High School Football: The Gridiron Grump goes off on bye weeks and forfeits
Quitin' Time – Cancellations and dwindling turnout put football fans in a pinch
Gridiron Grump special to Blast Zone Media / blastzonenews@gmail.com
Prep Football / Grumblings
It has come to my attention that I left a team out last week when I was detailing my grievances, and for that I say — wait did you think I was going to apologize? This is The Gridiron Grump you’re reading, not Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.
Which, come to think of it, I wish I could go back in time and play another round of neighborhood football with the old gang. Two-hand touch. Flag. Tackle. Or good ol’ fashioned Smear the…. hold up now. I’m being told the kids don’t call it by that last name anymore, but you get the point.
Drawing up plays, counting out alligators before blitzing the QB, and making “losers walk” after touchdowns was one of the great joys of my life. Heck, we took the gridiron to the next level back in my day by playing on blacktop parking lots and using the white lines of the parking spaces as hash marks. We ran. We dove. We ripped up our school pants and we skinned our knees. And we loved it. We loved to play.
Which brings me back around to Onalaska – the team I forgot to mention in this space last week. Now you tell me, is it more of an insult to be insulted by The Grump or to be completely forgotten? The jury is still out on that one. But I’m guessing the descendants of the infamous Uncle Same billboard from I-5 would rather be subject to cannon fodder than left out of the fight entirely.
Why is that? Because if there’s one thing that’s for sure in this world full of madness, it’s that the Onalaska boys still like to play. Even (especially?) if someone gets their feelings hurt.
I guess I’m still getting used to the Ony Loggers being in the “the area”. As you may have guessed, old habits have never been easy for me to give up.
And from the sound of it, some local coaches aren’t too happy about Gritville, USA being included in the conversation. Seems there’s not a lot of love lost between the Loggers and – well – just about anybody. And that’s probably bound to happen when your moto is “Shut Up and Hit Somebody!”
Come to think of it, The Grump and the Ony gang have probably been a natural fit all along.
And while the Loggers have been irritating opponents and offending opposing fan bases, I’ve become fed up with all the last minute cancellations and forfeits we’ve seen so far this season. And it’s not a new thing. This trend has been growing like that weird lump on the back of my head over the last half decade or so.
Just last week Stevenson chose not come back out of the locker room during a homecoming game at Kalama. Are you kidding me? Even if injuries were an issues, quitting before the bell is – well, it’s quitting. And it’s gross.
Sources say there were a half dozen extra players on the sideline in full uniform for the Bulldogs. Why not let them play and see what varsity football is like? Why not let the King and Queen Salmon have their moment back up in the stands with the rest of their school. Let the marching band toot their horns, bang their drums and tap their tambourines. Let the PA voice in the sky hoot and holler into the microphone. Let the parents watch their spawn run and jump and fall down – and get back up again.
Heck, the game was one touchdown and a conversion away from running clock territory anyway. I’m sure Kalmaa would have been happy to run the C-squad out there in the second half just to keep the game moving along. Gee wiz, I mean, it all goes by so fast anyhow. It’s a shame to let opportunity walk.
Even a man like me, notorious for irrational reactions and temper tantrums, can easily see that there were better alternatives close at hand. But quitting? That’s a tough habit to quit.
Speaking of mailing it in, it sounds like quite a few prep football fans took a break from the regularly scheduled programming in Week 4 to go watch a country music concert. Was it Waylon Jennings’s ghost come back to haunt The Columbia Theatre? No. Some would argue it was better than that, because Tucker Wetmore has a State championship ring AND a belt buckle. That’s right, the former Kalama Chinook football star was thrilling the home crowd once again, but this time it was under the lights of that amphitheater by the Birkenstock store off I-5 in Ridgefield. So, if you noticed a few extra empty seats in the grandstand a fortnight ago, you know who to blame.
Alas. Whatever. Maybe I’m simply not doing a good job of processing my overarching disappointment appropriatley. Disappointment with what, you may ask? That football seems to be struggling to thrive in places that not too long ago were considered tough places to play. You’ve got Rainier and Clatskanie both playing 9-man football for the first time ever in Oregon. Meanwhle, Winlock filed a waiver to drop down to the 1B/8-man ranks in Washington, and Morton/White Pass are splitting the sheets in the offseason so they can drop down as well. Maybe this year’s Wahkiakum squad (much like the Mossyrockers from a few seasons back) have set a poor example by finding too much success on the wide open field.
But then again. At least they’re playing. Because missing the action entirely on Friday nights seems to be a growing trend that I find to be more concerning than whatever T-shirts any coaches’ wives has been handing out behind the stadium. These days prep teams have been cancelling games last minute at an alarming rate, often leaving the other team without enough time or inclination to find a replacement, let alone to game plan for their new foe.
But that’s not always the case. Sometimes something strange happens, and then apathy allows it to become the new reality. Which is exactly the same reason I have to operate my windshield wipers by hand these days – they broke and I’m too lazy to fix it the way it should be fixed.
This week Castle Rock won’t play a game at all because White Salmon dropped out of the Trico League, but not until after the schedule was already set. The Rockets opted not to fill the date in an attempt to stay healthy for the upcoming push for the playoffs. Kalama is set to get its league bye next week, and rumor has it the ‘Nooks won’t be filling the empty spot on the schedule with Onalaska, or anyone else for that matter. They’d rather rest up than risk getting hurt.
As you’ve probably guessed, I don’t like that. I like to watch football. And when I was a younger man, I enjoyed playing it then even more than I enjoy talking about it now. Even when I got hurt. And it seems reasonable to assume the kids who signed up to play football this fall like to play football, too.
Speaking of things I don’t like – I don’t like that the trees in Longview are all going to wind up being cut down before some bug can kill them fair and square. It feels like quitting on a loss midstream, if you will. It’s just not natural, and I for one can appreciate an old snag perhaps more than anyone. What’s more, the homeless squirrels are going to have to set up little tents all over town. If we’re being proactive about things, I say we ship the squirrels out of town, lest anyone start to think we’ve got a problem that needs fixin’ around here.
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