The Camas High School football team won their first game of the season with a commanding and important, win against Battle Ground on an irregular Thursday game on September 30, 56-6, becoming 1-0 in league play on Senior Night. Two teams from the league will make the high school football playoffs this year. This means that in order for Camas to control their own fate, they must win against their other league opponents and rivals Skyview and Union.
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This week, Camas will take on a strong 4-1 Mountain View team with their only loss coming from Union. This will be a good test to see where Camas will stand with playoff goals. The season looked tough, starting off going 0-4 against non-league opponents including Central Catholic, Clackamas, Jesuit, and West Linn, some of the top high school football teams in Oregon.
CHS Head Coach Jack Hathaway said, “We like a tough schedule. We like to play the best, the best schools around and I think that makes us better in the long run. Preparing us for the games coming down the road.”
In the program for seven years prior, Hathaway stepped into the head coaching role after the departure of Coach Jon Eagle to Portland State University. Despite this, the formula to success stays the same.
Coach Hathaway said, “We basically call everything similar. We do everything the same. We just have made little tweaks to things. But that’s something that learning from Eagle, he did every single year. We always tweaked things and gotten better and diagnosed where we needed to improve. So we have adjusted and changed some things based off personnel and some stuff like that. But other than that, I learned so much from the guy on how to prepare, and how to watch film and how to run practices so everything has pretty much tried to stay exactly the same with little tweaks here and there.”
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While Coach Hathaway will try to keep the program running mostly the same, his role has changed significantly now that he is the head coach.
“When you’re a position coach, you get to worry about five to seven guys. I’ve got one hundred and fifty guys plus parents and coaches. It’s just a lot bigger. [The] coaching staff all stayed around, and they’re tremendous and support from parents, and administration all that stuff, has just been smooth. I really appreciate the support that I’m getting, for sure,” Hathaway said.
Defensive Lineman Brock Thornburg said, “It doesn’t feel all that different. Hathaway has done a great job keeping the Camas way while also infusing his own coaching ways into things.”
The football culture also has not changed from previous years.
“We’re a pretty close team. We’re always doing stuff that keeps us bonded,” Thornburg said.
Justin Taylor, a senior, has been hurt this year but has still bonded with the team. Taylor said, “I’m cheering the team on and helping coach up the players this year. We have a full season with all the fans and hopefully playoffs.”
