Wild weather means fans must pick between track, baseball

Q: I'm a big fan of high-school sports and wish I didn't have to choose every year between attending state track or the 3A-4A baseball championships at Safeco Field. Why can't they be on separate weekends?

A: It won't work. No one wants to shorten seasons to allow championships on different weekends because weather can play such havoc with spring regular-season scheduling.

Seasons can't be lengthened beyond Memorial Day because then you start running into graduation activities at some schools. These schools cling to the wonderful, antiquated idea that a school year shouldn't extend until nearly July. In fact, this year some schools are even holding graduations in late May.

Everything is ending earlier this year but it's just the way the calendar fell. Championships in all spring sports except golf, which comes first, are May 23-24 and Memorial Day is May 26. Next year's spring championships will be May 29-30.

Q: What can you tell me about the late Oak Harbor trainer Peter G. Hulswit, whose healing hands were legendary in state coaching circles?

A: Hulswit, who died last December at age 92, had "magic hands" and track and wrestling athletes from around the state benefited from them at state meets.

Retired Oak Harbor track coach Eric Lindberg, 73, who now coaches at Coupeville, said Wildcats teams would arrive at state events in the 1970s and 1980s and immediately be asked, "Where's Pete?"

"They would bring their athletes who were nursing injuries to him and he would work on them and also tend to our kids," Lindberg said. "The work that he did for my track teams was unbelievable."

Hulswit, a masseur on cruise ships before World War II, was in the Dutch underground early in the war but wound up in a Nazi concentration camp for 3 ½ years.

Lindberg said Hulswit said he had been scheduled for execution one day but a German officer stepped in and prevented it. Earlier, Hulswit had overheard the officer complaining about a backache and had followed his instinct to help anyone in pain, even a Nazi.

"Pete told me, 'The only way I made it was I never worried,' " Lindberg said. "I lived one day at a time."

Lindberg said Hulswit "never took a dime" for helping athletes and as far as he knows never charged Oak Harbor citizens who came to him and said, "Hey, Pete, I've got a sore back."

Hulswit and his wife made their living selling milk.

Hulswit had vowed in the concentration camp that if he survived he would use the healing powers of his hands to help others the rest of his life. A lot of former athletes from Oak Harbor and around the state are glad he did.

Q: Weeks ago, an article about Ashley Corral, the state girl basketball player of the year, said that her family moved inside the boundaries of Prairie High School near Vancouver before she started high school so that she could play for coach Al Aldridge. What is your opinion of high student athletes moving into an area to play for a specific coach or program?

A: Unless an athlete is recruited by the high school or makes the move after starting high school, this really doesn't bother me because it is so straightforward.

This is much cleaner than transfers involving phony addresses, false claims of "I don't feel safe at my present school" and fictitious statements about transferring because Japanese is offered at the desired school.

If I had a musically gifted student, I would try to live near a school with an excellent music program. I can't get upset with parents who do the same with athletes.

Update

• In our list last week of NFL draft choices this decade from Washington high schools we whiffed on four: 2007 — Adam Carriker, DL, Kennewick HS, Nebraska (First round, St. Louis Rams); 2004 — Mike Karney, FB, Kentwood HS, Arizona State; 2001 — Rick DeMulling, LB, Cheney, Idaho, and Mike Roberg, TE, University HS-Spokane, Idaho.

A high-school sports question? Craig Smith will find the answer every Tuesday. Ask your question by voice mail (206-464-8279), snail mail (Craig Smith, Seattle Times Sports, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111) or e-mail csmith@seattletimes.com