GSL class of ‘05 special

The Golden Age of Spokane high school football ended a long time ago.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 years ago. In fact.

When Cheney appeared in the 3A finals for the second consecutive year in 1989, it marked the seventh time in the decade that a current Greater Spokane League school had appeared in a state title game.

Since then only one Spokane-area school has reached either the 3A or 4A championship game: Central Valley’s 1997 4A champions.

But the league, entering its final year as a 14-school entity, may be about to move back into that high-priced neighborhood.

Gonzaga Prep was a play or two away from the 4A title game a year ago. East Valley advanced to the quarterfinals of the 3A bracket. A harbinger of things to come or an aberration?

“I don’t know if there is any magic formula, but all of a sudden this year everybody is bigger, faster and stronger than they ever were,” said CV coach Rick Giampietri, who has been involved with GSL football for more than 30 years. “I think we’re getting better every year, we’re doing better things every year, but I think it’s just the cycle of the thing. We just happen to have a bunch of big-framed, fast kids in the same place at the same time.”

If the league is better, maybe it is because the 2005 senior class is the best since the Golden Age of the ‘80s.

College recruiters have been hovering like condors over the class of ‘05 for the past two years, ever since Skylar Jessen et al burst on the GSL scene as sophomores.

Since Jessen’s 1,616 yards rushing – the league’s third-best all-time – that season, others in the class have stepped forward and made commitments to college football programs.

There’s Jessen’s teammates Andy Mattingly and Paul Senescall. East Valley’s Tyler Jolley. And Ferris’ Cameron Elisara, who might be the poster child for the GSL’s resurgence.

Though, at 6-foot-4 and 290 pounds, it’s pretty hard to call him a child.

Son of Matt, a former Washington State star defensive lineman, Cameron’s growth as a football player has paralleled the league’s.

He’s always been big. As a third-grader in Tacoma – his parents, both educators, spent one year on the West Side before returning to Spokane’s South Hill where Cameron grew up – he played his first year of tackle football. He was promptly double-teamed by the fifth-graders on the other team.

“I played back then because my dad played, but apparently I was pretty good,” Elisara said, “because they started to double team. I didn’t realize they were doing it as a result of me being hard for them to block. I got depressed and I thought they were being mean.”

But football was in his blood – besides dad, older brother Travis is the GSL’s single-season leader in total offense, set his senior year as Ferris’ quarterback – so Elisara kept jogging out to the football field each fall.

Everyone waited for his maturity to catch up with his size. They were still waiting after his freshman year, when Matt decided it was time to step in.

“I was kind of timid all the way through, until probably eighth grade, thinking my size would get me everywhere” the younger Elisara said. “But it actually came down to one day after my freshman year when my dad really chewed me out. It wasn’t completely negative, but he really got on me about it. From then on I played a lot more aggressive.”

It wasn’t an overnight thing, but Elisara began to bloom. The weight room became his second home. He put on muscle, toned up and started to make an impact on the defensive line. A varsity starter as a sophomore, he made first-team All-GSL last year despite breaking his leg halfway through the season. In the spring, with the leg healed, he won the state 4A shot put title with a 59-foot, 5 1/2 -inch toss.

“We always thought he had a lot of potential, but typical of a kid who matures (physically) early, things came pretty easily,” Ferris coach Clarence Hough said. “Then you start competing against older kids and the matchups are more equal, then it’s really frustrating because the skills aren’t there.

“He realized to compete against anybody he was going to have to learn to use his hands, to do the little things.”

He did and most major colleges began lining up with scholarship offers in hand. Oregon had the early lead, with places as varied as Stanford, LSU and Nebraska in the mix. USC expressed interest but wanted to see if his leg was fully healed first. The Cougs? Never in the mix. But it didn’t matter. A late-spring visit to the University of Washington convinced Elisara he wanted to wear purple.

In a crimson-and-gray house.

“When we went to the UW recruiting day, I had an extra shirt so I gave my dad one of mine to wear,” said Elisara, who calls his dad his lifetime coach. “That was the first time he’s ever worn purple, I think. We never, ever, had purple in the house. The Husky stuff that I bought is the only stuff with the Husky logo on it in our whole house.”