Legends of the Hall

There was no such thing as garbage time under his tutelage. White's teams at East High, and later at West, could be up 30 points in the final minute, with subs on the floor, and still he demanded the game be played the right way -- hard, and by force of will.

"That's what I demanded from the kids," he said Tuesday night, that voice that once boomed on the sidelines quieter, earnest, tinged with emotion, "and that's what I usually got."

White is Alaska's most accomplished basketball coach, his resume almost incomprehensible -- 18 state championships, 921 victories.

Similarly, Kikkan Randall knows everything matters.

She is this country's most accomplished women's nordic skier, a three-time Olympian, two-time World Cup race winner, one-time World Championship medalist and currently the world's top-ranked sprinter. Yet, like White, she talked Tuesday of all the people who have buoyed her. An active, loving family, remarkable teammates and coaches, generous sponsors, a supportive husband, Jeff -- "who allowed me to bring my roller skis on our honeymoon," -- and many of you.

"When I'm out on the trail, I have thousands of hands pushing me along," Randall said.

White and Randall, the former East High coach and the former East High athlete, were inducted in the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame in a ceremony Tuesday night at the Anchorage Museum. The ceremony also inducted Mount Marathon as an event and professional hockey player Scott Gomez of Anchorage, another East High athlete, bringing the Stanley Cup home in 2000 as a moment.

So there you have it: A legendary coach, an athlete in the midst of becoming legend, a legendary mountain race -- started as a bar bet, which is perfectly Alaskan -- and a Stanley Cup party that was, well, legendary.

What binds these people and events is the essence of competition -- sheer force of will -- and the collective effort excellence demands.

Sure, White enjoyed terrific talent on many of his teams, but he also out-coached a lot of guys, and he taught more than just how to trap an opposing ball-handler. Listen to Mao Tosi, one of five former players who honored White and who went on to play in the NFL and be a mentor to youths. He described how the seeds White planted made him a better person.

"It's because of one man that I believe I can, for the next 45 to 50 years, plant the seed," Tosi said, his voice quivering. "Everything I have ever done is because of that time."

Or listen to Betsy Haines, a former Olympic skier and Mount Marathon champ, talk about her niece Kikkan's indefatigable determination to be the best athlete and role model, no matter tough results or being hospitalized for blood clots in her legs.

"She believes," Haines said.

Or listen to Mount Marathon racer, and race committee member, Karol Fink, talk about how that brutal race up and down the perilous, 3,022-foot slope overlooking Seward keeps luring athletes back year after year.

Being on the starting line, Fink said, is "a mixture of tension, inspiration, fear -- because you never know if you're going to make it back -- excitement and desire."

What also bound these athletes and events, and the celebratory evening, was that while voices choked and eyes watered, no one took themselves too seriously.

So it was that former White player Lance Bowie constantly referred to his coach as Charles Willard White and said White in 1966 from fresh from the "Bobby Knight Finishing School For Up And Coming Coaches."

A retort was forthcoming.

"Charles Willard White," White repeated wryly as he stood before the microphone. "Try Lance Saulsberry Bowie."

Biff Franklin, a player of White's from the 1970s, made light of White's reputation for pushing the guys with whistles as hard as his players.

"Obviously, there are no referees on the selection committee," went the riff from Biff.

White got in on the laughs too, putting on glasses before his acceptance speech and noting, "Sign of the times." He's now an assistant coach for one of his former players, Louis Wilson, at Adams State in Colorado. He said Wilson yelled at him recently.

"I told the other assistant, 'I don't like being hollered at,' " White said. "I said, 'Louis must think he's the head coach.' "

And, of course, Kikkan's aunt reminded Kikkan that Kikkan's mom, Debbie, won Mount Marathon, an achievement Kikkan has yet to match. Noted, Kikkan said.

Remember, she believes. And she believes in some tongue-in-cheek repartee.

"Yes," Kikkan said with a grin in her acceptance speech, "I believe I can win Mount Marathon some day."

At ceremony's end, nearly two dozen former Mount Marathon champions took the stage, ranging from contemporary champions like the reigning queen and king, seven-time winner Cedar Bourgeois and two-time winner Trond Flagstad, to six-time champion Ralph Hatch, who first won in 1946.

It says here that Randall will one day grace that group.

Believe.

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Find Doyle Woody's blog at adn.com/hockeyblog or call him at 257-4335.