Appeal Tribune
܂ WEDNESDAY, JULY 11, 2018܂ 1B
Sports
FOOTBALL
Former Ducks QB helps
Silverton’s Levi Nielsen
Silverton quarterback Levi Nielsen is enjoying his time in the recruiting process. PHOTO COURTESY OF LEVI NIELSEN
Pete Martini Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Levi Nielsen
The recruiting process can be an
exciting time for any young ath-
lete, and for Levi Nielsen, it also
has been a learning experience.
The Silverton quarterback, who
will be a senior this fall, doesn’t
have an offer yet, but he has visited
five colleges and is taking steps to
improve his stock as a prospect, in-
cluding seeking help from former
University of Oregon and NFL
quarterback Chris Miller.
“It’s definitely fun visiting and
seeing schools,” Nielsen said. “But
it’s also a stressful process. It can
be confusing at times trying to fig-
ure out how interested coaches
really are.”
Last season for Silverton, Niel-
sen threw for 2,026, 19 touch-
downs and 11 interceptions. He also
rushed for 285 yards and seven
touchdowns while helping the Fox-
es to a 7-4 record and the OSAA
Class 5A state quarterfinals.
So far in his recruiting, Nielsen
has made it to five college campus-
es — Oregon State, Portland State,
Eastern Washington, Montana
and Western Oregon.
܂ School: Silverton
܂ Year: Senior
܂ Sport: Football
܂ Position: Quarterback
܂ 2017 statistics: Completed 146 of 270 passes for 2,026
yards, 19 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. Had 69 carries for
285 yards and seven touchdowns.
Although no school has given
him an offer yet, he has been get-
ting solid feedback.
The big thing coaches have been
telling him is to keep the ball up
and have quicker releases on this
throws, rather than dropping his
arm in longer windups.
Nielsen and his father, Steve,
began researching potential peo-
ple to help him with his throwing
motion, and they took a chance on
Miller, who played for the Ducks
from 1983 to 1986, before playing 10
seasons in the NFL for the Atlanta
Falcons, Los Angeles Rams and
Denver Broncos.
“It was kind of a long shot be-
cause Chris doesn’t really do pri-
vate quarterback work,” Levi Niel-
sen said. “My dad was just like,
‘You know what, let’s just give him
a call and we’ll see where it goes.’”
The Nielsens gave Miller a call,
explained the situation, and sent
him film. After evaluating the film,
Miller decided to help Nielsen.
“I did quite a bit of individual
work with him,” Nielsen said about
Miller. “That was kind of the first
time I ever did any one-on-one
training. We worked really hard at
just keeping the ball up. I think that
could be a really big difference for
me, as far as getting an offer and
not getting one.”
Nielsen said he sees himself as a
versatile player who could be in
more of a pro-style system, or a
more spread system that utilizes a
dual-threat quarterback.
“I’m just trying to show them
my different skill sets,” he said.
Nielsen said he would also be
open to playing another position at
the next level.
“Obviously, I would love to play
quarterback in college,” he said.
“But it can be tough to get scholar-
ships for quarterbacks because
schools usually take only one per
year, so I’m not limited to being
just a quarterback in college.”
Nielsen also is focusing on his
senior season at Silverton, and he
knows he still has an opportunity
to show what he can do on the field
and with his team, and that could
go a long way to determining if and
where he could play at the college
level.
“I really am a team guy, and I’m
trying to focus on doing the best I
can with my team in the fall,” Niel-
sen said. “I try not to focus on my-
self too much, and hopefully I can
become a late-bloomer.”
Dress weather appropriate for shad fishing
Fishing
Henry Miller
Guest columnist
OK, so I drive to Clackamette Park in
Oregon City on Monday to fish for shad.
The inspiration for the road trip was
that the counts at the fish ladder at Bon-
neville Dam recorded 226,854 shad
swimming upriver on June 25, 163,669
on June 26, and 214,056 on June 27.
So a total of, let’s see, 6 plus 3 plus 4,
carry the one … a bodacious wad of fish,
well over a half-million in three days.
Oregon City on the Willamette River
is a long way from Bonneville Dam on
the Columbia.
But shad don’t go over the fish ladder
at Willamette Falls on their annual
spawning run, ergo no counts.
So Bonneville numbers are the best
indicator about how thick the run of the
largest member of the herring family are
on Oregon’s two main fluvial freeways.
I’m dressed for July 2: jeans, light
short-sleeved knit shirt, summer-
weight cotton fleece jacket.
Upon arrival, it’s drizzling.
Errata on the earlier statement.
I was dressed for July 2 … anywhere
outside of the Pacific Northwest, where
a parka sometimes is appropriate beach
wear on Labor Day weekend.
The drizzle made up in persistence
what it lacked in volume.
It wasn’t enough to get me to retreat,
you understand, but fishing was some-
thing of a slog.
Not to mention the concerns for the
camera gear.
The shad were there, but not in the
abundance I was expecting.
Several anglers downriver were scor-
ing consistently, tossing the usual sus-
pects, tiny lead-headed jigs with bare
gold hooks, the rigs augmented with a
small sinker several feet up the line to
aid in casting.
I managed to lose a few rigs on snags
before evacuating the scene because of
my concern that the fleece, now shelter-
ing the camera bag, was approaching
the saturation point of its wicking ca-
pacity.
If you would like to track the shad
See FISHING, Page 3B
My neighbor’s kid, Ben, was dressed for soggy success during a shad trip a
couple of years ago to Oregon City. Henry in 2018? Not so much.
HENRY MILLER/SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL