As the Bellevue football team and head coach Butch Goncharoff enter the season seeking the school’s eighth Class 3A state title since 2001, a lot of things have changed from years past. The players, of course. And some coaches. Even the field and the school around it have been altered. But the success of the program has always been constant.
So has the offense.
But not just any football player can thrive in Bellevue’s Wing-T offense. It takes a certain kind of player – with a certain mentality – to be a part of an offense that requires so much from each position on the field for even one play to work correctly.
But it starts with one trait, said senior quarterback Kendrick Van Ackeren.
“It’s pretty simple,” Van Ackeren said. “If you’re not tough, you should just go home.”

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First-year Interlake coach Jason Rimkus can pin down the exact moment senior quarterback Matt Malos bought into his new offensive scheme.
The Saints were playing in a scrimmage at the University of Puget Sound football camp, and their opponent had stacked the box with nine defenders. Receivers were clamoring to throw the ball, to take advantage of the man defense and stretch the field.
Rimkus asked Malos what he wanted to do.

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Bellevue is now home to the “Fittest Woman Over 50.”
Laurie Carver, a soon-to-be 51-year-old Bellevue woman recently captured that title with a gold medal at the 2010 CrossFit Games in California.
Carver, a coach at Northwest CrossFit in Bellevue, came in first after finishing well in three separate workouts. Carver explained the CrossFit Games as a “ramped-up version” of each different CrossFit gym.
“It’s an awesome energy with great people,” she said. “It’s super difficult stuff.”

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After a rough first day at the U.S. Senior Open at Sahalee Country Club, Bellevue’s Tom Brandes went into Friday’s second round with nothing to lose.
At the conclusion of Thursday’s first round, the amateur from Bellevue had posted a 12-over-par 82 round, one of 41 golfers in the field of 156 who couldn’t crack 80 at the Sammamish course.
With the cut following the second round, Brandes simply relaxed and played golf.
“I had nothing to lose,” said Brandes, 53. “I had already shot myself out of the thing. It was kind of like ‘hey, let’s just play.”
Brandes ended up shooting a 6-over-par 76, a much improved score. He credited his performance to the smaller crowd (he teed off early Friday morning, instead of in the afternoon like Thursday) and a little momentum – momentum that had to endure a lengthy fog delay.

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To call Jennifer Cromwell’s summer a whirlwind would be an understatement.
Cromwell, a 2006 Sammamish graduate, kicked off her summer by helping the University of Virginia women’s rowing team capture their first NCAA Championship on May 30 in Gold River, Calif.
Rather than let the achievement sink in, Cromwell was off just two days later to try out for the United States Under 23 National Team, a process that culminated Sunday when her women’s Varsity Eight boat won gold at the Under 23 World Rowing Championships in Brest, Belarus.
Combine the rush of graduation with the thrill of a national title and the pride of a world championship and it’s understandable why Cromwell just wants to take a few days for herself now that she’s back home.

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Tom Brandes took a minute to reflect Thursday afternoon following his first round at the U.S. Senior Open at Sahalee Country Club.
Standing outside the large Sahalee clubhouse, Brandes had just finished a 12-over-par 82 round, one of 41 golfers in the field of 156 who couldn’t crack 80.
The amateur from Bellevue talked about his expectations in the event, his second straight Senior Open appearance.
“Trying to break 80, getting a 75, 77, something like that, that’s pretty realistic to me,” said Brandes, 53. “I didn’t get it done today.”

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Bellevue’s Jimmy Trull placed seventh in the nation in at the USAW Cadet Freestyle National Championships last week in Fargo, N.D.
Trull’s top-eight finish at 215-pounds earns him All-American honors as well as a “stop sign” – the trophies named for their resemblance to the road signs.
Trull also finished 10th at the USAW Cadet Greco-Roman National Championships.

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Tyler Allen sat in the heat, robe on and hat affixed upon his head, taking in all that was his college graduation.
The sun was shining on Husky Stadium at the University of Washington that Saturday. Allen, about to officially receive his mechanical engineering degree, allowed himself a moment to let it all soak in. Four years of hard work, four years of late nights, four years of taking on all that he could. All accomplished on this warm Saturday afternoon.
Finally, the ceremony hit its conclusion. As per tradition, Allen and the new graduates tossed their hats high into the sky.
Then he was gone, on a dead sprint to the family car.
It was race day at the South Sound Speedway in Rochester, Wash., and the 22-year-old Interlake graduate wasn’t about to miss it – even if it was commencement.
“As soon as those caps were in the air,” Allen said, “I was gone.”

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Four Bellevue youths will attempt to medal in the Fencing Summer Nationals, which begins Saturday in Atlanta, Ga.
Austin Li, Jonathan Li, Alina Marshall and Conor Beckerman will be among the more than 6,000 fencers competing in the tournament that runs until July 13.

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Kenechi Udeze couldn’t shake the headaches.
They’d started in Minnesota, where the former first-round NFL draft pick out of USC had just finished his fourth season with the Vikings. Killer headaches that morphed into migraines when the 6-foot-4, 281-pound defensive end went home to California for the offseason. Migraines that couldn’t be stopped with Motrin, or anything else. He couldn’t shake these headaches like he so often did the massive arms of a reaching offensive tackle.
A few days later, Udeze woke up dizzy. The then-25-year-old NFL rising star checked himself into the hospital.
On Feb. 6, 2008, doctors called Udeze while he was watching SportsCenter at his wife’s parents home in Idaho. You have a highly-aggressive form of cancer, they said. We need to treat this right away.
The diagnosis: acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a cancer of the blood and bone marrow.

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The Bellevue Christian girls track and field team repeated as state champions at the 1A state championship meet at Eastern Washington University.
Key to the Vikings win was the performance of junior Mackenzie Altig, who won the triple jump with a leap of 34-10.50. Altig also finished second in the 300 meter hurdles and long jump and took third in the 100 meter hurdles. Her 32 points scored on the day accounted for over half of Bellevue Christian’s 63 team points.

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Things weren’t looking good for Sammamish’s Anissa Bryant-Swift and Malia Lum.
Sure, they’d won the first set of the district finals against Bainbridge’s Grace Porter and Kate Jameson 6-4. But now they were sitting in a big hole in the second set, which they eventually lost.
Bryant-Swift, a senior, was down. She felt nervous, uncomfortable. That’s when her doubles partner Lum, a junior, threw a few words at her.
“I said ‘Maria Sharapova is the best because she has the worst memory’,” Lum recounted Tuesday. “Even though that was completely cheesy, it was just funny and made her laugh and think about something else.”

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