David Douglas 9/11/26

I’m not sure what was going on this Friday, or maybe what was not going on, but we practically flew up the I-205 freeway.  All of the places where the traffic usually comes to a crawl for absolutely no reason were clear, as always, but for some reason nobody was slowing down for those imaginary obstacles and we were able to drive the speed limit until our exit onto Washington Street, from where we headed east into the vast ungentrified suburbia that is east Portland. 

The Mill Park and Hazelwood neighborhoods are full of mid-century houses and old shopfronts along the streets, like Burnside and Stark, that look much different than they do a few miles west.  By the time they pass above I-205 they are getting tired and seem to have lost some of their personality.  In the middle of all of the suburban sprawl, if you turn south onto 130^th Avenue, you’ll come to a high school that seems to have been custom made to look right at home in just such a place, and I mean that in the most positive way.

If you turn before that, though, on 122^nd Avenue, you’ll find the Bridge City Taproom, and that’s what we did.  As the name suggests, it’s a room with some taps.  A giant room with lots of taps, and also possibly the most dense concentration of television screens anywhere.  It’s a sports bar, and we sat at the bar watching sports, sipping our Boneyard IPA and huckleberry cider.  We had our own game to watch, though, so we soon skidaddled out to the high school.

The school was named for Scottish botanist David Douglas, who spent some time in the Columbia River area in the 1820s and 1830s.  The Douglas Fir is named for him, and he’s responsible for introducing over 200 species of plants to Britain, several of which significantly changed the British timber industry as well as the landscape.  In 1833 he traveled to Hawaii, where he died under suspicious circumstances at the age of 35.  On the flanks of Mauna Kea on the Big Island, pits had been dug to trap wild cattle.  Douglas appeared to have fallen into one, where he was attacked by a bull who had done the same.  However, the last person to see him alive was an escaped convict and much of Douglas’ money was missing when he was found.  There were many stories about what may have happened, but none of them were ever proven, and those who know the truth died a long time ago.  Douglas was buried on Oahu, but there’s a memorial and grove of Douglas Fir trees on the Big Island in his honor.

By the middle of the last century, many of the students in the area were being bussed into Portland or out to more populated suburbs.  The big city was fast encroaching from the west, but that part of town wouldn’t be annexed until the 1980s, and there wasn’t a public high school to serve that part of Multnomah County.  So the locals built their own school and a few years later an entire school district, and named it for the trees that were prominent in the neck of the woods. 

David Douglas High School opened in 1954, and some of it looks like it.  The place is massive, and I don’t think we ever saw the whole thing, but we saw most of the South Campus buildings and a few of the North Campus buildings, and it’s obviously had some additions and renovations over the years.  We found the parking lot off of 130^th and took one of the fast-filling spots, and I imagine a lot of late arrivers had to search for spots in the surrounding neighborhood.  We could see the back of the grandstand in front of us and when we opened the doors the music coming from that direction was, well, music to our ears.

Eight dollars each got us past the entry booth, and from there it was a little strange the way the home and away fans were segregated.  There were rope fences and there were a couple of ladies making sure that Scots fans weren’t infiltrating the visitors’ side, or vice versa.  Maybe there’d been troubles in the past or some legitimate reason for vigilance, but it felt a little overdone for two sets of fans that could have used an opportunity to commiserate.

It looks like the old, covered, concrete and steel grandstand with aluminum benches has been added on to with a large, uncovered section on either side, making for an extra-large seating area, and most of it was full by the time the game got started.  The boisterous students sat at the south end, the band had their section next to them, and the rest of us had the north half.  The weather was comfortably warm, but for some reason it still felt good to be under a roof, which the visitors across the field couldn’t say in their smaller-but-not-small aluminum bleachers.  Separating us was the artificial turf and rubber running track.  The whole place is surrounded by trees, and I would bet at least a few of them are Douglas Firs.

Though the school opened in 1954, they chose not to field a football team that first season.  I understand that logic:  Get the school established before taking on non-essential tasks like building a football team.  Except that another school that opened that same year (South Salem) went on to win the state championship on their first try, so the Scots just might have missed out on a golden opportunity.  The Scots have won two state championships, beating North Salem in 1960 and Reynolds in 1965, but those two highlights of the program both happened over 60 years ago, and in the past four seasons they’ve managed to win a total of four games, and it’s been over 15 years since they’ve had a winning season.

Despite their recent struggles, David Douglas has had some pretty outstanding football players in their program over the years.  In 1965, Claxton Welch graduated, went to the University of Oregon, then was drafted as a running back by the Dallas Cowboys, where he won a Super Bowl in 1971.  Pete Pierson, class of ’89, won a national championship with the Washington Huskies before playing several years as an offensive tackle with the Buccaneers, and Owa Odighizuwa graduated in 2010 and went to UCLA before playing defensive end for the Giants for a few years.  Samson Ebukam is still playing defensive end for the Falcons after graduating from David Douglas in 2013. 

But the heaviest hitting David Douglas alums didn’t go on to play football.  Sam Elliott was born in Sacramento, but his family moved to Portland before he entered high school and he attended David Douglas, graduating in 1962.  That naked upper lip in his yearbook photo just didn’t look quite right, so I had to add my own touch.  Five years later Lindsay Wagner also became a David Douglas grad before becoming the Bionic Woman, and she would be a welcome addition to the football team if she could re-enroll today with those bionic arms and legs.

This game was a perfect example of the fact that the game of football doesn’t require exceptional athletes to be entertaining.  David Douglas is one of the three Portland schools that take turns being the largest in the state.  Some years it’s Franklin.  Some years it’s Grant.  But the Scots are always in that mix. However, their dearth of recent success has them playing in Special District 1 at the 5A level this year in hopes of rekindling some of the old Scots magic.  They kicked off the season last week with a 44-point loss to St. Helens, who themselves have not been exactly setting the football world on fire in recent years.  Their opponents from McNary have so far decided to tough it out at the 6A level, but they had endured three consecutive winless seasons before winning two games last year, and kicked this season off by losing to Corvallis in their opener.  The matchup was certainly intriguing:  The Scots against the Celtics.  Two age-old foes trying to return to their glory days.

By the end of the day, I thought I couldn't take another reminder of what day it was. Everyone had been doing 25th anniversary memorials and I didn't really need one more. But the David Douglas principal led the crowd in a nice moment of silence before a rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner by the Scots band and a ROTC color guard, and it was all very simple and tasteful, and may have been the best memorial of the whole day. After that, it didn’t take long for the fireworks to start, or for the battle-axes to clang, to use a more fitting metaphor.  On the second play of the game the Scots fumbled the ball and an alert Celtic player picked it up and ran 40 yards for a touchdown.  The extra point was no good, but McNary held the lead just 29 seconds into the game. 

After that, as the two teams took turns running for minimal gains, throwing incompletions, and being penalized, I decided a mid-second-quarter trip to the concession stand was in order.  David Douglas has the facilities for a spectacular snack bar experience.  With a very large block house, Dee's Corner Cafe, just north of the grandstands on the home side of the field and a smaller one on the visitors’ side, they have the capacity for a top-notch operation.  I just suggest they revisit the decision to man those facilities strictly with student workers without any adult supervision or, apparently, any training or instinct for customer service.  It wasn’t terrible, and I did eventually get my nothing-special hot dog and the cold popcorn that was… not to die for but, maybe to suffer a near-death experience for.  The gap between the potential and the reality is just very large.

The score remained 6-0 until, with just 20 seconds remaining before halftime, McNary fumbled the ball and it was the Scots' turn to score a defensive touchdown, with an ensuing extra point try that might give them an insurmountable lead.  I felt awful for that kicker.  She was the only girl on the team and she had some serious leg strength.  The crowd went wild when the ball easily sailed well beyond the goalposts, and it looked to us as if she’d made it easily.  Apparently it missed to one side or the other, and the Scots had to be content to go to halftime tied up at 6.

That’s when we got to see the David Douglas dance team do their thing.  The routine was short, and I’m no expert, but The Scottish Tams, as they are known, looked to be pretty good.  Then the band took over from their place in the stands, and they were pretty good, too, as they were through the entire game.  I’m not sure how many band members there are, but it took four student conductors to keep them all in time, and there weren’t any empty seats in that entire section.  They certainly didn’t lack for volume.  And it was about this time that the mascot made his first appearance.  He doesn’t have a name, apparently, but he’s an imposingly large guy in his kilt and beard.  If he couldn’t strike fear in the Celtics, I’m not sure what could.

Back on the field, the struggles continued for both sides until McNary finally scored an offensive touchdown with about 8 minutes left in the game, and I don’t think anyone would have put money on the Scots being able to respond with any points of their own.  But, once again, the kicking game came into play.  The Scots punted from mid-field with about 4 minutes remaining and pinned the Celtics back near their own goal line.  Unable to move the ball at all, they themselves punted out of their own end zone and David Douglas found themselves within 20 yards of the goal line. 

To general astonishment, the Scots crossed that goal line with under a minute to play, and trailed by a single point with the conversion upcoming.  Would they try to tie it with a kicker who’d already missed once?  Or would they try for the dramatic win by going for two points?  I would have liked to have seen the kicker get a shot at redemption and a little extra action for our $8, but I guess the coach figured it was now or never, and the Scots ran a bootleg to the right that was stopped a foot short.

We headed a few miles west on Stark to get back on the big interstate, but the Scots will head a few miles east next week to play a Reynolds team that’s undefeated after spanking Parkrose this week, so things may not get any better for them in the near future.  But that defense isn’t awful, and I feel like a win or two this season isn’t out of the question.  Especially if they can talk the Bionic Woman out of retirement.