Bumming around town with Bill Bumerton

Bumerton is a retired Navy fighter pilot who had been missing in action for several years while he traversed the globe looking for greener grass. He discovered the grass is only greener here (it’s blue in Kentucky), so he returned to again take charge of his 1954 green Hudson Hornet that has been in storage, refilled his pipe, and is ready to continue his smokin’ ways. Here is what he recently told us at the Sports Paper.

Mike Welch, former Bainbridge High School coach, sent you a funny tidbit, didn’t he Big Dawg?  Welch said one night during a basketball game in Port Townsend a fan reached out and pulled on Bainbridge coach Dean Scherer’s tie. Scherer’s reaction? From that day forward, Welch said Scherer always wore a clip-on tie, although that is not true. But let Scherer, who in retirement lives at LakeLand Village in Allyn, tell the story. “Well, the game was out of hand,” says Scherer. “We had them, no problem whatsoever. But the referees were making such ridiculous calls that I was making fun of them. I said, ‘c’mon, the game is over, you can’t save it.’ But the referees were bending over backwards to give Townsend everything. The (PT) shop teacher thought I was making fun of the Port Townsend kids. Jim Kearns (the PT coach) and I were walking off after the game and kind of chuckling together and about this time this guy walks up and grabs my tie. He about lifts me off the floor and says, ‘You better get some manners, kid.’  Jim said, ‘he wasn’t’ making fun of anybody.’ The guy goes, ’Oh, well I apologize then,’ and he walked off. But it about scared the devil out of me. That was about the time I gave up wearing ties.”  Scherer, by the way Big Dawg, has been nominated to election into the Washington State Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame. He had a 298-187 record in 27 seasons as head basketball coach at Bainbridge. He says the record should be 305-188. “We went 7-1 at the Washington State Centennial Games in 1989,” says Scherer. “We beat North Kitsap and Port Angeles out of our area, won a game in Seattle and then went over to Spokane. We lost to Hanford, beat Sunnyside and somebody else and then beat somebody else and Davis of Yakima in the last game (for the championship). I got a gold medal hanging on the wall. I told (the nomination committee) that I’m going to add that to my (all-time) record.” As for the possibility of being inducted into the hall of fame, Scherer says time has eroded his enthusiasm for it.

“It just is not that big of a deal now,” says Scherer, who retired from coaching in 1997. I’ll be very happy if I make it, but if they had offered it to me 16 years ago I would have thought I was King Kong. I want to be in the hall of fame, but it’s not a life or death thing. When I check other guys who are in there, I say, ‘I can coach with those guys.’ “… And this story from Glenn Wachtman, coach of the Puget Sound Superfly Track and Field team out of Port Orchard. He was working at his store – Swell and Wacky – in Silverdale when he got a call from his stepdaughter, Bethany Sanchez, who was at Cedar Heights Junior High. Her athletic fee had not been paid and in order for her to run that it needed to be paid, and quickly. Wachtman left his store, raced to Port Orchard and to Cedar Heights. He got to the track and asked his daughter what the coach, Eric Grieve, looked like. “He’s right there,” she said. Wachtman asked Grieve if he had to pay and he said, “Yes, right now at the Cedar office. She will be in the 100 race in 15 minutes.’ (Grieve) looked over his glasses and looked me right in the eye and said, ‘get ‘er done.’  So I ran to the office. It reminded me of my 800 days. I run back and tell Grieve it’s paid and within minutes she was running her first race in her first track meet for Cedar. I was going, ‘wow, he’s real serious.’ “ Then Wachtman said he watched as his stepdaughter came out of the blocks, “and her hair was flowing and she had a big smile on her face. By the time she got to the 50 meter mark of the 100 she had a 10-meter lead, and I’m thinking that is so cool.”