Catching Up With ... 
        Gymnast Tammy Sutton Carney (June 20)
        Legendary basketball coach Les Habegger (June 27)
        Hoop star / Virginia associate coach Ritchie McKay (July 4)
        Women's soccer player Brittany Langdon Barkley (July 11)
        Distance running siblings Eddie and Suzie Strickler (July 18)

KIRKLAND, Wash. – He was a basketball player from Olympia. In a span of four years, Rob Marshall would set the Seattle Pacific career record for assists.
 
She was a distance runner from Whidbey Island. During a slightly different span of four years, Sandy Gabelein would race in three national championship meets wearing Falcons maroon – two for track, one for cross country.
               
Their sports had little in common. Both are from Western Washington, but their paths hadn't crossed much – except for the occasional meeting in the athletic training room.

 

One of those meetings eventually changed the course of their lives.
 
"The end of her freshman year (1982), she wasn't feeling that well, so she had gone to the sports medicine clinic and found out – maybe a week before national qualifying – that she was anemic and wasn't going to be able run in nationals," Rob said.
 
"I knew she was having this (medical) test, and I was in the weight room lifting," Rob continued. "She came in, and I could just tell it was bad. I didn't say anything, I just gave her this big hug. At that time, I was thinking, 'I'm going to have to take care of this girl.'"
 
Now, 32 years after that moment and 29 years after marrying in 1985, Rob and Sandy Marshall – each of whom ultimately went on to be named SPU's Athlete of the Year (Rob in 1983, Sandy in 1985) are still taking care of each other.
 
ALWAYS A HOOPAHOLIC
He's middle age now, a time when most athletes long since have hung up their gear.
 
Not Rob Marshall.
 
On an early July afternoon, he had just arrived back home in Kirkland after a three-day basketball camp on Whidbey Island. But Marshall wasn't there as a coach or or director or counselor.
 
He was there as a player.
 
"It's an old-man's camp," he said with a laugh of the gathering at Camp Casey that serves as a fundraiser for ChildHaven and for the Coupeville High School hoops program. "I'm 52, and I thought my body would give out. It's a blessing to still be able to compete. … I still have a great time."
 
As a standout at at Olympia High, about 65 miles south of the Seattle Pacific campus, Marshall set the career assists record there (since broken), and was similar to many of his peers in that he had his sights set on playing college ball for a big-time Division I school.

 

"I had gotten to know Marv Harshman and George Raveling (the former legendary coaches at Washington and Washington State, respectively), really well over the years," he said. "My dad grew up in Pullman and still had family there at the time."
 
But neither of those schools offered a scholarship. Brad Jackson, then a Falcons assistant coach, and his wife Debbie (former gymnastics star Halle) made it abundantly clear to Marshall that they wanted him at SPU.
 
"Debbie was nonstop energy, and Brad seemed like an amazing, upcoming young coach," Marshall said. "So that sealed the deal."
 
Marshall led Seattle Pacific in assists as a sophomore in 1981 (144), junior (169), and senior (155). His career total of 573 still stands, although he was rooting for just-graduated David Downs to break it this past season. (Downs finished with 561.)
 
"I never would have guessed it would have held up for 30 years," Marshall said. "Mike Downs (David's father) was the grad assistant my freshman year at SPU. I thought it would be a cool circle of life if the son of one of my first coaches would break my record. Unfortunately, it didn't happen."
 
While the record still stands, Marshall made clear that it's not all his.
 
"I was fortunate to be in a good system, and I played with some great shooters," he said.
 
GIVING IT ALL SHE HAD
Coaches and athletes talk constantly about "leaving it all on the field."
 
As a senior at Langley High School, Sandy Gabelein did exactly that in the 1980 state cross country meet in the Seattle suburb of White Center.
 
"I passed out about 300 yards before the finish line," she recalled. "I had been getting letters from the UW, Idaho and Portland. Then I pass out and don't finish, and I thought, 'Oh boy, there goes my scholarship.'"
 
But Seattle Pacific coach Doris Heritage had no such thoughts about Gabelein. Heritage reiterated in a letter that she wanted Gabelein to be a Falcon.
               
"She told me that she'd rather have a runner who goes out hard and wants to win and can't finish for whatever reason than someone who just hangs back in the pack," Sandy recalled.

 

"After that, I was pretty much going to SPU."
 
After being part of the final graduating class at Langley (the name was changed to South Whidbey beginning in the fall of 1981), Gabelein, who also had come to Falcon Running Camp on Whidbey, packed up for Seattle.
 
She made an immediate impact. Gabelein helped the Falcons qualify for the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) national championships as a freshman in the fall of 1981. Seattle Pacific finished third in the team standings, and she was in the top 25.
 
But during her freshman track season the following spring, Gabelein knew something wasn't quite right.
               
"I could barely make it up the steps," she remembered.
 
The diagnosis came back as "severely anemic," but it was very treatable.
 
"If you take heavy-duty iron, you can get it back pretty fast," she said.
               
By the time Sandy had run her final race for SPU in 1984, she had an All-American honor for cross country, and a national finals appearance in track (11^th in the 3,000 meters as a senior in 1985).
 
Among her senior year meets was the prestigious Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Ore.
 
"The 3,000 was my best distance. At the Prefontaine, Mary Decker (the former U.S. and international star) was running, and I ran a 9:43 – that was my PR."
 
LIFE AFTER MAROON
Just one week after the 1985 national track meet in Missouri, Rob Marshall and Sandy Gabelein – whose first date had been at a boat dance at the end of her freshman year – got married and eventually had two sons. (Austin graduated from Washington State in 2013; Colin is preparing for his junior year at Texas Christian.)
 
Rob, who said with a grin that he "majored in basketball" but also earned his marketing degree, credited his athletic experiences at SPU as beneficial in the work world. He and his business partners have grown their company into one that manages apartments in six states, with a focus on those near major universities as a source of student housing.
 
"All of us were involved in athletics, so we understand the team concept," he said. "That background of athletics and team building is finding the best way – and it's not always your way. We've all learned lessons from what we went through as athletes."
 
Sandy no longer runs – some knee issues put a halt to that – but is on the move all the time as the "Treasure Queen."
 
"I'm always lifting and hauling – I rarely sit down," she said. "I'm just very active."
 
What started as a hobby for her has transformed into a successful business.
 
"I was buying things second-hand at garage sales, estate sales, thrift shops, and buying stuff for the kids, and I would find these treasures that had value," she said. "I would buy something for a dollar and knew it was worth about $500, so I thought, 'How do I sell this?'"
 
From initially selling a few items on E-Bay, she now has space in local galleries, including Pacific Galleries in the Sodo area near Seattle's sports stadiums. People who pop in find jewelry, home décor, pottery, and other curious items.
 
"I have a very eclectic approach – you'll find fine sterling silver candlesticks sitting right next to a sign that says, 'Eggs for sale.'"
 
Although they have strong familial ties to Washington State, both Rob and Sandy have kept an eye and ear on the Falcons since their own Seattle Pacific days ended.
               
"Rob reads the sports page, first thing every morning," Sandy said, with a glance in his direction.
 
"Cover to cover," he chimed in, then continued, "It's really amazing on a national D2 scale how SPU and Western Washington have dominated. It always seems to come down to those two in the region."