Commentary

There are things right in front of you, as you navigate life, that you don’t realize until time, growth and maturity brings them into focus.

As a parent, you do your best to train up your kids and set them on the path to a productive and fulfilling life. Along the way, unbeknownst at the time, you temporarily hand them off to people who, as it turns out, go on to have a profound impact.

Easily said about a number of people I’ve encountered in the numerous orbits I’ve made around the sun.

One of them was Jerry Scott, a Dayton guy, though me and my classmates didn’t know it right away (or weren’t paying attention). Mr. Scott passed away last week at age 79.

He was in Dayton’s Class of 1963 where he played football for four years, was a co-captain and received the Inspirational Award. He played a little basketball, ran track and availed himself of the arts in class plays. He was a four-year D Club member, Key Club member, class officer and attended Boy’s State.

The guys on the football team met him in a meeting in the Waitsburg auditorium in the spring of 1974. He drove a blue Mercury Capri and, though not a “muscle” car of the day, it was exotice and the speedometer went to 160 m.p.h. Now that would be a speeding ticket!

He’d be coaching football and teaching Algebra, etc., come the fall of 1974.

Fast forward to August of that summer and I was scooped out of my job at the Green Giant Cannery and plopped on a Greyhound bus with Walla Walla Young Life headed to Malibu Club in Canada for a week.

The first day of football two-a-days, I was getting off the Malibu Princess in Vancouver, B.C., but I got home in time for the afternoon practice.

Mr. Scott hollered “cover down!” and while everyone got in ranks and files for calisthenics, I was sorta confused until I figured out that was his command to begin the stretching, push ups, etc. We hustled through practice and at the end, Mr. Scott ordered everyone who missed the morning practice to hit the track for some punitive laps. My explanation that I hadn’t slept in and missed practice—I had been in Canada that morning—didn’t get much of a hearing.

We got to know Mr. Scott in junior Geometry. It was a struggle, he said years later, because he figured we had a better grounding in Algebra and math than we actually had. Geometry was highlighted by contests to see who could stuff the most Kleenex in their mouths…I think Rod Estes won, or was it Kirk Huwe?

Our 1974 football season did okay but not as remarkable as the next year when we were seniors. That year we had a good mix of experienced seniors with capable underclassmen in line and back positions. We lost the first game to eventual state champion Colton, scoring three or four touchdowns on them before their defense got on track and shut out, or practically so, opponents the rest of the season.

After Colton, we won all the rest, finishing the Southeast Washington A League as champions with a winner-take-all fist fight against Connell in the final game at home. Our defense stopped the Eagles on a fourth-quarter goal-line stand, then chewed up the clock with a steady march up field, all with a steady wind coming over our left shoulders.

What a gift to hand your second-year coach!

We were pretty danged proud of that and chalked it up to that ethereal combination of small-town families with boys of various ages and abilities that coalesced into a team.

Jerry would later bedevil me by telling my kids that I went to state in tennis as a senior. That must’ve been the other Loyal Baker because I don’t remember it. Perhaps one of the meets we played at season’s end was officially considered “state” competition…if it was, I was unaware.

He continued his career at Waitsburg Schools and remained involved in athletics through the years. His and Karla’s kids, Renee, T.J. and Kristyn, were all athletic and achievers who represented their family, school and community well.

If I may be so bold as to speak for my high school classmates, I believe what Jerry and other teachers did for us was impart an immeasurable portion of pride, persistence, accomplishment and gratitude.

I’m sure he’d shrug and say “I was just doing my job as a teacher.”