Titans Gear Up for Another Football Season
By Jennifer Halley, the West Side Newspaper
Throughout his 20 years of being head football coach at West Salem High School, Shawn Stanley’s philosophy has remained the same.
“It’s 100% about the impact that we can have on the players off the field, and the kind of character we can develop,” he says. “Football is really secondary to that.”
He’s no stranger to the influence a good coach can have on its players, how football teaches its players adversity, and what to do with it. Football has been in Stanley’s life for over half his years. Football is where Stanley found his purpose.
“I didn’t really have a dad in my life,” he said. “My coaches were my dad, and so to me, being a coach is being that same person for those kids as my coaches were for me, being a good and positive role model, someone they can trust and count on.”
He’s been in the game, playing and coaching, for 45 years, so he has a good idea of what needs to happen, on and off the field, to make a team successful.
“Character is at the forefront,” he said. “I believe you have to walk the walk if you’re going to talk the talk, and be an example of what you want your student-athletes to be. I am far from perfect, but I try to be a man of character. But just like any other business, you have to have a lot of great help around you. You can’t do it all by yourself, and I’m fortunate in that way to have help with the rest of my staff.”
Overall, the team holds a 3.6 grade point average, and Stanley hired an academic advisor to help the players keep on track with their classes and homework.
“Don't get me wrong, I want to win,” he said. “Every day we play, I want to win, and we're as competitive as anybody else, but that's never going to supersede our number one mission, which is to turn out great young men that everybody's proud of.”
The season begins on September 4 on home turf with a non-league game against Sheldon High School at 7 p.m. Official team practice started in mid-August, but there were plenty of offseason workouts happening before then to get ready. Last year, the Titans went 5-3 in league, and 6-4 overall, with a season-ending 35-12 loss against Nelson High School in the first round of playoffs.
“Last year’s team brought back quite a few experienced players,” Stanley said. “And a lot of them played significantly as juniors. But there are a lot of sophomores and juniors this year having to step in and fill roles that they haven’t done yet on a varsity level.”
Putting a team together each year is a challenge that never gets any easier.
“Like trying to fit puzzle pieces together,” Stanley said. “Lucky for us, those younger guys played a ton last year; a lot of them played Junior Varsity, so they’re not lacking experience necessarily, but the pace of play on a Friday night is different from Thursday JV games. So trying to simulate that in practice as closely as possible, and put them in situations that come up on game night so that, hopefully, when that situation does arrive in the game, it’s not the first time they’ve done it. They know what to expect. They’ve practiced it enough.”
And after every game, it’s back to the drawing board.
“Each week, we get to learn from the mistakes we made in the game,” Stanley said. “We evaluate our practices and the things that happen there, and hopefully catch things before they happen Friday night.”
Long after the season is over, when the lights on the field have been snuffed out, the jerseys have been returned and the shrill bark of a whistle, of shouts and the whack of shoulder pads clashing together, are only echoes, the coaches are already looking ahead to the next season.
“It’s about looking at what we did well? And, more importantly, what we didn't do well on the field,” Stanley said, “and analyzing that and addressing it in the offseason — through going to clinics, visiting colleges, other high schools, so we can learn and get better as coaches.”
There are several seniors who are returning after an impressive season last year, like Christian Newton, a defensive back and wide receiver, who Stanley says is a great young man, the kind who leads by example.
“I’m feeling really good about the upcoming season,” Newton said. “I feel like we have a great group of guys who are all bonded really well and who have already played together. My goal is to be a really good player, and do my best to help the team win. I’m ready to go against anything we have.”
It hasn’t hit him yet that this will be his last season wearing the Titan jersey.
“I’m sure it’ll hit later in the season,” he said, chuckling.
Things will look different on the field for him this year. Instead of only playing defense, he’ll fill an offensive role, too.
“I’m starting both ways, and helping out other positions as well, which is a pretty big role for me,” Newton said, “and I’m excited about that.”
Senior Ethan Tatum, offensive lineman and defensive lineman, was an All-Conference Player last year, and he brings back the same quiet energy for this season.
“I want to be a leader, and I want to win,” he said. “I’ve been really antsy, really pumped up to get the pads on, and come out with all the guys.”
He’s been working on his aggressiveness during the offseason. “Like going through blocks, and working on the mentality part of it,” he said. “That’s a big part of the offensive lines.”
Playing college football is Tatum’s ultimate goal. He’s been in contact with a school up in Idaho, and he’s exploring options at University of Oregon and University of Washington as well.
Stanley said he’s looking forward to the challenge that the season-opening game will bring to the inexperienced players.
“Sheldon High School is one of the winningest programs over the last 20 or 30 years in Oregon, so that’ll be exciting. As for our non-league schedule, the Sprague [High School] game will be one to look forward to as well because we could be two of the better teams in the area.”
But he doesn’t get too far ahead of himself.
“We have to take it one game at a time.”