8-Man Football Pioneer Rests Easy Back In The Saddle

How Grantland Rice could see Notre Dame’s famed Four Horseman “outlined against a blue, gray October sky” from his perch high in the Polo Grounds press box is sports journalism’s most mysterious ocular phenomenon.

At Oren K. Palmer Memorial Field, well, you could buy the angle.

Out here on the edge of town, there is nothing but horizon riding bareback on a lot of high lonesome. Deep in the distance, you can make out the freeway traffic heading west on I-90 into a setting sun, a gentle reminder that in Washington high school football the only road to travel takes you to the Gridiron Classic.

Now, whether the Falcons of Sprague-Harrington get there this year isn’t really the issue, because at least they’re getting somewhere again.

With a rousing 40-34 overtime victory over Pateros last weekend, the Falcons ran their 1999 record to 4-0 - irrefutable proof that their move this fall back into the wild world of 8-man football is a runaway success.

That goes for the players and the two communities, but especially for the coach, Randy Behrens.

“I was out at practice the other day and the kids were doing their stretching,” he said. “I walked up to my assistants and said, `I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I’m 55 years old and I absolutely love what I’m doing right now.

“I just love these kids and this game. There’s no getting around it.”

Someone else must have noticed, too.

When the coaching job became vacant earlier this year, the sports co-op board for Sprague and Harrington made it a priority to hire someone on staff at one of the schools to fill it.

In this case, they went to the top. Behrens has been the principal at Harrington since 1995.

“I guess I could have said no,” he reasoned.

It would have been a first. Since playing football for the late Dave Holmes at Eastern Washington back in the mid-60s, Behrens has been pretty much married to the game. He was a head coach at Freeman, West Valley and Republic, finally getting out of the game in 1992 to become a full-time administrator.

But though he’d played 8-man football growing up in Sprague - “back when face masks were just starting to come into fashion,” he said - he’d never coached 11-man’s country cousin.

“You block and tackle and put a hat on somebody regardless of the number of people on the field,” Behrens said.

“But I just can’t figure out how to stop anybody.”

Like anyone has? Sheez, four times in the 26-year history of the B-8 state championship game, the winner has topped 70 points. Only twice has the champion scored less than 30.

With a durable, darting running back in Austin Becker, a reliable quarterback in Scott Engles and the explosive talents of Colin Floyd as a receiver and return man, the Falcons certainly fit the B-8 profile.

So it’s a good thing they’re back playing it.

Until a year ago, 8-man was the dodo bird of Washington football. Just 17 schools were hanging on this bit of rural heritage and, under Washington Interscholastic Activities Association guidelines, a minimum of 24 are needed for playoffs to be sanctioned.

Not that the WIAA wanted to pull the plug, but eventually there wasn’t going to be a choice. Heck, there were barely enough teams for a credible regular season.

Behrens served on a committee looking at temporary options, and what it came up with for this year and next amounted to a draft. Schools over the B-8’s 100-student enrollment ceiling were asked, one by one, to move down from B-11.

Thus, the Northeast B-8 league grew by five members this year when Curlew, Cusick, Odessa, Pateros and Sprague-Harrington all dropped down.

“At the time, I wanted to remain 11-man,” said Behrens, whose co-op has 115 kids in grades 9 through 12. “But we had quite a discussion here and afterward I saw some advantages. It gives us the chance to play some JV games and not to have to put young, small, inexperienced players in against the Reardans and Ritzvilles. In the long run, it’s probably better for the kids.”

Hey, in 8-man, there’s nothing but long runs. But, yes, it is better.

Before the co-op, Sprague’s Vikings were the very first B-8 state champs in 1973, and S-H made the state quarterfinals in 1994, losing a very non-8ish 18-14 game to Inchelium. The next year, enrollment pushed the Falcons up to B-11 and they won five games, but they dropped out of the Northeast B-11 league the next year because of declining numbers. Back in the past two years, they won just three times in 18 games.

Behrens isn’t the only Falcons coach who’s revisiting his roots. Assistant Mike Cronrath is a Harrington graduate in his second year of teaching at the school, and Clay Henry used to coach 8-man ball at S-H.

“That’s another reason that this is so fun,” Behrens said. “I’m doing it in front of people who used to watch me play.”

Outlined against a blue, gray October sky, to steal a line.