Park (California), Bay Meadows (California), Pimlico (Maryland), and others, including Emerald Downs, which opened April 16 and is offering more purse money this season and attracting better horses from California..

Off-track betting runs from Wednesday through Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. at A&C. The Daily Racing form can be purchased at A&C and Ralph’s Red Apple on Kitsap Way in Bremerton. There is a morning form for tracks on the east coast and an afternoon for tracks on the west coast. Cost is $4 each.

Peachy said A&C offers low beer prices and hot food.

“”We’re blue-collar all the way,” Peachy said. “We got great hot food. We’re not the quickest place in town, but definitely quality food.”

The A&C opens at 6 a.m., although Peachy said people can come in at 5:30 for coffee. For more information, call (360) 377-3248.

AROUND TOWN – Bremerton’s Nathan Adrian won the 100 free in meet record time and was a member of the U.S. swim team that set a world record in the 400 free relay at the short-course World Championships in England. ... Former South Kitsap and University of Washington football star, Benji Olson, retired after 10 seasons with the Tennessee Titans of the NFL. ... Central Kitsap will play a team from Hawaii in the 2008 Emerald City Kickoff Classic at Quest Field in Seattle. The classic is scheduled for Sept. 6. ... Olympic High School Athletic Director Steve Lutz will step down from those duties at the end of the season so he can spend more time with his family. Lutz will continue on at the school as a teacher. ... PREP BASKETBALL – King’s West senior Megan Spence was named first team 2B All State for the second straight year by the Associated Press. Spence is the fourth all-time career scorer in West Sound history, boy or girl. Bainbridge junior Brittany Gray as also a first team All-State selection in 3A. ... COLLEGE REPORT – Florida State senior Tiffany McDonald, who is from North Mason, threw a no-hitter this year for the Seminoles. ... Kayla Bennett played high school basketball at Bremerton and Central Kitsap and spent the last two seasons scoring over 900 points for North Seattle Community College. Now she will complete her college career at Seattle University. Bennett has verbally committed to play for the Redhawks this coming season. Kevin Bennett said his daughter has a 3.5 grade-point average. ... Two South Kitsap juniors, Collin Monagle and Brady Steiger, have verbally committed to play in the Pac-10. Monagle will pitch for Washington and Steiger is scheduled to be a third baseman for Washington State. ... Bremerton senior Billy Richardson has verbally committed to wrestle at Mesa State College in Colorado. ... Klahowya senior Rusty Devitt has verbally committed to play for Western Nevada College (Carson City), a two-year school, although that may be derailed if the right-handed pitcher is selected in the June Amateur Draft conducted by Major League Baseball. ... Two Central Kitsap senior volleyball players have signed to play the sport in college. Theresia Dever will play at St. Martin’s and Angela Spieker will play at Southern Oregon.