Setting the record straight on N. Kitsap; what's Eathorne up to?

It turns out that Fife is more of a menace to the North Kitsap football team than most of us thought.

Fife, to jog your memory, knocked the Vikings out of the state AA football playoffs I 1985, 1987 and the Trojans did tit again last week by a 7-0 score.

It’s been reported in this, your favorite daily afternoon sports section published in downtown Bremerton, that Jerry Parrish’s North Kitsap team was the first to complete a perfect regular season in the school’s history. The Olympic League champion Vikings were 9-0 before running into Fife.

WELL, WE WERE wrong. Roy Rasmussen informs us that the Boys of Poulsbo in 1939 also completed a perfect season. North, a small class B school at the time, won eight straight games, outscoring opponents by a combined score of 200-19. Coached by Dwight Scheyer, North was matched against Fife at the end of the year in a game touted as “the mythical class B state high school championship.”

A crowd of 2,500 turned out at Bremerton Memorial Stadium. The final score: Fife 7, North Kitsap 0.

Scheyer, who lost just three games in his four years of coaching at North, still lives in Bremerton. “I just had an exceptional bunch of kids,’ he recalled. “We won the Tri-County championship all four years.”

Scheyer remember the Fife game.

“We tried a couple of trick plays. Ed Gerstenberger, a halfback, got the final lateral on one play and was 15 yards ahead of everyone, but they had a fast kid who ran him down,” said Scheyer.

The 1947 Bremerton team was 12-0 and beat Ballard of Seattle in the Thanksgiving Day game. The ’49 team was 10-0. “We had about six backs that could run like deer on that ’47 team,” said Scheyer. “It was the deepest team. We had so much talent.”

“The ’49 team was really a tough team, so tough we didn’t scrimmage much.”

SCHEYER SAYS his North teams weren’t as good as his good Bremerton clubs, “but you wouldn’t expect them to be. I wasn’t nearly as large a school, but we had some real strong kids and speed.”

Jack Chittum, Elmer “Bud” Kvinsland, Jim Fox, Lavern Hershey (“a 125-punder who hit you like a 225-pound linebacker”) and Rasmussen were some players on the ’39 North Kitsap team.

* * *                    * * *

I couldn’t help but wonder what Les Eathorne was doing on the first day of high school basketball practice?

“I’m just siting here,” said Eathorne, who answered his phone at home. “I washed my car earlier. Not a very productive day, really. I just kind of dinked around.”

Eathorne retired last season after 39 seasons of coaching the roundball sport, 32 of them in Bremerton.

Eathorne’s staying busy, though. He and his wife Patty recently returned from a trip to Washington D.C. “We saw Gettysburg and all those historical places,” said Eathorne. “Sure had a lot of fun. I learned a lot, too. Should have gone back long ago.”

Eathorne’s working as a substitute teacher, selling sporting goods part-time for a local business and will work high school games as a color man for KITZ radio this winter.

“Maybe that’s why I don’t have any pangs right now.”

He’s making plans to travel to Arizona in order to take in spring training.

He’s not suffering any basketball withdrawals.

“Maybe when it’s over, it’s over,” said Eathorne. “I always used to wonder why Chuck (Semancik) didn’t come to practices after he retired. Larry (Gallagher, the new basketball coach) asked why I didn’t come around the gym. The reason, I guess, is because I don’t want to.

“I think I’ll enjoy watching the games but standing around and watching practices no longer interests me. Five years ago when I quit smoking, I had a few bad days, but then it’s was not problem. I suppose I’ll miss it for a while, but I don’t think it’ll be that bad. I’ll get over it.”

Eathorne would have his varsity and junior varsity squads picked after the second practice. He didn’t enjoy telling kids they were cut Tuesday night.

“That’s something I could never get used to,” he said. “Nobody ever told me I couldn’t play.”

Eathorne knew what he had before practices opened. “I had seen all the kids in open gyms. The actual part of turning out was secondary as far as making the team.

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