Zach Chapman and Mitch Saylor have known each other since they were third-graders. They played on the same youth football team for four seasons. And they were both members of the Mountain View football program as freshmen.
That’s when life’s many changes altered their football universe. Union opened its doors, and the three high schools in the Evergreen School District became four.
Many would-be Thunder players — including Saylor — became Titans. Chapman had a chance to move, too, but he decided to remain at Mountain View.
They were no longer classmates, no longer teammates, but they remained good friends.
Today, they are sure to celebrate each other’s achievement. It’s Signing Day, the first day high school football players can sign National Letters of Intent to colleges.
Once again, they will be on different teams. This time, instead of being in different classifications in the Greater St. Helens League, they will be Big Sky Conference rivals.
Chapman, a 6-foot, 3-inch tight end and defensive lineman, said he intends to sign with Eastern Washington. Saylor, a 6-6 wide receiver, is planning on signing with Montana.
“I’m extremely happy for him,” Saylor said of Chapman. “I know he’ll do a very good job there.”
“Thank the Lord, my friendships with those guys at Union did not change,” Chapman said.
Saylor, Chapman, and Heritage quarterback Garrett Grayson are the Division I players from Clark County who have made their intentions known. Grayson is expected to sign with Colorado State. Union kicker/punter Jed Barnett has been offered a Division I scholarship, but he had not made up his mind by Tuesday evening. And there are other players who could go Division I in the coming days.
Several soccer players also intend to sign today. For a list of athletes and their college choices, please see page B5.
Coaches and athletic directors as asked to e-mail us at sports@columbian.com with any recruiting updates.
Mitch Saylor
It seemed like Mitch Saylor was awesome from the start of his career with Union. In the team’s first home game his sophomore season, he returned an interception for a touchdown.
In his career, he would go on to score as a wide receiver, a kick returner, a punt returner, and he even scored on a blocked field goal return to win a state quarterfinal game as a junior.
A natural football player, right?
Not exactly.
“I was a basketball player trying to play football,” Saylor recalled. “(The coaches) told me they were going to turn me into a football player who plays basketball. That’s what they did.”
Now, he is headed to Missoula, Mont.
“They run the spread option and they wanted me to play wide receiver,” Saylor said.
Montana played in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision (formerly I-AA) title game this past fall, so Saylor is leaving one quality program for another.
He said he loved “every second” of playing for Union, for being part of the first football team at the school.
“It was interesting, to say the least,” said, referring to that first season. “The coaches didn’t know anything about the players. The players didn’t know the coaches. One of our first doubles, we got kicked out of practice because we weren’t playing well. That’s when we figured out what it took to play varsity football.
“It takes a lot of hard work, especially as mostly sophomores. We were a ton of sophomores, and we were all small because none of us had lifted weights.”
Sayor remembers the first Union game not because of the significance of starting a program but because he took several plays off as a wide receiver. During the subsequent film session, coach Cale Piland did not hold anything back when criticizing Saylor.
“I needed it,” Saylor says now.
From that point on, he said, he tried to become a complete player, an every-play player.
His junior year, he played the last month of a season with a broken right hand.
“The hardest thing was blocking,” he said. “It hurt like hell to block.”
But it was playoff time.
“There was no way I was sitting out. I never could have lived with myself,” he said.
Saylor had more than 100 yards receiving in the state championship game, a loss to Bellevue.
As a senior, a stress reaction in his back limited some of his playing time. But he only sat one game, and he and the Titans reached the state semifinals.
Saylor has to believe he has more playoff games in his future with a program such as Montana’s.
“I’m extremely impressed with the coaching staff,” he said. “And the fact that the fans over there are crazy makes me want to go there even more.”
Zach Chapman
It was an unusual question for a teenager to hear from a parent.
The Chapman family was moving out of their small home, about the time Union High School was set to open. Many of his friends were already living in the Union boundary. Zach was asked if he wanted his family to move there, too.
“I felt really comfortable at Mountain View, and I didn’t want to change that,” Chapman said.
The Titans won more games than the Thunder did in the next three years, but Chapman has no regrets.
Ted Beyer, Mountain View’s head coach when Chapman was a freshman and sophomore, put Chapman on varsity as a freshman.
“That was a crazy experience,” Chapman recalled. “Everyone was like 10 times bigger. It was intimidating. But in a way it made me play harder.”
He also had to become a student of the game.
“We built a really strong bond,” Chapman said, referring to Beyer. “He really took me under his wing. He made me a better football player, and he made me a better athlete because of his training techniques.”
Beyer resigned following Chapman’s sophomore season, and assistant coach Adam Mathieson took over the top job.
“It was win-win for me,” Chapman said. “Even though Beyer was stepping down, he was still affiliated with the school as the strength coach. Then Mathieson came in. I had the best of both worlds.
“Staying at Mountain View was a really good decision for me. I loved and enjoyed my time, my four years at Mountain View.”
Chapman excelled on defense and offense for the Thunder. And there remains some question as to what he will play at Eastern Washington.
It seems the Eastern coaching staff is fighting over where to put him.
Chapman said that’s a good problem for him to have. He is just thrilled to be playing football for a Division I program.
Plus, he is excited to play on a red field. Eastern officials plan on painting their home field in school colors, a la Boise State’s blue field.
“I’ve always dreamed of playing at a big university,” he said. “But after taking the tour, it wasn’t too big and it wasn’t too small. It was a perfect fit.”
