Gregg Mizuta: Sports Photography

Third and Long for Vikings

The Vale offense (#57 Cody Collins, #30 Brady Sharp, #5 Logan Skerjanec) goes in motion during the first quarter of the Vale-Ontario game at Frank Hawley Stadium in Vale, Oregon on September 16, 2011.

It was a tough 44-0 loss for the Vikings in their annual rivalry game against the Ontario Tigers on Friday night. Even all the mojo from the Mr. Dale Wilkin face plates being waved in the Vale stands could not help the injury depleted Viking team. But the second season, conference play, begins next week. So despite an 0-3 start, an extended season still remains a possibility.

Vale’s Levi Maag battles against Ontario lineman Tristin Wishard as he pursues quarterback Trampai Waite during the annual Vale-Ontario rivalry game.

More images from the game are available in the photo gallery 2011 Football – Vale vs Ontario.

PROJECT: YOUR VALE VIKINGS

Some of the “Your Vale Viking” contributors (top row) Colleen Hawley, Seth Clark and Dave Eyler (Middle row) Bob Bement, Bob Mizuta, MaryJo Sharp (bottom row) Christa Maupin, Christian Rodriguez, Rhonda Erstrom.

During the Vale-Ontario game I was armed with three blue sharpies and three notebooks. My “Your Vale Viking” project was to find people to express in writing what Vale Football meant to them. When the game ending buzzer sounded I had twenty Vale Viking fans who shared their thoughts on paper. I was impressed with the results given that the writing instrument was a permanent marker and they only had a few minutes to organize their thoughts and put it down for all to see.

Pictures of all the contributors are in the “Your Vale Vikings” photo gallery. Each picture is captioned so you can see what they wrote or, in a couple of cases what they drew.

My thoughts on a few of the responses:

Colleen Hawley. My favorite writeup. A little history lesson and a tribute to Vale coaches. I was lucky to have Coach Lewis, he made me proud to be a Viking.

Pat Erstrom, Vale class of 1976 and father of #76 senior lineman Cory Erstrom, had the shortest written contribution. “1975 Vale 27 On 0″ which was the game score when he was a senior. I thought it was funny that he referenced Ontario only as “On”.

Mary Jo Sharp, Principal of Vale High School and daughter of Vale coaching legend Arnie Lewis, was the first person to say yes to my project. I have done similar type projects and I find it interesting that Mary Jo was the first person to turn the notebook horizontally to write.

Seth Clark, a young Viking as heart. Viking Pride apparently starts early in his household. First person to submit a drawing as his contribution. His brother Nate, was the second.

Robert Bair, EMT who is almost always on work duty at Vale football games, had the most unusual writeup relating to a single play back in 1977.

Thanks to all who participated in my project and thanks for stopping by to take a look. -Gregg

This entry was posted on Monday, September 19th, 2011 at 12:01 pm. It is filed under Football and tagged with Football, Ontario, Vale, Vale Vikings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.