North Marion 10/30/26

We went to Yamhill-Carlton High School a few years ago, and they were a playoff team that season, but apparentlly they have fallen on hard times since then, and when the winless Tigers forfeited their game against Horizon Christian at the last minute this Friday it was time to put Plan B into action.  Within that same 3A Special District 1 league, North Marion was hosting the Warrenton Warriors in what looked to be a pretty even matchup, so that’s where we went.

North Marion High School, as you might guess, is in northern Marion County, midway between Salem and Portland in the countryside between the agricultural towns of Aurora, Hubbard, and Donald.  Those towns have a combined population of around 6,000, and North Marion is a 4A school, but after an 0-8 season in 2021 they dropped down to play at the 3A level, where they have been able to win nine games over the last four seasons.  The Huskies may not have a long history of success on the gridiron, but they have produced an NFL running back.  Pat Chaffey, class of ’86, known to some in the Ednold family as Ol’ Molasses for his quickness and agility, was a standout at North Marion before playing for the Beavers.  He was drafted by the Bears in ’90 and played for the Falcons and Jets before retiring.

North Marion opened in 1950 and the Huskies have yet to play in a championship game.  The football program may not be utopian, but you can’t say that about the city of Aurora.  Willaim Keil founded the community, named for his daughter, in 1856 as a Christian commune that lasted for over 20 years.  A few years after Keil died in 1877 the whole thing fell apart, but there’s an Old Aurora Colony Museum there now where you can learn all about it.

We drove through the surrounding farmland on Grim Road to find the primary school, middle school, and high school on one big campus all by itself in the hinterland between I-5 and 99E roughly equidistant from the three communities.  The school district made use of the covid pandemic shutdown to build a new high school, and it still has that new school look about it.  I was expecting rural Oregon shabby, and we got rural Oregon modern.  Shabby is good, but modern is clean and sleak, and gives the impression that their football team really means business.  A little misleading, as it turned out.

We gave The Bucket some alone time in the parking lot south of the school and followed the crowd west toward the lights.  The lady at the table took our $5 each, handed us a program, and we entered the throng of people milling about on the rubber track beyond the south end zone.  It was the night before Halloween, and we were in the middle of the annual Trick or Treat the Track event, where student clubs and community organizations had set up tables and tents to pass out candy to hordes of little, and not-so-little, ghosts and power rangers and princesses and other characters I didn’t recognize.  The North Marion Husky was even in the mix, posing for pictures and getting the children hyped for the impending game.   If you’re looking to boost attendance at your football game, the whole thing is a stroke of genius.

We continued on around to the west side where the large metal and concrete covered grandstand was awaiting us.  They could use some lights under the roof, but the wooden benches were a welcome sight and we chose our seats at the north end far from the band to the south.  The visitors had a small set of uncovered aluminum bleachers on their side of the field but some of them, apparently realizing the opportunity for greater proximity to the Ednolds, chose to sit in the grandstand on the home side.  It wasn’t raining during the game, but the showers on the preceding days had made the natural grass field a little soggy, and we got to see some muddy uniforms before the game was over.

With a 4-1 league record, Warrenton had sewn up a playoff spot already, but the 3-2 Huskies just might be able to snag a spot too, if they could win this final game of the regular season.  They had plenty to play for, and it was senior night.  As the pre-game trick or treating was taking place on the track, the senior players were announced and given their moment in the spotlight before leaving the field to reenter by crashing through a sign that looked a little too conspicuously professional to have been hand-made.  Maybe the old craft skills that I associate with cheerleaders are a thing of the past.  Call me old-fashioned, but I have an affinity for the old paper banners where the Husky might be confused for some other breed of dog, or maybe for something that isn’t a dog at all.  These kids will never know what they’re missing.

The Huskies wasted no time marching down the field on their first posession and taking a 7-0 lead that lasted through the first quarter, and the Husky band played my old school’s fight song, as Glide had done for me last week.  There are still quite a few schools I haven’t been to, but I’d estimate that at least a third of the schools in Oregon use that same song.  Then I turned on the TV this morning and heard a university band playing it, too.  It’s amazing how far that little tune has gone from its humble beginnings at our little school, and I hope my hometown is making a killing off the royalties. After hearing that song, unfortunately, the Huskies gave up 27 unanswered points in the second quarter and their playoff hopes were hanging by a thread by the time the teams left the field at halftime. 

That meant it was time for the senior cheerleaders to be introduced and honored, which they were to the approval of all, and then they did a short routine they had prepared for the occasion.  With no other ceremonies to attend to, I took that as my cue to head for the concession stand on the south side of the field.  The PA announcer had mentioned more than once that, as this was the final home game of the season this would be our last opportunity this year to have an “infamous” Husky dog, and I certainly didn’t want to squander that chance.  I could imagine a few ways a type of hot dog could become infamous, but I wanted to try it for myself.  I discovered that a Husky dog is a plain hot dog covered in neon orange nacho cheese.  I had to add some yellow mustard to spice it up a bit, but it wasn’t half bad.  I’m still in the dark about the story behind its infamy, but I bought one so as a sales pitch I guess it worked pretty well.

The hot coffee was also good, and my hands were happy to have something warm to hold for a while.  Finally, for the first time this year, it had turned legitimately cold for our final regular-season game on Halloween Eve.  It was the final Friday of daylight saving time, so at least the sun didn’t set too early, but once it was gone things cooled off fast.  And speaking of cooling off fast, the Huskies returned to play the second half and Warrenton added two more touchdowns in the third quarter to pull ahead 41-7.  They had scored 41 points in a row and showed no signs of letting up.  When they scored again early in the fourth quarter the clock ran continuously from that point and the Huskies’ saw their playoff hopes tick away.

They did manage another touchdown before it all ended, bookending the game with their two touchdowns, but on this night the tricks outnumbered the treats, and I haven't seen much lately that was scarier than watching the Huskies trying to defend the Warriors.  It was still a successful season, though.  North Marion's four wins are the most since 2019, and second-year coach Matt Arnold has them trending upward. 

I don’t know if we’ll make it to any playoff games this year, so this might do it for our season too.  Saturday is Halloween, and we’ll be setting our clocks back that night, which might be a good spot to place a marker and end our travels for the season.  And there’s an election on Tuesday which will undoubtedly be followed by weeks, or months, or years of the worst that mankind has to offer, regardless of who gets elected.  It may be that football would be the perfect way to escape that nonsense, but it could also be that the only safe and sane place to be for a while is on my couch.  With bated breath, I’m expecting the worst but hoping for the best, so I'm not ruling out another trip before the season is over.