Hometown History IV--Shorty Bennett Era Begins

The final Wa-Hi coach hire of 1975 was Blaine "Shorty" Bennett.  He had an incredible 45-5 record at Ellensburg High, ironically, the city where his son, Blaine would eventually become the head coach at Central Washington.
Like Jim Thacker, Bennett proved to be a very smart hire, staying at the school for many years until moving on to coach at Whitworth in Spokane.
The Bennetts moved a few blocks away from us, and remember dropping with some mail for them that was delivered to our house by mistake.

Home Town History--Handfull Of Local Sports Fans Grow Impatient With Local Coaches.

In the mid 70s, while I was a student at Wa-Hi, a group of local fans decided that our high school athletic teams were not competitive in it's conference, which consisted of schools in Yakima, Tri Cities, Wenatchee, and Moses Lake and made headlines in the Walla WAlla UB by circulating a petition to replace the current coaches.
  This inspired another petition by supporters of the program and coaches to continue as it is
Before my Senior year, in the fall of 1975 (I was class of '76), three  new head coaches and one assistant coach were hired. All from other Washington cities.
We will present more on this topic soon.