Remembering the '63 Mules

Fifty years ago, the 1963 Wahkiakum Mule football team earned a record of 8-0 and were voted second in the state in the football writers’ poll.

The team edged the Knappa Loggers 12-7 in their first game and held opponents scoreless in their next seven games. They were Pacific League champions. There were no statewide football playoffs, so they didn’t have an opportunity to claim a legitimate state title. They were good athletes: There was (and is) a state basketball tournament, and the Mules, with that group of athletes, won the state championship in 1964.

The Eagle has gone back through its archives to retrieve reports of the season, and writers contacted players and the head coach to ask why the team was so good and what the season meant for them.

Steve Doumit, running back

“We were just a bunch of guys who all grew up together and played sports together. They were good in ‘62 and ‘66 as well. Same thing.

“And you could blame Paul Spears too. He was our coach.”

“I married my sweetheart (Ruth Durrah) after high school, and worked in the (Doumit family) store. I worked for her dad logging, and when his company was downsizing, I went to work for Weyerhauser.”

“I enjoyed the bragging rights, the joy of winning. It was fun. I wouldn’t make it today—not dedicated.”

Russ Durrah, running back

“Actually there were three different classes that played. Came up thru school together, competing in many different sports.

“When my class was in eighth grade, the coach at the high school asked us to turn out for JV and gave us a head start on what was ahead of us.

“When we were freshmen, there was a new coach, Paul Spears. He wanted to start from scratch and made some upperclassmen unhappy, as his backfield was made up of all the classes.

“We got our asses beat the first couple of years. Naselle won a couple times, and we beat them a couple times. But they were our friends as well. We were an athletic group of boys.

“I received a scholarship to Shoreline Junior College in Seattle. My head coach became a (University of Washington) Huskies coach the next year. Then I went off to Vietnam. None of my classmates passed the physical, but I did. Then I came home and went to work for my father in the woods. I bought McNally’s rockpit and construction and my dad’s business.

“Terry Everman and Howard Hosley were good quarterbacks. Terry was our quarterback and he was a wonderful athlete. Howard also played wide receiver.”

He said his lessons as an athlete and football player have stayed with him all his life. “Yeah, every day. Football. Competitiveness, alertness. On a cadence from the word go. It helped me advance. If you want to keep a job, you run to the next task, don’t walk. You hustle. It was a clean way of life. I don’t regret it for a bit. There are lots of dangerous jobs and common sense kept you alive.”

Mike Parker, lineman

“A couple of things come to mind about the ‘63’ Mules football team. First, we were a bunch of guys who had played together for four years. Some longer than that, depending where they went to grade school. Also, for a small ‘B school, we had some pretty good size. George Quigley, Terry Gorley, Jack Burdick, Pat Madden, etc., were all pretty good size for a small school. And Coach Paul Spears challenged us after the first game. We won, but he told us in the dressing room after the game that we were better than we had shown in the game. He didn’t want us scored against the rest of the season. Many of us thought at the time, ‘Oh sure, we’ve only got eight or nine games to go. No problem.’ But, that is exactly what happened. We also had a tremendous backfield. Terry Everman at quarterback, Russ Durrah, Steve Doumit, and Mark Linquist were the running backs. Pretty darn good combination.

“After I graduated, I went to college for a couple of years. In 1966, I answered Uncle Sam’s ‘Greetings’ and went into the U.S. Army, where I served as a combat medic. After the Army, I went to work at Reynolds Aluminum in Longview as a parts designer. A few years later, I was laid off in a personnel cutback. I then went to work at Crown Zellerbach in Cathlamet, where I eventually ended up driving a log truck for several years. When Crown ceased to exist, I worked for myself for about two years, doing a little bit of everything to support my family. I got on at Longview Fibre, where I worked for about five years until I was injured on the job. After several months of healing and rehabilitation, I went to work at the Northwest Lions Foundation for Sight and Hearing, where I still work today, as the Operations Manager of a Mobile Health Screening Unit.

“I guess you could say, the the one long term impact is that I was and still am very proud to have been part of that team. Unfortunately, we have lost George Quigley, Terry Gorley, Mark Linquist, and my best friend, Pat Madden, in the intervening years. But, I still think of all of them, as I’m sure all of us that were on that team, that cheered for that team and just anyone that knew them must think of them as well.”

Wayne Cochran, right end

“All of us like to play football. We were the same size, and we liked to hit people. We had a good coach--Paul Spears--it was a good group of guys. We were pretty good athletes. Back in those days, you played all sports; you didn’t specialize.

“At the end of the season, teams weren’t playing to beat us; they were just trying to score. We very seldom played much offense after the first half. Beating Naselle and South Bend was nice. South Bend had beaten us 27-0 when we were juniors, if I remember right, and we beat them by that score.

“Terry Everman, the quarterback, was really good. He ran the offense and called almost all the plays.

“Looking back, there have been Mule basketball teams as good as we were (the same group of players won the state championship in 1964), but, for me, there’s never been a football team as good as we were.

“After graduating, I intended to go to college. I went to work for Crown Zellerbach for the summer and never left, except for a four-year tour in the Navy during the Vietnam War.

“It was a fun group. We’re all still real good friends.”

Terry Everman, quarterback

The team’s experience made them good. They had started playing varsity as sophomores and taken “a few good beatings.” “Things came together as seniors. I don’t think we realized what we were capable of until till half way through the season.”

Knappa’s Loggers were the only team to score on the Mules that season.

“We were just happy we won that game.

“As the season went on, we gained confidence. We knew we could do it, what ever needed to be done. You knew you could count on your teammates to do their job.

“Individuals came through. You thought, ‘Wow! They can do it.”

After graduating from high school, Everman got a degree in construction management at Washington State University. He worked for Standard Oil of California, served two years in the US Navy, returned to work for Standard Oil and pursued a career in the marine industry.

“Looking back, you didn’t really understand it at the time. We thought we were getting more fanfare than we deserved.”

Paul Spears, coach

Paul Spears was an assistant high school coach for two years and coached the junior team. He took over the head coaching job in 1961 and retired as football coach in 1982; he continued as the Mules varsity basketball coach for several more years. After retiring from teaching, he officiated football for four years and girls fast pitch softball for a good number of years.

The 1963 team was so good “because they played so well together,” he said. “They had fair size and were strong, agile kids. We didn’t do anything special for training; the kids just played all sports.

“The backs were all good. Nobody stood out; it was a real team effort.

“We ran the ball most of the time and didn’t pass much. In one game, we passed only three times, and two of those were touchdowns.

“In the offense we ran, no one back got the ball all the time. Howard Hosley was talented; Steve Doumit was fast; Russ Durrah was a tough, inside runner, and Mark Linquist, a sophomore, was good.

“I was really fortunate to have good assistant coaches through my career. Jim Kent was assistant in 1963; he was followed by Terry Bonny, and then guys like Mike Merriman and Paul Dretsch.”

Spears remembers that the team had an 0-6-2 record his first year and 5-3 in the 1962 season. In the 1963 season, they went 8-0.

“That (1963) season really helped promote interest in football,” Spears said. “They were really special.”