La Conner sports community mourns loss of legendary Lynn Weidenbach

As is the case each November there is much anticipation here about the start of the La Conner High School basketball season.

But this year there is also a sense of loss – one far more pronounced than can be reflected on any scoreboard – around the school’s hoops programs.

Lynn Weidenbach, 81, who across several decades served various roles with both the La Conner boys’ and girls’ teams, died Nov. 8 after a brief illness. A memorial service celebrating his extraordinary life is tentatively scheduled for next summer.

Few people have had an impact on district athletics as sustained and lasting as Weidenbach, a local farmer and rancher who scouted, coached and even regularly scrimmaged full court at La Conner going back a half-century.

Along the way he and wife Margaret and their family also hosted Skagit Valley College men’s basketball recruits, including David Wood, who went on to play nine seasons in the NBA.

In addition, the Weidenbachs provided farm work for students looking to not just make some extra spending money but also to get in shape over the summer.

“He was an absolute legend,” Catey Ritchie, one of Weidenbach’s former players, told the Weekly News on Saturday. “I have so much love for that family. Knowing them through my formative years had a lasting impact on me.”

She isn’t alone.

Countless tributes have poured in from generations of alumni since news was received of Weidenbach’s death.

“I know I was one of many kids – friends of Ward, Shannon and Sally – who spent a lot of time at the Weidenbachs,” said John Hancock, a Braves basketball player in the 1980s. “I have so many fond memories of all the times spent at their house. Lynn was so welcoming and good to all of us.

“He was always so positive,” Hancock added, “and loved debriefing our games with me.”

During the 1980s, Weidenbach was on the Braves’ staff, his counsel sought by the school’s head coaches, including the man for whom high school gymnasium is named.

“Dad and Lynn coached together,” Dr. Wil James, older son of the late Landy James, fondly recalled. “They would try all sorts of stuff. In order to innovate you need comrades to support, encourage and try stuff.

“The two of them,” said James, who, like Hancock, played for the Braves in the 1980s, “would get into a zone of conversation with each other developing coaching strategies. It was fun to watch them working together. Lynn was definitely one of the pistons in the innovative La Conner coaching tree.”

Comparing Weidenbach to a piston is apt given his machine-like work ethic and devotion to physical conditioning. Former head football coach Jim Frey, who guided the Braves to an undefeated season in 1968, has said Weidenbach was pound-for-pound the strongest man he knew.

Tom Zimmerman, who quarterbacked that ’68 team and was point guard on the 1969 La Conner state basketball tournament entry, confirmed as much.

“When I was in high school,” said Zimmerman, “he and another older guy would suit up and give us the business. There was no backing down from Lynn.”

Prior to and during his time coaching La Conner basketball – he would put in two separate stints as the Lady Braves’ head coach, leading the team to state tourney berths – Weidenbach enjoyed running the court with players as part of their conditioning.

“When he coached us in high school,” recalled Beth Schmittou Bowles, “he must’ve been in his mid-to-late 50s and he could run and run and run up and down that court faster than all of us and never got tired.

“He always had the most gregarious and infectious laugh,” she said, “while we would be dying and he just kept going.”

Weidenbach was literally born into a health and fitness lifestyle.

“He was a dairy farmer and daredevil while still living on Whidbey,” family member Kathy Peth remembered of Weidenbach. “I swear he burned off several sets of wheels on his skates at the (Oak Harbor) Roller Barn.

“He always insisted that dawn was the best time of day,” she said, “but, of course, he was heading for early chores and trying to get me out of the house at the same time.”

Weidenbach and Peth’s husband, Earl Peth, played men’s league basketball and rodeo team roped together after Weidenbach moved to the La Conner area in the late 1950s following the government’s purchase of his family’s Whidbey Island dairy.

“They contested at local rodeos, in Sedro-Woolley, Darrington, Oak Harbor, Alderwood Manor, Port Angeles and more,” Kathy Peth said.

She agreed with his former players that Weidenbach rarely did anything at less than full tilt.

“I was visiting my aunt and uncle when Margaret was due to give birth to Ward, their first (child),” she said. “Lynn went to roping practice at Sedro-Woolley and took me along. There were no cell phones at the time, so after roping we drove to Skagit Valley Hospital, horse and trailer in tow, pulled over in front of the hospital and Lynn ran in, boots, jeans, hat and all.”

Off the court, Weidenbach looked every bit the Skagit Roping Club member and longtime Marysville Livestock Auction president that he was.

“Lynn and his dad made the switch from milking cows to feeding fat cattle for private customers,” Peth said. “They bought calves at various livestock auctions in the area, mostly in Marysville and later at Everson. He would buy for other people who needed a few as well.”

While primarily linked to La Conner basketball, Weidenbach supported all the district’s athletic programs, volunteering at track meets and with the football team, for which his son, Ward, was an outstanding player and later its head coach.

James cites an example most typical and quite defining of Weidenbach.

“One thing I remember,” James said, “is when they added lights to Jack Whittaker Field. My dad was head coach at the time and specifically had the light poles taller than usual so the quarterbacks wouldn’t be blinded throwing passes. One thing about that, though. Someone had to change the lights.”

That someone was Lynn Weidenbach.

“Lynn gladly climbed the poles logger-style and changed them by himself without a net,” said James. “I thought that was quite daring but he and dad just laughed about it.”

Present girls’ head basketball coach Scott Novak succeeded Weidenbach as the Braves’ lead assistant in the late 1980s. He admired how seamlessly Weidenbach made the transition to the girls’ program and built it into a post-season force within a few years.

“He did a great job with that group,” Novak said. “In fact, he did a great job with both programs.”

Novak said Weidenbach earned a special place in La Conner basketball history.

“He was such a good guy and hard worker,” said Novak. “He did a little bit of everything. He even used to drive up to Skykomish in the middle of winter to do scouting. Believe me, that’s no easy task.”

None of that work on behalf of La Conner schools has gone unnoticed. Not by a long shot.

“With the start of basketball season,” said Bowles, “he has been on many peoples’ minds, especially the many people he coached.”