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 had been in storage, refilled his pipe, and is continuing his smokin’ ways. Here is what he recently told us at the Sports Paper.

 

 

Did you know, Big Dawg, that in 2015 Silverdale Stadium will get an extreme make-over?  I don’t know if a final decision has been made, but there is money available and blueprints are done to expand stadium seating on both sides of the field. The covered stands on the westside will be expanded out on each side and the press box will be expanded, which is good for you, big Dawg, because it gets crowded up there for big games. An elevator will be installed on the backside of the stands and a lift for the handicap will be installed in the front of the stands. The stands on the east side will be doubled. …You heard recently, Big Dawg, that Bernard Jenkins, a developing star of a basketball player, is now enrolled at Franklin High School in Seattle. Jenkins played on the Bremerton High School junior varsity last season as a freshman. He made this past spring the Seattle Rotary freshman team and apparently his mother, who is a graduate of Cleveland High School in Seattle, wanted him to play at Franklin to be exposed to high-level competition. Jenkins is living with his mother’s parents in Seattle while going to school at Franklin. According to a source, Jenkins is starting on Franklin’s fall basketball team as a 6-2,190-pound guard/forward. … Dick Baird, former UW recruiting coorindator, told you that it was a bit weird that three Northwest coaching giants have died this year. First to go was Pacific Lutheran’s Frosty Westering, who died in April at the age of 85.  Frosty compiled a 305-96-7 record and three NAIA Division II national titles in 40 years as the football coach PLU. He was inducted into the NAIA Hall of Fame in 1995. The next loss was Marv Harshman, who also died in April. He was 95. Marv coached basketball 13 years each at PLU, Washington State, and Washington and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008. And, now of course, Don James, who was one of the top college football coaches of all time. Don was 80 when he passed away on Sunday at his Kirkland home. He will always be remembered as the Dawgfather of Husky football. So it’s been a sad year for sports in the Northwest, Big Dawg. … Paul Skansi, who played high school football at Gig Harbor and then played at Washington and in the NFL with the Seahawks and Pittsburg, is now a scout with the San Diego Chargers. You reached him Monday in Austin, Texas, where he was scouting the Longhorns. Skansi, who lives in Poulsbo when he’s not traveling with his scouting duties, recalls being overwhelmed by the presence of Don James when he was a highly prized high school recruit. “He came with (UW football assistant) Skip hall to a basketball game in town and looking back it was a big deal,” says Skansi, “to have Don James in your high school gym. I thought it was pretty good because he was a great man, a great coach.” Skansi said he had no idea just how big Washington was until he showed up as a freshman. “I came from a small town, Gig Harbor, and it was my first experience in a big city and a big program,” he says.  Skansi says that he was lucky to have been coached by great coaches ‑ Larry Lunke at Peninsula High School, James at Washington, Chuck Knox with the Seahawks, and Chuck Noll with the Steelers.   … Bobbi Brose, the mother of Ted Brose Jr. and widow of the late Ted Brose Sr., said her husband and Buck Gehring, the founder of Buck’s A&W in Port Orchard, became best friends in an unusual way. “When they were 14 years old they got in a fight over an apple,” says Bobbi. “They became close friends after that.” The fight occurred while they were both going to Marcus Whitman Junior High. They were so close that when Ted Brose  Sr. got recruited to play football at Washington State he told the coaches there he would only go there to play if they also took Buck Gehring. So they did. Gehring only lasted one year before returning home to play football at Olympic College. Buck Gehring died at the age of 48 in 1982 and Ted Brose Jr. died last December. Bobbi says her husband had been diagnosed with an aneurysm of the aorta artery 12 years before he died and was told by his doctor that he could have surgery to fix the program, but that it was extremely risky.  “I think he didn’t really level with me, but he didn’t get it fixed anyway,” says Bobbi of her husband. Then in December he died when the artery finally broke. “He was in Kent standing alongside an 18-wheeler – a truck that was hauling flowers (for the Brose flower business), and he just fell over dead,” Bobbi said. Brose was 80.