SEATTLE — Before the meat and potatoes of this column get devoured, let’s state two things off rip.
One, for the people that say “Where’s the story about Napavine seniors making it to four straight last season? You hate us!” That column was going to be written had my wife not been induced for the birth of my son on the day of state football in 2024, causing me to miss it.
And if the first thought is to bash this column and send me hate mail, maybe rethink your priorities.
Speaking of, there wasn’t a lot of rethinking for the Tumwater High School football team when the 2025 campaign commenced. In back-to-back seasons, they were a step away from hoisting a state championship trophy, only to lose to Anacortes.
The standard has been — and always will be — playing for the chance to win a Class 2A state title. Yet the only way the standard can be achieved is buoyed by senior leadership. From Dane Iversen and Kooper Clark in 2023, to Malijah Tucker, Beckett Wall and Cash Short in 2024, there’s a constant stream of leaders every season.
For guys like Peyton Davis, Evan Baxter, Jaxon Budd, both Heryford brothers and 10 others, they hadn’t been leaders before on the gridiron. In the same breath, they knew it was their time.
“Once we figured that out, we stepped in those shoes and we did a great job,” Baxter said. “Kept fighting through all of it, so I’m just super proud and I love all of them.”
William Garrow had a front row seat to the class of 2026 since he took over the T-Birds program three years ago. In March, he and the assistants, plus all the seniors, met in a room to discuss goals every two weeks.
Garrow called it the “trust group.”
“Laid it all on the table on what we wanted to accomplish,” Baxter said of the meetings. “We all stepped up.”
Even though the second-seeded Thunderbirds dropped a wild state championship game to top-seed Archbishop Murphy 35-20 on Montlake, getting to that point is an accomplishment that shouldn’t be minimized.
There are schools all over Washington state that would die for the chance to play three straight times at Husky Stadium. And for the seniors — who no doubt had their own questions on how this group would be — led the same way the two classes before did.
Far from easy.
“You want so bad for them to win because you know what they’ve done,” Garrow said outside of the visiting locker room. “I know how much this particular group over the last 11 months had to commit to this in a way they hadn’t before.
“They did an incredible job.”
Those guys won’t have to wake up at 6 a.m. anymore, nor watch film multiple times a week. It will pass down to the class of 2027, then the class of 2028, and so on.
Maybe it’s the fact that Tumwater lost in Week 1 to 4A Puyallup. Or maybe it’s the amount of questions a lot of people had about whether this squad could reach the standard this program routinely makes.
Because, as crazy as it sounds, this trip to the University of Washington felt the most unlikely when Week 1 commenced.
If not for the senior leadership, who knows where the road ends.
“It is hard to be upset with their effort,” Garrow said. “They busted their ass.”
