Looking ahead, but remembering legends lost

I’m excited for the New Year – 2015 is just hours old and already it holds great promise. A new year always does.

The Seahawks are poised to make January another thrilling ride, and the Mariners are being talked, in some circles at least, as the favorites to win the American League West.

College basketball will be like a runaway locomotive steaming toward March. Will Gonzaga reclaim the top spot in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll? Can they reach the Final Four? Can Eastern Washington win the Big Sky and earn a spot in the Big Dance? How far can Whitworth go in the Division III NCAA tourney? How much better is Washington State under Ernie Kent?

The high school basketball and wrestling seasons will be, as they always are, a roller coaster swinging between emotional highs and heartbreaking lows.

I am looking forward to seeing the first high school baseball game at the newly named Jack Spring Stadium at West Valley High just as much as I look forward to the return of green grass and spring temperatures.

2015 will bring laughter and tears. Just as 2014 did.

It’s the 2014 tears that deserve an extra mention.

We lost some true giants from the sporting world last year.

Baseball suffered some deep, heartbreaking losses.

The World Series was rocked by the death of St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Oscar Tavares, whose career only hinted at the promise predicted for him.

We lost Tony Gwynn, Mr. Padre, one of the greatest hitters the game has ever seen. Eight times the lefty won the National League batting title, and his permanent smile won over fans across the country.

We also lost Ralph Kiner. It would be difficult to find anyone not on Social Security who remembers just how powerful a hitter Kiner was during his 10-year career with Pittsburgh, the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland, which ended in 1955. Most fans will remember him as the voice of the New York Mets.

We also lost Jerry Coleman, the one-time second baseman for the New York Yankees and the long-time announcer for the Padres. Coleman’s occasional bloopers and malaprops while on the air are legendary, and they only served to make him that much more beloved.

Baseball also lost former managers and coaches Don Zimmer, Alvin Dark and Jim Fergosi. It’s difficult to imagine the game without men like these.

Baseball also lost one of its most influential characters. Dr. Frank Jobe never threw a baseball in a major league game, but the number of pitchers blessed by the procedure he pioneered, Tommy John surgery, grows longer each season.

We also lost some transformative figures from local sports this season.

We lost long-time track and field coach Howard Dolphin this season, and it will be difficult to imagine a high school season without seeing him, standing next to the shot put pit working his magic on yet another throwing prodigy.

Just a week ago, we lost another long-time Spokane Valley coach in West Valley’s Rich Shulkin, who passed away Dec. 17.

Shulkin graduated from Rogers High in 1943 and still is considered to be one of the finest athletes to ever wear a Pirates uniform. After serving as a medic aboard the USAT Etolin during World War II, he went on to play baseball at Gonzaga and earn a Master of Education from Eastern.

Shulkin spent 30 years as a teacher coach at West Valley, leaving a long legacy as the school’s athletic director until he retired in 1982.

Shulkin was my baseball coach after my family moved to Spokane and I enrolled at West Valley as a sophomore. He was generous with both his time and his talent, and he shared his warm smile with everyone he met.

That sophomore season was the year Joe Namath revolutionized sports by daring to wear white cleats. Suddenly everyone wanted to wear white cleats. One of my teammates tried taking white shoe polish to his black baseball shoes, and the results were laughable.

And then Steve Brunelle, now the husband of CV gymnastics coach Kim and father of University of Montana assistant coach Ross, broke the Spokane Valley version of the color line and bought the first pair of actual, dyed-in-the-leather white cleats. And he showed them off with a high leg kick on the pitching mound that entire season.

A lot of coaches would have banned white shoes – and some did. Some would have groused about tradition needing to be upheld.

Rich Shulkin watched it all with a wry smile and an occasional shake of his head at our young obsession.

I have always remembered that smile and gentle laugh. And I know I’m far from the only one to have had their life shaped by such a good, gentle man.