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McNary legend coaching Whiteaker
By DEREK WILEY
Of the Keizertimes
Luke Atwood is easy to spot at Whiteaker
Middle School football practices.
He’s the coach with his 4-year-old son on
his shoulders.
“Coaching at Whiteaker is such a nice life
balance for getting to spend time with my kids,”
Atwood said. “There’s more fl exibility, which
really helps me at this point in my life.”
As a player, Atwood was quarterback of Mc-
Nary’s 1996 football team that won a league
championship and reached the semifi nals of the
state playoffs.
After Atwood graduated, the Celtics then
won the state title in 1997.
“Those guys had so much playoff experience
and our team was predominantly juniors and
with the guys they were returning the next year,
they were heavy favorites to win state and they
went out and did it,” said Atwood, who was at
McNary during the glory years.
“I had the best receiver (Shawn Kintner) to
throw to the school has ever had,” Atwood said.
“I had the experience of playing with the best
football player (Aaron Koch) our school has ever
had. I played with the best baseball player (Mark
Hills) McNary has ever had. I got to play with
amazing athletes in my three sports and be sur-
rounded by the best so it was an amazing expe-
rience. The coaches were the best, Vic Backlund
and Tom Smythe. I was completely spoiled by
my teammates and coaches.”
After high school, Atwood played three sports
at Willamette University—football, baseball and
basketball.
A couple of weeks before graduation, he re-
ceived a call from Smythe, offering him a spot
on the Vienna Viking Football Club in Austria,
where Smythe coached in the spring.
Atwood played seven years in Austria, win-
ning two European championships as a receiver
and two at quarterback.
“I got out of football before I was 30 and that
seemed like a good time,” Atwood said. “Every-
body was starting to look younger and I didn’t
know their names. It was a different club and I
had done everything that I wanted to so why
not move on to the next chapter at that point.”
While playing in Austria, Atwood coached
with Smythe at McNary in the fall. He was the
defensive backs coach when the Celtics won
their second state title in 2001.
“In 2001 it was surprising because going into
the season we had some great players but we
weren’t favored to win it like we were in ‘97,”
Atwood said. “Credit Tom Smythe, he told those
boys right away that the plan was to win it and
they believed it and went and did it.”
Please see ATWOOD, Page B2
KEIZERTIMES/Derek Wiley
Luke Atwood, a former three-sport athlete at McNary, is the defensive coordinator of the White-
aker Middle School football team.
Celtics come together
KEIZERTIMES/Derek Wiley
McNary senior Nigel Harris, left, runs away from a group of Sprague defenders for a 30-yard gain Friday, Oct. 5. Quarterback Erik Barker hugs linebacker Dyami Rios after the Celtic defense stops
Sprague at the end of the game.
Celtics don’t lack confi dence
LIFE
OF
W iley
McNary could have easily
given up.
Opening the season with
fi ve straight losses, getting
outscored by more than 170
points.
Who could blame them?
But the Celtics ran out into
the fi eld last Friday as confi -
dent, as loose and as ready as
they had all season. And it paid
off with a 21-14 win, their
fi rst of the season and fi rst
over Sprague since 2014.
“We stayed positive the
entire season,” McNary quar-
terback Erik Barker said. “We
knew a win was going to
come and all that mattered was
league. We fl ushed those fi rst
fi ve games out, completely.
We’re focusing on league now
and focusing on ourselves and
getting better every week.”
The fi ve games, four of
which came against top 10
teams in Oregon and Wash-
ington, prepared McNary for
its Mountain Valley Confer-
ence schedule.
“That was the toughest
competition I’ve ever faced,”
Barker said. “I think it made
all of us way better.”
What clearly stood out
against Sprague was McNary’s
defense.
Gashed in previous games,
the Celtics held Sprague to
150 yards on the ground, 65
of which came on two car-
ries—31 and 34 yard touch-
down runs by Landon Davis.
“We know they’re a physi-
cal team,” McNary linebacker
Junior Walling said of Sprague.
“We prepared all week to stop
that run game and I think our
defense came out strong.”
Can the Celtics carry the
momentum over the Santiam
Pass to Bend?
My picks:
Dallas at McKay
McNary wasn’t the only
Salem-Keizer squad to get its
fi rst victory of the season as
the Royal Scots won 17-15 at
Corvallis last Friday. McKay
gets another winnable game
at home against 1-5 Dallas.
The Dragons only win came
at North Salem but then they
lost to Corvallis. Two of Dallas’
other losses were by just one
point so maybe the Dragons
are a little better than their
record. Still, I’ll take the team
coming off a win, not the one
on a three-game losing streak.
Pick: Royal Scots 14, Dragons 13
North Salem at Central
The Vikings followed up
their fi rst win of the season
by getting shut out at home
against undefeated West Al-
bany. But the Bulldogs have
made a lot of teams look bad,
including North Salem’s next
opponent—Central.
Please see BATTLE, Page 10
McNARY VS. SPRAGUE STATS
PASSING
C/AT YD
TD INT
Erik Barker
16/26 185
2
1
Ethan Flanigan
11/27
0
4
91
RUSHING
CAR
YD
TD
Chris Sharp
21
77
0
Landon Davis
6
59
2
Junior Walling
14
41
0
TD
RECEIVING
REC
YD
Nigel Harris
3
95
1
Wiley Roberts
6
52
0
Griffi n Oliveira
3
34
0
Jacob Jackson
4
25
0
Devynn Schurr
3
17
0
Junior Walling
2
9
1
SCORING SUMMARY
FIRST QUARTER
7:29 Junior Walling 3 Yd pass
from Erik Barker
SECOND QUARTER
6:16 Nigel Harris 30 Yd pass
from Erik Barker
THIRD QUARTER
5:28 Landon Davis 31 Yd run
FOURTH QUARTER
11:30 Landon Davis 34 Yd run
5:18 Erik Barker 3 Yd run
UP NEXT: MCNARY AT BEND
SPRAGUE AT SUMMIT
FRIDAY, OCT. 12 7 P.M.
McNary wins
league opener
By DEREK WILEY
Of the Keizertimes
To earn its fi rst win of the
season, McNary had to play as
one.
“I think the big thing to-
night was we knew we had
to come together,” McNary
senior Jacob Jackson said after
the Celtics’ 21-14 victory over
Sprague on Friday, Oct. 5.
“And when we came to-
gether we saw what we could
do and we just got so excited
about it that it showed and I
thought we played really well
because of it.”
McNary jumped out to a
14-0 lead over Sprague, thanks
to two touchdown passes by
Erik Barker, a 3-yard dump
off to Junior Walling in the
fi rst quarter and then a 30-
yard strike to Nigel Harris in
the second.
But while the Celtic of-
fense struggled in the second
half, the Olympians answered
with 34 and 31 yard touch-
down runs by Landon Davis
to tie the game with 11:30
remaining.
Finally fi nding a groove
with outside runs by Harris
and Jackson to get inside the
Sprague 5-yard line, Barker
gave the lead back to McNary
on a 3-yard touchdown run
with 5:18 left to play.
“We called that play, emp-
tied the backfi eld and coach
(Brad Emmert) told me to
run it in,” Barker said. “I saw a
huge hole open up. I couldn’t
ask for better guys up front.”
McNary senior Grif-
fi n Oliveira then intercepted
Sprague quarterback Ethan
Flanigan with 1:21 remaining
to seal the victory.
The interception was
Oliveira’s second of the game
as the Olympians turned the
Please see MCNARY, Page B4