I think that what you are doing here to honor Coach Eathorne in documenting the history of East High School basketball is such a great idea and wonderful for the community.
My years of playing basketball at East High School and for Coach Eathorne were fantastic. We were trying to establish a new identity for East Bremerton as the school was only four years old when I graduated. I was part of the first freshman class when I was there. It was a very exciting time as far as lessons carried over to work life. I think it was the finest opportunity that anybody could have to develop lessons that are going to help them in business and in married life or whatever else.
As far as after graduation, I came back and coached at West High School from 1966-1971 and then another coach from Central Kitsap High School, Bob Moawad and I, started in the early 1970s a business called “Edge Learning Institute” that I still own and am the CEO of, to this day. We have had this company for the last 35 years. Bob Moawad passed away about a year and a half ago so I have the company by myself now, but Bob and I were business partners for 33 of those 35 years. We do training for corporations throughout the United States as well as some international enterprises as well.
Dick Anderson, CEO
Edge Learning Institute
Tacoma, WA
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Rick Walker - 1974
I have to start when our family moved to East 29th Street. (Strange isn’t it, EAST 29th Street.) I was perhaps, 8 years old. Very quickly the neighbors behind us, on East 28th Street, realized the four Walker boys (Bob, Rick, Mike and Brian) were loud and entertaining.
The neighbor behind us was the Eathorne family.
The first impression we gave our neighbor was the day we locked Mike out of the house. It ended with a CRASH! Our house had two sliding glass doors. The downstairs sliding glass door was in little pieces on the ground. The Walker boys had arrived!
Les saw that I was the tall one and perhaps wanted to keep me out of trouble. He must of asked Mark to invite me over to see if I could play basketball. I remember the day Mark first asked me if I wanted to play basketball.
I said, “Sure.”
He threw me a round orange ball. (And I said to myself, what do I do with this? I really had not heard of the game of basketball.) They had a hoop nailed to the back of their garage. That was the day I was introduced to the game of basketball.
As the years went by, Mark would invite me to go with him and his dad to the East High gym. The basketball team had practice. We would watch them run around for a while, then, we would go play on the wrestling mats, swing on the climbing rope, hide under the bleachers and basically stay out of trouble.
I was invited to go to some of the games. It was awesome for a young kid to see the drama of East basketball before the game even began. The players running through the banner, the Knight and squire with the sword coming into the gym, the lights going out and the spotlight coming on, people cheering and going crazy, the introduction of the players, the pep band. All was designed to create the atmosphere for East High Basketball.
The most fun was sitting behind the East High bench. We would look like we were watching the game, but secretly we played our own little game. We would dare each other to trace with our finger, very lightly, over the name stitched on the back of the warm up jackets. If the player felt our touch, by usually turning around to see what we were doing, we would lose. I remember the toughest name to get all the way through, without him feeling it, was Gundlefinger.
Then came the day I was to attend East High School. As a freshman I feared, Mr. Eathorne even though I grew up in his neighborhood. At school, he had a way to instill fear in freshmen.
I started going to open gyms to play. The East High gym was the place to be on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sunday afternoons. I remember the day he told me to guard Steve Boyce. THE Steve Boyce? He was a senior, I was a freshman. “Boy”, I thought, “Eathorne did not like me.”
That’s the way Les coached. He challenged you to compete beyond your comfort zone in an attempt to help you realize your full potential.
I remember him saying to me after one open gym, “Good job, Walker.”
Man, that was a great feeling. I also discovered that playing with the “big boys” wasn’t all that difficult. The coach just wanted to see your hustle your butt off. You did not need a lot of talent.
He did not have to say much. After awhile, one could tell whether he approved of your play by the way he looked at you.
When I became a junior, something changed. He talked to me more as a person, not just a player. I found out that he purposely instilled fear in the heart and minds of little freshmen to see if they really wanted to play East High Basketball.
Coach taught his players how to represent their family and community; how to take pride in their school; how to conduct themselves in public; what it meant to work hard and pursue excellence. He had high expectations and he expected you to fulfill them. He taught us to be quality young men and contributing citizens.
It was Les that introduced me to coaching. Les called me up the day before practice was to begin in 1984 and said he did not have a JV coach for this season. He asked me to come down to the gym and apply. If I liked it, I could have a job. Like it! It was great!
As I went on in my coaching career, East High basketball was the standard I used to evaluate any other program. It was the example I followed to build my programs.
From watching the drama as a kid, to being part of the drama was an experience I cannot fully articulate. The website explains more of the traditions that impacted the young men who played for him and the community. I have seen and experienced Coach Eathorne’s commitment to his players from an early age. I thank him for his influence. I was unusually blessed having a coach and mentor who was a neighbor and is a friend.
Rick Walker
King’s West School
Sports Beyond
The neighbor behind us was the Eathorne family.
The first impression we gave our neighbor was the day we locked Mike out of the house. It ended with a CRASH! Our house had two sliding glass doors. The downstairs sliding glass door was in little pieces on the ground. The Walker boys had arrived!
Les saw that I was the tall one and perhaps wanted to keep me out of trouble. He must of asked Mark to invite me over to see if I could play basketball. I remember the day Mark first asked me if I wanted to play basketball.
I said, “Sure.”
He threw me a round orange ball. (And I said to myself, what do I do with this? I really had not heard of the game of basketball.) They had a hoop nailed to the back of their garage. That was the day I was introduced to the game of basketball.
As the years went by, Mark would invite me to go with him and his dad to the East High gym. The basketball team had practice. We would watch them run around for a while, then, we would go play on the wrestling mats, swing on the climbing rope, hide under the bleachers and basically stay out of trouble.
I was invited to go to some of the games. It was awesome for a young kid to see the drama of East basketball before the game even began. The players running through the banner, the Knight and squire with the sword coming into the gym, the lights going out and the spotlight coming on, people cheering and going crazy, the introduction of the players, the pep band. All was designed to create the atmosphere for East High Basketball.
The most fun was sitting behind the East High bench. We would look like we were watching the game, but secretly we played our own little game. We would dare each other to trace with our finger, very lightly, over the name stitched on the back of the warm up jackets. If the player felt our touch, by usually turning around to see what we were doing, we would lose. I remember the toughest name to get all the way through, without him feeling it, was Gundlefinger.
Then came the day I was to attend East High School. As a freshman I feared, Mr. Eathorne even though I grew up in his neighborhood. At school, he had a way to instill fear in freshmen.
I started going to open gyms to play. The East High gym was the place to be on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sunday afternoons. I remember the day he told me to guard Steve Boyce. THE Steve Boyce? He was a senior, I was a freshman. “Boy”, I thought, “Eathorne did not like me.”
That’s the way Les coached. He challenged you to compete beyond your comfort zone in an attempt to help you realize your full potential.
I remember him saying to me after one open gym, “Good job, Walker.”
Man, that was a great feeling. I also discovered that playing with the “big boys” wasn’t all that difficult. The coach just wanted to see your hustle your butt off. You did not need a lot of talent.
He did not have to say much. After awhile, one could tell whether he approved of your play by the way he looked at you.
When I became a junior, something changed. He talked to me more as a person, not just a player. I found out that he purposely instilled fear in the heart and minds of little freshmen to see if they really wanted to play East High Basketball.
Coach taught his players how to represent their family and community; how to take pride in their school; how to conduct themselves in public; what it meant to work hard and pursue excellence. He had high expectations and he expected you to fulfill them. He taught us to be quality young men and contributing citizens.
It was Les that introduced me to coaching. Les called me up the day before practice was to begin in 1984 and said he did not have a JV coach for this season. He asked me to come down to the gym and apply. If I liked it, I could have a job. Like it! It was great!
As I went on in my coaching career, East High basketball was the standard I used to evaluate any other program. It was the example I followed to build my programs.
From watching the drama as a kid, to being part of the drama was an experience I cannot fully articulate. The website explains more of the traditions that impacted the young men who played for him and the community. I have seen and experienced Coach Eathorne’s commitment to his players from an early age. I thank him for his influence. I was unusually blessed having a coach and mentor who was a neighbor and is a friend.
Rick Walker
King’s West School
Sports Beyond
Monday, September 1, 2008
Richard Torseth - 1974
I grew up on East 28th Street, the residence of East basketball. It was not a coincidence that Les Eathorne lived on a street with East in its name. I feel like I was born into East Basketball, I did not choose it. It was chosen for me when my family moved on to East 28th Street and three houses away from coach and his two soon-to-be Knights: John and Mark Eathorne.
At the time my dad was the sports editor for the Bremerton Sun. That meant that he had to keep his distance and his allegiances to himself when it came to the local teams. I was not burdened by such nonsense. There is not a memory in my life that does not have East basketball as either background music or at center stage. I knew who Lyle Bakken was before I knew most of my relatives. But that was due to John and Mark. You just had to know certain things about East basketball if you were to be part of the neighborhood.
My first coaching lesson with Les came when I was about eight or nine. Les hauled Mark, Robbie Sawyers, Darrell Nelson and I up to the gym on a Sunday afternoon. This was always the golden moment of the week for us. As soon as we were in the building we were off to the small gym to swing on the ropes, mess around on the wrestling mats and throw the basketballs from one end of the gym to the other. There was no real basketball being played.
Les had organized the Sunday teams in the main gym and suddenly burst through the door to find us hanging from ropes and laying on the mats. He looked us all over and said “You have until 4:45 to learn how to dribble a basketball or this is your last trip to the gym.” With that, he walked out. We looked at each other and somehow got it into our small brains that the golden moment was about to go away unless we got down to business. Somehow we learned to dribble and preserve our gym pass.
Friday nights were sacred. Watching the Knights play to a packed gym while flying up and down the floor was a cherished experience. I am tattooed with memories of Wayne Gibson throwing bounce passes under defender legs, Alan Martin putting on shooting clinics with his beautiful jump shot as he challenged Port Angeles’ Bernie Fryer and Dave Pyles playing with endless energy.
While I was blessed to be part of the two teams that won back-to-back state championships, my Knight memories are always first about my teammates who have become my life long friends. Thirty four years after we played, I am again on a team with Walker, Olson, Eathorne and Garinger and the work together on this project has been seamless and a joy.
This is probably the touchstone lesson I learned from Les. While he taught us to play the game fast, he really was teaching us that if you want to go far, you will need to go together. You will need to pick each other up from time to time and be willing to rely on a teammate as well.
In both my work as a consultant and as a youth coach to basketball and soccer teams, every teaching moment has been underwritten by Les. Work hard, share the ball, play together, play smart and have fun. He always asked that we players give something back to the game of basketball. It has been both my privilege and my intention to do that in my work. They do not know it, but there are many kids and clients walking around with the Les Eathorne gene in them. I’m proud to be just another Knight who’s passing around this great bug.
Rick Torseth
Class of 1974
Human Securities, Inc.
At the time my dad was the sports editor for the Bremerton Sun. That meant that he had to keep his distance and his allegiances to himself when it came to the local teams. I was not burdened by such nonsense. There is not a memory in my life that does not have East basketball as either background music or at center stage. I knew who Lyle Bakken was before I knew most of my relatives. But that was due to John and Mark. You just had to know certain things about East basketball if you were to be part of the neighborhood.
My first coaching lesson with Les came when I was about eight or nine. Les hauled Mark, Robbie Sawyers, Darrell Nelson and I up to the gym on a Sunday afternoon. This was always the golden moment of the week for us. As soon as we were in the building we were off to the small gym to swing on the ropes, mess around on the wrestling mats and throw the basketballs from one end of the gym to the other. There was no real basketball being played.
Les had organized the Sunday teams in the main gym and suddenly burst through the door to find us hanging from ropes and laying on the mats. He looked us all over and said “You have until 4:45 to learn how to dribble a basketball or this is your last trip to the gym.” With that, he walked out. We looked at each other and somehow got it into our small brains that the golden moment was about to go away unless we got down to business. Somehow we learned to dribble and preserve our gym pass.
Friday nights were sacred. Watching the Knights play to a packed gym while flying up and down the floor was a cherished experience. I am tattooed with memories of Wayne Gibson throwing bounce passes under defender legs, Alan Martin putting on shooting clinics with his beautiful jump shot as he challenged Port Angeles’ Bernie Fryer and Dave Pyles playing with endless energy.
While I was blessed to be part of the two teams that won back-to-back state championships, my Knight memories are always first about my teammates who have become my life long friends. Thirty four years after we played, I am again on a team with Walker, Olson, Eathorne and Garinger and the work together on this project has been seamless and a joy.
This is probably the touchstone lesson I learned from Les. While he taught us to play the game fast, he really was teaching us that if you want to go far, you will need to go together. You will need to pick each other up from time to time and be willing to rely on a teammate as well.
In both my work as a consultant and as a youth coach to basketball and soccer teams, every teaching moment has been underwritten by Les. Work hard, share the ball, play together, play smart and have fun. He always asked that we players give something back to the game of basketball. It has been both my privilege and my intention to do that in my work. They do not know it, but there are many kids and clients walking around with the Les Eathorne gene in them. I’m proud to be just another Knight who’s passing around this great bug.
Rick Torseth
Class of 1974
Human Securities, Inc.
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