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Page A-38 Shelton-Mason County Journal Thursday, Nov. 12, 2020
' Sports Outdoors
THE TI'MIL~
Taking a day trip: Port Gamble a safe bet for a fun time
ByICMARK
WOYTOWICH
f FAB POST
at? There’s a Hood Canal outside
of Mason County?
Yes, Virginia, there is, and what
better way to actually experience this than
by taking a road trip to the northernmost
points of everyone’s favorite fjord.
We assume we “own” Hood Canal down
here, but what do homeowners think about
it in Port Gamble, Port Ludlow, Seabeck and
Quilcene?
What is up there? What are people doing?
Where are they boating, clamming and crab-
bing? Where do they hang out, gossip and
sip coffee? Better yet, where do they drink
beer?
HAVE LENS, WILL TRAVEL
While everyone else is going modern, buy-
ing cars that take oral orders and drive you
to exactly where you want to go, I remain
among the “diner—saurs,” preferring to find
my tavern or restaurant by paper map or the
proverbial seat of my pants.
photographer George Stenberg, is also
one of those who talks to his dashboard or p
cellphone for directions (“Siri, where is the
strongest whiskey in Jefferson County?”) but
he 'has allowed me to direct today’s show, as
they say, working out our full day’s itiner-
ary with nothing but an oversized DeLorme W
Washington Atlas & Gazetteer in my lap...
For those of you too new to the planet to
recall the old gazetteers — the name .‘means
My regular partner in road trip crime,
» see TRAIL, page A-—3Sl
. .. 7.. r
Saying goodbye toan old friend and belovedCOach
arly last
week, I found
out that a
longtime Coach and
friend from my home
state of Utah had
died after spending
more than 30 days
fighting COVID-19
that the world is a
poorer place with
his passing.
In more than two
decades as a profes-
sional sports writer,
very few people have
left an imprint on
my career the way
By JUSTIN
in an, intensive care that Russell did.
unit. JOHNSON Russell was a
While it’s unlikely legendary girls bas-
that many —- if any ketball coach at Og-
at all of my readers here
in MaSon County have heard
of Ogden High School’s Phil
Russell, you should know
den High, leading the Tigers
to five state championships,
10 region titles and more
than 500 Wins in a career
that spanned 42 years at the
school.
A little over a decade ago,
February 2010 to be more
precise, I sat in Ogden’s gym
as Russell’s Tigers rallied
from a first-'half deficit to
beat Box Elder on the last
day of the regular season to
give him his 500th career
coaching win. He was the
first girls basketball coach
in the state to achieve'that
milestone and was only re-
cently passed as Utah’s all-
time wins leader.
Afterward, the team out
down the nets a tradition
usually reserved for winning
a championship -— and the
school presented him with an
award for the feat.
It was a deserved moment
in the limelight for RuSsell,
whose nasally voice and jo-
vial personality won him the
admiration of friend and foe
alike. .
Following the awards and
honors, I spoke with Russell
and he quickly turned the
numbers toward the play-
ers, saying that it was they
— not him — that made-the
“magic.” ,-
Russell was an old-school
coach that ran a 1-3-1 trap-
ping defense and annoyed
many a team with his four-
corner offense that foiled
opponents that outsized and
out-athleticismed his Tigers.
I covered one such game
, when Ogden faced a larger
school led by'a Stanford Uni-
versity-bound player in the
state quarterfinals. Using a
combination of that trapping
defense and slow-as-quicksand,
see POST, page A-40
E'FC‘P; on.-
.‘1