Goodbye to the gridiron
Zach Evans is enjoying one last fling on the football field this week in Everett.
The Central Valley graduate is completing his playing career by taking part in the annual East-West All-Star game Saturday at 1 p.m. at Everett Memorial Stadium.
“It’s bittersweet, but it’s going to be fun,” Evans said. “I can go out and work with some of these kids who have had a lot of success in their careers and who are going to go on and continue playing somewhere.”
Evans will share the field with a number of players who will be noticed on fall Saturdays for the next few years. CV teammate C.E. Kaiser, also on the East roster, takes his game to the University of Oregon. The West squad will be led by Ferndale’s heralded quarterback Jake Locker, a blue chip recruit headed to the University of Washington.
GSL standouts Tyler Jolley of East Valley, Ethen Robinson of Lewis and Clark, Paul Senescall of Mead, Clint Moquist of University and Tyler Hobbs of West Valley all are playing for the East squad. Jolley is headed to Eastern Washington to play football, while Hobbs will play at the University of Montana.
Evans had a solid career at Central Valley. As a senior, the running back ran for 818 yards on 134 carries during the regular season, helping the Bears reach the Class 4A playoffs, where they lost to Southridge, 38-16. He rushed for eight touchdowns and finished fourth in the Greater Spokane League in scoring with 80 points, converting four of five field goal attempts and booting 20 PATs. Evans was named first team All-GSL as a place-kicker.
After the season, Central Valley coach Rick Giampietri submitted Evans’ name to the selection committee for the game.
“I was picked as an alternate, and then sometime last spring I was notified that someone had dropped out and that I was going to get a chance to play,” Evans said. “Coach Giampietri told me that 10 or 12 alternates get the chance to go and play.”
Where exactly he will play, however, is another question.
“I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to play over there,” Evans said before leaving for Everett on Monday. “I’m listed as a running back, a defensive back and a kicker. I know there aren’t any other kickers on the roster, so I will probably get a chance to kick.”
Once Saturday’s game is over, Evans figures to hang up his football cleats for good.
“I’m going to go to Washington State in the fall,” he said. “I’m sure I’m going to miss playing football and baseball, but I plan to be pretty involved in intramural sports down there. And I’m looking forward to enjoying watching games from the student section. I’ve been a Cougar fan for a long time.”
Evans figures the lessons he’s learned from playing football will serve him well in college.
“You learn a lot about working hard and filling out your responsibilities playing football,” he said. “You learn a lot about teamwork and trusting your teammates, too.”
Those lessons were driven home during his senior season.
Central Valley opened the 2005 season with a 19-16 victory at Sandpoint, but back-to-back losses to Mead and East Valley to open the GSL season left the Bears looking at an early exit from playoff contention.
“We had some injuries, and we just weren’t playing very well when we lost those two games,” Evans said. “After we lost to East Valley, the coaches told us that if we didn’t win out the rest of the way, we might not make the playoffs. And even if we did win the rest of our games, we still might not make the playoffs.
“They told us it was our last chance to go out and turn things around. We made an attitude change and started to execute. I think we showed a strong improvement on defense that next week.”
The Bears’ defense pitched three straight shutouts to turn their season around and allowed opponents just 16 points in winning its final six games to close out the regular season.
“We had a stretch of 13 quarters where no one scored on us,” Evans said. “We all just came together, and I think we were able to rise above our individual limitations.”
Being a part of that seven-week run through his final season of football is something Evans will cherish for the rest of his life.
“It was definitely a great experience to be a part of that turnaround,” he said. “It was a little disappointing that we couldn’t carry things a little further, but that was an awfully good football team we lost to in the playoffs. Southridge was impressive.”