Prep Football: Searching for The GOAT of Ocean Beach Highway
The West End — Best QB's stand their ground, know when to tuck and run
Sam Barbee for Blast Zone Media / blastzonenews@gmail.com
There was a time when the road to a State title went right through Cathlamet.
It went west, following the great and turbulent Columbia River, twisting and turning its way through some of the most weathered landmass on the continent. That road went up the east side of KM Mountain and down the west side and didn’t stop as it went right through Rosberg and Deep River and Naselle, finally reaching its terminus in Long Beach at the Pacific Ocean.
And all along the way there were dudes who wear rubber pants and cork boots and haul gear for their summer fun and spending cash. They are the sons of Mules. The sons of Comets. And, of course, the sons of Fishermen.
There was a time, not too long ago, where it didn’t matter how good your season was. Because you still had to travel the Ocean Beach Highway from end to end Cathlamet if you wanted to get to where you really wanted to go.
These Highway 4 towns – and I say this with love and admiration – have a certain connection to the land that can only be inherited and it’s not for sale. These are the places where the loggers lay their heads. Sure, some live in Carrols and Vader and Kid Valley, but these are logging communities from tip to stump. It’s what that entire quadrant of the state is reserved for. After all, look at all those trees. The paper Longview makes comes from somewhere.
And so, a half century ago, there were two logging companies who worked that old and crumbling mountain (elevation 955 feet) we have come to call KM. The work was good and attracted guys from Cathlamet and Skamokawa and Stella. And the call went west from Gray River to Rosberg to Deep River and even to Naselle, and a lot of those dusty knuckled men had sons. And their sons went to school, at least some of the time. And at those schools they were on the football team.
So the guys who went west after work and the guys who went east started to talk. And they began to make promises. And then they began to make bets.
And from that, we get the Battle of KM Mountain and its iterations on the gridirons of Naselle and Cathlamet. And along the way there were debts that had to be paid.
“Crowds were huge,” former Naselle head football coach Jeff Eaton said. “Literally, there were fights pretty much every game back then.”
Reliably, whenever the big game rolled around it was the biggest show in more than several towns, and at least two counties.
“It was a way bigger thing back then than it is now. But me and Coach McNulty lived through some of the heyday,” Eaton said. “So we reminded (the players) of that all the time and we talk stories about how it was back then. If you think it’s a rivalry now, you should’ve been there.”
Tough Place to Play
Let’s start our journey out the Ocean Beach Highway in Cathlamet, where plenty of folks still refuse to call the school by the county’s name.
Cathlamet seems like a place time forgot. If you were to blindly describe a little ferry town on a big river where a person at least resembling Mark Twain would frequent the local watering hole, you’d surely describe a place not unlike Cathlamet.
The ferry is still operational, sure, but Cathlamet once was the only place where you could cross the Columbia River. That tends to makes a place important. It usually tends to mean growth. And growth means people.
And that’s the way it was. At least or a little while.
But first they built a bridge over the river from Longview to Rainier. And then they built a bigger bridge over the river from South Pacific County to Astoria, and suddenly most of that traffic that used to pass through town began to stay on the highway, headed for one bridge or the other to drive over a newfangled bridge instead.
But some people never left, nor do they don’t intend to. And they always stop in town to see what’s new.
There’s still a thriving rodeo culture there, so sports with inherent danger are no nothing new or outrageous. Traditionally, that little field up on the hill above the highway has seen some serious football played on its famed natural grass.
However, Wah-Ki-Hi (as some locals prefer to call the school) is a place where time (until recently) had also forgotten to properly introduce the forward pass. Like the Kelso Hilanders way on down the road, the Mules have mostly avoided throwing the ball with every collective cell in their shared DNA.
Current Wahkiakum coach Ryan Lorenzo thought of one quarterback that rose above the rest in his mind. It’s a name that makes sense based on his lived experience.
Lorenzo was a lineman on the 2004 team that finished runner-up to Lind-Ritzville at State, back before they added Sprague to the mix, and he pointed to one guy; Matt Magush.
His offensive coordinator, Magush was the conductor of a high-powered offense centered around the rushing skills of Jeff McNally.
Cathlamet is a traditional Wing-T school, and the Mules might still be pulling guards and buck sweeping to their hearts’ content, but they’re 8-man now – just like their KM Mountain rivals in Naselle – and that creates a wrinkle in the conversation.
Magush may led the Mules to their best finish ever, but the current signal caller – Jayden Stoddard – has been asked to do the most of any quarterback in memory.
So let’s talk about 8-man football really briefly, just to make sure we are all on the same page.
You know how baseball and fastpitch softball are essentially the same thing, with essentially the same rules that result in essentially the same plays and kinds of plays but it’s different enough that you can’t just pull any ol’ thing from here to there, or vice versa?
That’s 8-man football for you.
It’s still about blocking and tackling and eye discipline and proper leverage and setting and edge. It’s still football, but it’s different enough that you can’t help but notice.
Those six combined guys missing from the gridiron make a huge difference, especially when you consider 8-man typically plays on a standard size field. Tackling in space is somehow even more important. Cornerbacks have to play run force on the edge especially against option, then they have to go cover. Defensive lineman might have to (gasp!) touch the ball on offense.
From an offensive coordinator’s perspective, a lot of the game is finding ways to get your quarterback out in space and allow him to be an athlete. Period.
Is he open? Yes? Throw it. No? Run it. Pretty simple in theory. Not so simple to execute.
But Stoddard excelled at the assignment this season, earning All-League recognition and landing on national leader boards for passing yards.
“He wants the team to succeed,” Lorenzo said of Stoddard. “He wants to put the ball in other guys’ hands. Because I think he wants them to do well.”
On The Road
I’ve never felt more thoroughly rooted in Southwest Washington than when I’m driving over KM Mountain. In the ex-urban environment in which I’ve spent the majority of my life, it’s sort of easy to forget how close the forest is. Or, at least was. You get the idea pretty quickly as temporary rubber tires grip to the side of eternal KM Mountain.
Once upon a time, in a long-haul drive to the central California coast, I decided to take Highway 101 the whole way down. My apartment in Coos Bay at the time was a literal stone’s throw from the famous road, so I figured it would be easy. And fun.
Somewhere just over the border in northern California, where the closest town is Brookings-Harbor, I ran into a temporary stop light showing red. There was some work to be done up ahead, or whatever, and the two-lane highway was down to a single lane. So here I am, in the dark and middle of nowhere, with rain pounding and my cell phone unable to connect to a tower, just sitting and waiting. There is something unnerving about being cut off from modern society. And there, at that stop light, I was.
I get that same feeling up there on KM Mountain. It feels so far away from everything else, even though I know better. It’s one of those places that people who aren’t from here believe the entire region is like. Someone once asked me if we all lived in trees because every time she drove through on the freeway that’s all she saw — trees and more trees.
This rivalry, named after this famous bluff in logging country with a weird name, is us. And I love it. And with Wahkiakum and Naselle once again fighting for footing in the same league, I’m happy it’s back on the docket.
Comet Country Cousins
We’ve come down the western face of KM Mountain now. We carve along through Rosberg and that little Irish Pub that somehow makes sense in a place not known for its Gaelic connections. Pubs – a place you could (and still should be able to) eat, drink and sleep on a road — are especially useful along old roads accustomed to moving people to and fro when getting around was a much heavier lift.
We’ve gone past the cleverly named Deep River and into Naselle, where the Comets have continued to be dominant even after a drop down into the 8-man ranks after the town population growth stalled. Still, having a full score of boys in the high school hallway is an advantage over the schools that only have a baker’s dozen.
Even then, there are all those loggers and Scandinavians (and Scandinavian loggers!) who live in that little river valley. And there also seems to be a parade of quality football teams trekking north and east to tackle foes from all corners of the state. (As an aside, Naselle is one of those place names that only the locals know how to say. So is Wahkiakum. And to pronounce either incorrectly is akin to revealing you are a transplant to the area. A sandbagger in sandbag country, if you will. So that’s fun).
Jeff Eaton has been in and around Naselle athletics as long as anybody. He was the head coach until 2021 when he retired to go elk hunting. However, he stuck around as an assistant for the Comets because coaching is in his blood. Asked who stood out to him over the years under center, he had a few names rise immediately to the tip of his tongue, but had to be asked about another.
His son, Dustin, graduated in 2013 and was a three-year starter, falling the Adna in the first round twice but with a crossover win over Wahkiakum in a special playoff edition of the Battle of KM Mountain.
Eaton mentioned Ryan Bjornsgaard, who became notable later on for replacing Lyle Patterson as head boys basketball coach in a rather contentious proceeding.
More recently, Cole Dorman played in the Shriner’s East-West Bowl in 2019. He threw the only touchdown of the game and was named Offensive MVP. But McNulty, the current head coach and a Naselle alum himself, had an even more recent name to throw in the hat— Jacob Lindstrom.
Maybe this season, which ended in a loss to the eventual State champion in the semifinals, would’ve been different had the youngest Lindstrom brother not gotten hurt. It’s impossible to know now, but he might’ve been the best Lindstrom football player in the family. But don’t ask Eaton about it.
“You’re gonna get me in trouble,” he said with a deep laugh.
Flying Fishermen
Finally, following the course of the big river, we arrive in Ilwaco. The home of the Fisherman and a place where the high school mascot is named after the occupation the town is best known for. There’s an alternate world where Ilwaco got the same sort of population boom Camas did, and we’d have to remember, “Oh ya, they used to do that.”
But where few Papermakers are the sons of actual paper mill ticket punchers, the Fishermen are still very much sons of fishermen, and they’re proud of it. Their summer jobs require wearing rain gear in the sun, fighting off aggressive seagulls, and enduring the pervasive smell of fish guts in the salted air.
As the kids say, it’s a vibe. But it’s not for everybody.
Anyhow, we’re talking about throwing arms, not sea legs, and this next fellow just might be the best player we’ve talked about yet, for any school. We’re talking raw athlete stuff. That mythical kind of player whose deeds echo and his legend only grows with each telling of the tale and turning of the calendar page.
You know the kind. The facts can can be tough to pin down, but this legend goes by the name of Tim Bishop.
I asked around a little with folks in the big twin cities straddling I-5, but nobody knew who I was talking about. But Kevin McNulty knows. Which makes sense when you remember he was the coach at Ilwaco during that time. And Eaton knows, even though he’s a Naselle lifer. And I’m sure nearly everyone in Wahkiakum and Pacific, and probably even the counties of Grays Harbor and Lewis knew him, too.
He was 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds entering high school and then he only got bigger. As a youngster, he led the local little league to a 1-0 win over the city kids form Longview, striking out 16 of 18 batters faced and hitting a solo dinger for the game’s only run.
He was so good at baseball, that he got a spot at LCC on the strength of just his summer ball resume because baseball wasn’t an offering at Ilwaco in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He’d later go on to play baseball for the University of Washington as a pitcher and first baseman, before wrapping up his collegiate career at Whitman College.
But he also excelled on the football field, taking over under center as a freshman leading the Fishermen to heights they’d never before seen. First they defeated Castle Rock for the first time ever, and this was when the Rockets were perennial State championship contenders. And then he guided Ilwaco all the way to the State quarterfinals, where they fell to Eatonville in a game played in Kelso.
“He was a real threat,” McNulty said. “He was the best quarterback that I coached and I think through from ‘88 on, he was probably (the best) still to this day.”
Editor’s Notes: This is the fourth installment in Blast Zone Media’s ongoing series where we are trying to track down the greatest quarterbacks to ever play for the high schools in The Blast Zone coverage area. Click here to read the first, second and third stories in this special feature series.
The series is a combined research effort by Sam Barbee and Jordan Nailon and this story will likely be the last dispatch on the topic until the summer of 2025. But that doesn’t mean we won’t be working hard to learn more about local signal callers we forgot, and others we’ll be remembering for the first time. Help us out by sharing your stories in an email to: blastzonenews@gmail.com