La Conner Weekly News - Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper

Jack Whittaker did not single-handedly put La Conner High School athletics on the map, but the legendary one-armed coach was such a force of nature that there was no doubt 50 years ago that the school's new football field should be named in his honor.

Whittaker Field, home to the football, soccer and track teams, opened in the fall of 1972, completing a four-year quest to build a lighted sports venue on campus.

Its namesake, who often scrimmaged with his teams of the 1940s and 1950s – Whittaker coached all the school's sports during that period – was a role model to some of the more storied na...