“One play will haunt the Seattle Seahawks for months.”
The Columbian’s Sports Editor, Micah Rice, wrote those words from the press box at the Super Bowl in February.
The Seattle Seahawks were going for history, were going for back-to-back Super Bowl titles. They were a yard away from doing just that.
And then.
Well, then they took a pass.
Then the New England Patriots took that pass away, an interception to seal Seattle’s doom.
In another story also penned by Rice that day, he described the final play:
Baffling.
Illogical.
Reckless.
He was not alone. Even the Seahawks wondered, questioned their own coaching staff.
“I don’t understand how you don’t give it to the best back in the league …,” linebacker Bruce Irvin said. “We were on the half-yard line, and we throw a slant. … I just don’t understand.”
That play did haunt the Seahawks for months. Even now, as the Seahawks drive toward another postseason, that decision will never be forgotten.
Imagine, the Seahawks were this close to spending all of 2015 as the two-time defending Super Bowl champions. Instead, they are using the 2015 season to try to get to a third Super Bowl in a row.
Anything to think of something else.
The Camas Papermakers continue to rule the region in high school football.
In 2015, they even won off the field, in a situation that started last spring.
Two coaches were suspended after the school reported a violation. The penalties, though, were too severe for Camas officials, who appealed. That turned into a month-long ordeal, which included the penalties being changed three times. In the end, the school’s athletic department was placed on probation by the WIAA but no suspensions for the coaches.
It was time to get back to football.
Camas went undefeated in the regular season for the fourth consecutive season. The Papermakers won their sixth consecutive league title. Camas ended up reaching the state quarterfinals before losing its only game of the season.
“The call that changed Garrett Grayson’s life came shortly before 7:15 p.m.,” Micah Rice wrote. “Watching the NFL Draft in the living room of his parents’ home in Orchards, Grayson’s cell phone rang.”
It just so happened that the New Orleans Saints were calling, and Grayson, a Heritage High School graduate and former Colorado State quarterback, was marching his way to the National Football League.
“This really is — and I’m not just saying this — it really is a dream come true for me,” Grayson said.
So far, Grayson has not seen any playing time in the regular season. There’s a guy named Drew Brees who starts for the Saints.
But perhaps in a year, two or three, Grayson will be right back here in the top 10, as a Vancouver native making a name for himself in the NFL.
The Columbian’s own Erik Gundersen had an exclusive in late June, when an NBA executive informed him that LaMarcus Aldridge had told the Blazers he would not return. While the Blazers refuted the report, they were making some big moves — transactions that did not exactly look like the team expected Aldridge to remain a Trail Blazer. (Hey, LaMarcus, we’re trading Batum, and we’re letting Matthews and Lopez walk. But you’re still coming back, right?)
Regardless of who you believe, LaMarcus said so long to Rip City and did the “brave” move of trying to bring the Spurs a title. You know, because San Antonio has been starving for a title since, oh, 2014!
So the 2015-16 Blazers had four new starters on opening day. A fun team to watch. But not a team that is expected to make the playoffs.
The Columbian’s Paul Danzer was there for the team’s arrival at the airport after the Timbers won the MLS Cup. He was there along with thousands of others, welcoming the region’s first major professional sports championship since the Trail Blazers won the NBA title in 1977.
“We made history. I’m really, really proud to bring this trophy back to Portland,” coach Caleb Porter said. “And I’m so happy that people in this community feel what they feel. Because life is about feelings. It’s about emotion. The fact that we can have people like this feel what they’re feeling today is incredible.”
Clark County was part of the celebration, too. Danzer also wrote about several fans from Vancouver who went to Columbus, Ohio, to watch the team win the Cup.
This wasn’t just a Portland story. It was a Timbers Army story. And there are plenty of members from Clark County.
A record of almost 1.4 million adult fall chinook entered the Columbia River between August and November, and sports fishing was fantastic.
The sport catch at Buoy 10, the lower 16 miles of the Columbia from the river mouth at red Buoy No. 10 upstream to Tongue Point east of Astoria, was the second best since at least 1982. Between Tongue Point and Bonneville Dam, there was a record fall chinook catch, coming on the heels of a record summer chinook catch.
Fall chinook fishing was still good in October, a month when catches normally wane quickly.
In the 240 days the lower Columbia River was open for chinook from February through October, there were 441,300 anglers trips with 103,500 adult chinook kept.
Bruce Barnum, a Vancouver resident, got a shot as the head coach of Portland State football. Then he crushed it. His Vikings beat Washington State. Portland State later signed Barnum to a five-year contract.
Jordan Spieth was the biggest name in golf in 2015. That big name won the U.S. Open just two hours north of Vancouver as the U.S. Open was held in the Northwest for the first time.
The Union Titans were ranked No. 1 for much of the high school boys basketball season. Then they reached the state semifinals, falling to the No. 2 team in a thriller. Still, a great run for the Titans.
Kara Winger? More like Kara Winner. Winger won her sixth national championship in the javelin in June. The Skyview High School graduate, known then as Kara Patterson, also took the silver medal in the Pan-Am Games.
