High School Football Preview: Kelso embraces tradition in season of change
'Year of the Hilander' – Scots return veteran defense, intriguing offense in '25
Jordan Nailon for Blast Zone Media / blastzonenews@gmail.com
HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL
The Basics
Team: Kelso Hilanders
Coach: Darin Gardner, 1st season
Helmets: Gold
Last Year’s Record: 7-3
Second place finish in the 3A GSHL. Lost to 40-30 to Mercer Island in the Week 10 playoffs.
It’s a short list of situations that make Kelso fans more nervous than hiring a new head coach for the high school football team.
Is the local volcano rocking and rumbling more than usual?
Is the river rapidly rising and threatening to breach the dike?
If you answered no to both of those questions, then the No. 1 concern in K-Town is the overall well-being of the Kelso Hilanders football team.
When Darin Gardner began his first preseason camp as head coach of the Scots last week, there were plenty of inquiring minds around the community wondering just what kind of shenanigans might be in store at Schroeder Field.
Change is scary.
But Gardner is no stranger to the ways of the Hilanders. In fact, he’s been haunting Laulainen Stadium as an assistant coach long enough to understand that no detail is too small to matter. And that’s precisely why Gardner was on his way back from the dry cleaner in between practices a mere 48 hours into his first season as as head coach in Kelso.
For those who have been wondering, yes, the Hilanders will still be wearing dress blazers to school on game days. And, yes, those jackets will be clean and freshly pressed for this year’s crop of Scots. It’s all part of the prestige of Kelso football.
If you know, you know. And if you don’t know, you better ask somebody.
“Having done this for, entering my 20th year, it’s really the only way that I know how to do things,” Gardner said. "We’ve got a coaching staff that been engrained in it just as long as I have and the tradition is something that we take seriously, and our kids to as well…
“In as place as steeped in tradition as Kelso is, I’d be a fool to change any of that. That’s what makes Kelso a special place.”
But despite that lengthy list of details Gardner promises to keep the same, there will be personnel changes that cannot be avoided. Sure, there’s a new head coach. But there’s also going to be a new (sort of!) quarterback, a bunch of new running backs, and other passively familiar faces and surnames scattered throughout the depth chart.
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