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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 12, 2018)
COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL SEPTEMBER 12, 2018 important beyond all this fiddle. / Read- ing it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in / it, after all, a and mentor Bob Butler serving as the commen- place for the genuine.” tator, Parker was calling his first live games and A place for the genuine. started to really like what he was doing. With en- “I just feel like I’ve had enough gen- couragement from Butler and the wise words of uine moments of sweetness, sadness, Rams’ commentator Dick Enberg ringing in his elation, depression, misery, glory, joy, to ears (“If you can call a high school football game believe those are genuine moments in by yourself, you can do anything in broadcasting”) the human experience and I loved hear- Parker added JV football and varsity basketball to ing them conveyed on the radio when I his slate of games. was a kid,” said Parker. “I approach this “Those games with Cottage Grove were very whole thing as appreciating this place valuable. All three sports, very valuable. And the for the genuine that I’ve always felt since opportunity to be in a town that had a radio sta- tion that did all the games and an opportunity to PHOTO BY OREGON STATE ATHLETICS I was seven years old.” Not wanting to move on to another pro- do them at a pretty young age was very helpful for Mike Parker calls an NCAA tournament game in 2016. fession but needing to make ends meet, me,” said Parker. available. Parker started driving taxis in Portland. Working While finding his footing as a broadcaster, Park- “They’re hard to get. The good jobs are hard to er got to call some top talents including Sheldon’s get. People get them and stay in them for a long whatever hours he could, and often from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., he drove the streets of Portland while in his Chris Miller who went on to play quarterback at time,” said Parker. “A real long time.” the University of Oregon, was a first-round pick in In 1990, he transitioned from calling games to spare time would send out his tapes and apply to the NFL Draft and played in the league for 10 sea- talking about games. KFFX in Portland was one various play-by-play positions. Facing late nights with no riders, Parker, now sons. He also called the games of North Eugene’s of the first stations in the country to be all sports, Danny Ainge an eventual two-time NBA cham- all the time and Parker was there to fill hours. He 40, finally thought about moving on and finding pion who is now one of the top executives in the talked all things UO sports before moving to KEX a new profession. But then at the beginning of the Association. In his senior season, Ainge hung 40 where he focused on the Portland Trail Blazers. Oregon State baseball season, the Beaver announc- points on the Cottage Grove basketball team. The After eight years in talk radio, he was let go by ers faced a scheduling issue. Their broadcasters Highlanders went on to win their second title in as KEX to make way for a show anchored by former were unable to travel to Cal State Northridge and many years that season. Blazer, and father of three-time NBA champion they needed someone. So they called Parker. “I started following Mike in the early 90s during “I remember thinking, I’m calling a game for a Klay Thompson who was eight years old at the his work for the Portland Beavers. I thought pretty good player here right now. I wish I still had time, Mychal Thompson. that tape. But that was tremendous training,” said With no job and no one knocking on his door [highly] of his work,” said Mike Corwin, who Parker. asking him to call games, Parker had to make a served as the Associate Director of Athletics for After graduating from CGHS in 1976, Parker, decision. Friends reached out to him offering var- OSU at the time. “He was my first and ultimately the future Beaver broadcaster, became a Duck. ious jobs while insisting that it was time for him the only contact to find a voice for Beaver baseball at that time.” While going to school at UO he continued to call to move on. Parker hit it out of the park with his opportuni- games for the Lions as he earned his degree in “I was grateful for that kind of friendship and rhetoric and communications. After graduating, support from people but at the same time I didn’t ty and now had OSU’s attention. “It wasn’t long after he did a good assortment of he called games at Marshfield High School before want to quite give up on the sports casting thing,” baseball games for us that extra opportunities pre- bouncing around from the Eugene Emeralds, UO said Parker. women’s basketball team and then the Portland But this was not the first time in Parker’s life sented them self,” said Corwin. “His talent kind of Beavers of the Pacific Coast League. The goal for when he had been told to move on from sports. took it from there. I know everybody in athletic Parker remained: get a coveted job as the voice of Growing up, he was reminded of the frivolous na- administration at OSU, the athletic director at the time was Mitch Barnhart, was impressed.” a university or a franchise. But those jobs weren’t ture of his passion. When the job opened up in the spring, Parker’s “As one of my uncle’s said, dream job of calling football, basketball and base- ‘That whole sports stuff, Mike, ball, he was the top candidate. He submitted his South Lane Physical Therapy LLC is a colossal waste of time.’ And tape, including some clips of him calling football I remember there were times games at CGHS, and after a lifetime of prepera- when I was beginning to think Did you know? tion, he got the job. about, is it? He may be right,” “I was 40 and was heartened by [the fact that] said Parker. Bill Schonely, the great voice of the Blazers, was In those moments, Parker 42 when he got his Blazers job. And I was only would then think of the shared 40. But it took until age 40. So 33 years from the experience of a game and how W. STU HOGG time I first fell in love with sports on the radio,” PT, OCS, COMT that was something the valued. said Parker. “33 years later I was finally given the He would think about the rela- opportunity to really fulfill what had kind of been Orthopedic • Sport • Spine tionships and connections that working in my heart and my mind for most of my can happen over the seeming- life, really. I was grateful for it, still am. Still love ly trivial hit of a ball. He would 75 Gateway Blvd Suite A, the games and looking forward to my 20th year.” even recall the poem “Poetry”. Cottage Grove, OR 97424 Mike Parker: voice of the Oregon State Beavers. Pulitzer Prize winner Mari- Phone: 541.942.6482 n his 20 years in Corvallis, Parker has lived MARIE WILLIAMSON anne Moore writes: “I, too, dis- PTA a full-life as a play-by-play broadcaster. The Fax: 541.942.6483 like it: there are things that are PARKER from B1 Your referral is good here! No need to drive to Eugene. I HOMESTEAD FURNITURE is this Week’s Panel Winner Jim Escujuri is this week’s Tie Breaker READER winner! 3B highs are as high as they come. There was the foot- ball team of 2000 that went 11-1 and ran over No- tre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl. Then of course there are the three baseball national championships in the past 12 years. But the lows are also, quite low. The 2016-17 Oregon State basketball team that won five games over the course of the year or last year’s 1-11 football team. But through thick and thin, the six-time Ore- gon Sportscaster of the Year gravitates, as he has his whole life, towards the positive. He points spe- cifically to the Bible passage Philippians 4:8 that reads: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, what- ever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admi- rable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think on these things.” For Parker, these are words to live by. “I just feel like, amidst an avalanche of negativ- ity, and even for the Beavers last year going 1-11 in football and having some really tough years, the easiest thing in the world is to fall in and criticize and belittle and mock and derive and be negative about it,” he said. “But we’re told to take a different approach. It’s what I aspire to try to do and how to live. Try to look for the best and look for those things that are lovely and virtuous and of good re- port and try to report on those things and think on those things.” This mentality of focusing on the positive is natural for Parker. His lifelong dream has become the reality that he has been living for the last two decades. While there are still good days and bad days and lots of days of things that aren’t just call- ing the game, it stays the job that he had hoped and dreamed for. He doesn’t have to fake his way through it. “I feel as though it’s expected of me – but it’s a pleasure to at the same time – to be always an en- thusiastic ambassador for Oregon State athletics above all. And then try to convey the games on the radio with a sense of pleasure and enthusiasm. Ex- uberance that everyone knows that this is the best place to be in the world right now is at an Oregon State game,” said Parker. “And that’s not feigned on my part in any way. It’s how I felt for the last 20 years and how I hope to continue to feel. This is the best place to be and hope to try and convey that in each broadcast.” And so Parker will continue to do what he has been doing. He has no timetable for how long he will go but notes that his idol Scully went until he was 88. “Whether Oregon State allows me to or not, that’s another 28 years they would have to put up with me so it’s doubtful,” he says with a laugh. But until that final call, he will be focusing on the next game. Football becomes basketball, which transitions to baseball before suddenly turning into football in a continuous loop. “That’s how I’ve been living life for the past 20 years and it’s okay with me,” said Parker. “I hope I can keep doing it as long as I can.” BEAT THE PICKERS PANEL FOOTBALL CONTEST CIRCLE YOUR PICKS S TAYTON N ORTH D OUGLAS C AMAS V ALLEY E LKTON S AN J OSE S TATE O REGON S TATE C AROLINA LA C HARGERS M INNESOTA C LEVELAND M IAMI K ANSAS C ITY P HILADELPHIA AT AT AT AT AT AT AT AT AT AT AT AT AT C OTTAGE G ROVE H OSANNA C HRISTIAN Y ONCALLA D AYS C REEK O REGON N EVADA A TLANTA B UFFALO G REEN B AY N EW O RLEANS NY J ETS P ITTSBURGH T AMPA B AY NIC This Week Stats:9-4 Season Stats:9-4 YOUR N I D N SE Y PICKS B FRIDAY 5 PM YOU CAN PLAY AND WIN! NY G IANTS AT D ALLAS Total Points for the Sunday Night Game:__________ Name: _______________________________ Address: _____________________________ ________________________ Phone Number: Homestead Furniture Family Owned for 40 years 615 Main Street 541-942-8711 Cottage Grove North Douglas Yoncalla Elkton Oregon Nevada Carolina LA Chargers Green Bay New Orleans Miami Pittsburgh Philadelphia Tie-Breaker:42 MANDI This Week Stats:11-2 Season Stats:11-2 WIN $20 EVERY WEEK With the Football Contest Fill out the form below for your choice of winners. The TIE-BREAKER game is the Sunday night game. Guess the total points of this game. In the event of a tie-breaker tie, the winner will be determined by a drawing. Entries must be received by Friday, 5 pm at the Cottage Grove Sentinel, 116 N. 6th Street, (P.O. Box 35), Cottage Grove, Oregon 97424. Mailed entries must be postmarked by Friday. Employees of the Cottage Grove Sentinel and their families are not eligible to win. In the event of multiple winners, final weekly winner will be drawn at random from preliminary winners. ATTENTION: Tiebreaking Process - the designated tie-breaker game will be judged on total points ONLY. Please estimate the total points for the tie-breaker game. One entry per family. FOREST & GARDEN EQUIPMENT 79132 Hwy. 99 North Cottage Grove LARRY This Week Stats:10-3 Season Stats:10-3 TIEBREAKER: HORNERS INC. 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