On opening night of football season, one of the main characters in the press box at Shoreline Stadium was missing.
For the past five years, Steve Pouley’s voice has boomed over the microphone as he’s handled public address duties for football, soccer and track.
But this season, the ever-present Pouley took a leave of absence after being diagnosed with gastro-esophageal cancer.
Doctors discovered some internal bleeding and found out the problem was cancer.
The 59-year-old Shoreline resident is in the midst of six weeks of radiation and chemotherapy.
“At home I’m resting,” said Pouley, who is also taking a leave from his job as a trainer at Pemco Insurance, where he’s worked for 32 years. “There’s three to four hours a day where I can do something. I have to pace myself.”
Pouley returned to his spot behind the mic to do the Shorewood-Glacier Peak football game Oct. 23.
“I’ve got a strong attitude about it,” he said. “I’ve got good support so I go forward.”
The cancer struck where his esophagus and stomach meet. After the chemotherapy, he’ll undergo surgery to remove part of his esophagus and stomach.
“I’m a statistic of one,” Pouley said. “I’m going to do with it what I do with it.”
Pouley had hoped to announce both girls and boys games at Shorecrest this year but that will have to wait.
A “gym rat” who would often come to basketball games is how district athletic director Don Dalziel described Pouley, when Dalziel first met him.
“When Jim Higgins, the long-time announcer at the stadium stepped down I asked Steve if he would be interested in doing something like that and here we are,” Dalziel said. “Steve’s certainly one of the main cogs to our team.”
Pouley, a sports fan whose favorite team is the New York Yankees, is always asking questions about strategy, wondering why a coach would make a particular decision, Dalziel said.
“He just has a passion for high school athletics. It’s kind of grass roots,” he said.
Pouley’s wife, Pam, works for Shoreline School District as a paraeducator at Briarcrest Elementary. Kids from school often recognize her when they’re at the grocery store.
“She likes kids just like I do,” he said.
Pouley also has two sons, Nate, 28 and Jake, 23, both Shorecrest graduates who have been supportive through the cancer ordeal.
“We learn to appreciate things,” he said. “There’s probably more positives than negatives.”
Pouley also worked men’s and women’s basketball games at Shoreline Community College last year.
“I’ve learned it as I’ve gone on. I’m a lot more comfortable now,” he said. “I love doing it. I feel like I’m on the team. I can tell people I’m an employee of the Shoreline School District.”
Pouley is from the small eastern Washington town of Lind, went to high school in Yakima, and eventually found his way to the University of Washington where he got a degree in math.
“I was going to be a teacher and I talked myself out of that when I was a kid,” he said. “That’s why I tell kids not to take your dream away. If you want to do something do it.”
Pouley starting coaching baseball when his sons played American Legion and soon joined then Shorecrest coach Brett Medalia’s staff as an assistant, who he calls a very good friend.
“If I was just sitting at home I’d be unhappy,” he said.
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