Prep Beat: Three-sport stars inducted by WIAA

YAKIMA — On the day four of the greatest high-school athletes in state history were honored, one theme surfaced again and again: How much kids today miss by specializing in one sport.

Mark Rypien, a three-sport star at Shadle Park of Spokane who went on to become Super Bowl MVP in 1992, remembers that football was once his least favorite sport.

"The only reason I wanted to play football was to be with my buddies on the team," said Rypien, a quarterback at Washington State and in the NFL who was inducted into the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association Hall of Fame on Wednesday at the Yakima Convention Center. Eight other individuals and one team also were inducted.

"I was a tall, skinny kid who didn't like contact. Thank goodness I decided to play football," Rypien said.

A trio of three-sport stars from the Columbia Basin were inducted alongside Rypien — Kelly Blair-LaBounty from Prosser, Tondi (Redden) von Oelhoffen from Kamiakin of Kennewick and Ron Howard from Pasco. Sharing Rypien's concern that too many athletes are limiting their options too soon was Blair-LaBounty, a basketball, volleyball and track star who competed for the U.S. in the 1996 and 2000 Olympic heptathlon.

"I think they're really missing out," said Blair-LaBounty, who recently was hired as assistant track-and-field coach at Oregon. "Now the focus is specialization. I like to see well-rounded athletes far more."

Also inducted into the WIAA Hall of Fame, which is co-sponsored by The Seattle Times: Moses Lake's wrestling program; Nola Ayres, former Sehome (Bellingham) gymnastics coach; Bill Hays, former coach at St. John and Newport (Nine Mile Falls); Bill Fleming Cheatley, longtime official; Kim Wilson, longtime administrator; and Kelly McDonald, former Auburn debate champion.

Notes

• Rypien said his daughter, Ambre, a senior at Gonzaga Prep, is going to the Senior Prom this Saturday with Michael Stockton, a son of John Stockton, the former Gonzaga and NBA star.

• Ayres, gymnastics coach from Sehome who set a national win-loss record of 384-1, was asked by Rypien who her team lost to. "It was Cascade High School in Everett," she said later in the program. "And it was my first year."

• Both former female athletes married NFL defensive linemen — Matt LaBounty, a former Seahawk; and Kimo von Oelhoffen, a 12-year NFL veteran now with the New York Jets.

• Rypien, who played on the Shadle Park basketball team that beat Mercer Island for the 1981 state championship on a disputed shot, took a good-natured swipe at Ed Pepple. The MI coach was honored last year and still insists that Shadle's last-second shot shouldn't have counted. "Tell him the game's over," Rypien said. "He tried to take it to the Supreme Court and lost. Let it go, Ed!"

BCC hosts hoop combine

Bellevue Community College will be the site of a boys basketball combine this weekend for 160 players and 16 teams from around the state. Games will begin at 10:20 a.m. Saturday. The championship game is at 2:30 p.m. Sunday.

The fourth annual event, intended to showcase players for college coaches, is sponsored by the Washington Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association and the WIAA.

Among invited players are sophomore guards Shawn Stockton of Ferris and Leroy Lutu of Mercer Island, 6-4 freshman standout Anthony Brown of Shadle Park, 6-foot-5 junior Reggie Rogers of Chief Sealth, 6-10 senior Steve Severin of Hanford and 6-8 junior Coby Gibler of Bainbridge.

Three players from Class 4A state runner-up Central Valley (Spokane) — Luke Clift, Nick Ambrose and Kevin Cameron — will play.

Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for students.

Note

• Unbeaten Jackson, the state's top-ranked Class 4A baseball team, is No. 10 in this week's Student Sports National Fab 50.

• John Parks, track and field coach at McKay High School of Salem, Ore., was fired after allegations that he gave his athletes false marks for entry into an invitational meet at the University of Oregon. Faster times can get runners into faster heats, and can knock out athletes who don't have times that are as fast.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.