High School Football: The Gridiron Grump begrudgingly gives out some flowers
Atta Boys – On old coaches, new records, and a Saturday twin bill at Laulainen Stadium
The Giridiron Grump special to Blast Zone Media / blastzonenews@gmail.com
Prep Football / Grumblings
This time of year can be hard on the heart. And I know what you’re thinking.
What else could be expected after 12 straight weeks of concession stand hot dogs and gas station energy drinks to fuel my annual prep football tour around the greater Blast Zone area? Well, indigestion is one thing. But it’s the explosively high stakes on the line each week, combined with the lahar-like repercussions that ripple throughout the valleys in the mid-week aftermath, that have really been making my lava chamber burble lately.
After all these years of returning uninvited, you faithful readers already know I’m no good at goodbyes. But once we reach the final regular season contest it’s like a funeral every week. I see seniors lingering on the sidelines, masking tears behind bear hugs and stiff-arming against the inevitable – it’s time to turn in the helmet and shoulder pads.
Players are rarely ready to be done playing, even (or perhaps especially) after tough losses or bad seasons. There’s a flame inside that never burns out when something you love is taken away before you’re ready to stop loving it.
But coaches are also going through it like magma in the cauldron this time of year. The only difference is that the big brains between the headset on the sideline are stuck in a pressurized fissure between the proverbial rock and a hard place. That is to say — they’ve got to figure out when it’s time to leave on good terms, or risk being unapologetically ejected like basalt out of the eruption crater.
In the last two weeks we’ve seen R.A. Long head coach Jon Barker and Kalama head coach Mike Phelps each step down from their positions after drastically different final seasons at the helm. And while we may have had our differences over the years (that just comes with the job in Grump Territory), I’m not here to dance on their graves.
As a person who has nothing to do except lurk outside high school football facilities, watching practices and making sharp judgments about everything I observe while dropping eves and casting aspersions, I know just how much time these guys spend at the field and in the film room. The only time I followed either of them home was that time I tried to box one of Phelps’ pet kangaroos to win a bet with the N2 Media Guy, but I can promise you they don’t leave that work behind in the locker room.
Coaches always bring the game home with them. Even if they try to ignore it, the game is there when it’s time to muck the marsupial barn, and it’s there when it’s time to prep your next podcast, and it’s there when it’s time to read bedtime stories. Because when you’re football crazy, you’re always a volcano inside, even if you’ve tricked some people into thinking you’re just a sleepy mountain.
One coach who promised to stick around for another trip up and down the Richter scale is Sean Gorley at Clatskanie. His Tigers suffered their first loss of the season last week on the road against the defending State champions from St. Paul, and that defeat ended their playoff run on the spot. But the Clatskanie kids shouldn’t let their heads hang too long, because they put Tiger Town back on the map this season.
Kelso was also wiped out last week in a State playoff contest on the road at Bellevue. The score was tough to look at, but this year’s crop of Scotties will not be remembered for how they finished – they’ll be remembered for what they started. Or maybe more accurately, what they kept rolling.
In a season of change in K-Town the Golden Domers made sure things felt familiar at home this season. Those comforts of home started with a bruising running game and a brass knuckle defense, and continued with a whole bunch of wins at Laulainen Stadium during an undefeated 3A GSHL campaign. Head coach Darin Gardner passed the sniff test in Year 1 and appears to have things locked in place for the foreseeable future.
I’d be remiss to move along without mentioning Onalaska, which lost at home last week by two points to Liberty Bell. The Loggers swear they notched a safety that the referees didn’t count, but they were also flagged 20 times. But when it comes right down to the nitty gritty, it was blocking and tackling that left the most to be desired for Ony. And you can bet the contents of Pastor Wayne Nelson’s offering plate that head coach Mazen Saade has already rededicated himself to making his Loggers better at the little things during the big gap between yesterday and next fall.
Speaking of blocking and tackling, it would appear that Napavine has gotten a lot better at those facets of the game since taking an L against Ony in Week 2. But Josh Fay’s Tigers will still have their hands full this week against No. 1 ranked Toledo.
Last week the Cheese Towners scorched Burbank (Columbia) at Schroeder Field and this week they’re returning to the scene of the crime. Eli Weeks threw for 279 yards last week, which is the most by a Toledo quarterback in a State contest since at least 1990, and it’s not particularly close (Bryce Marcil, 130 yards vs Kalama in the 2018 semifinals). Oh, and Adam Kruger’s 205 receiving yards for the Riverhawks is also a high water mark for a State level affair in at least a quarter century.
Toledo and Napavine will be the main attraction on Saturday at Laulaien Stadium at 5 p.m. Wahkiakum and Pomeroy will act as the matinee on Schroeder Field at 1 p.m., while Naselle will kickoff at the same time but way over yonder at Lion’s Field in Moses Lake.
With that out of the way, and without further delay, let’s get on with this week’s prognosticating and other essential nuggets.
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