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Virtue First: Randy Traeger coaches lifelong lessons

Editor’s Note: Kennedy High Football Coach Randy Traeger, founder of the Virtue First program, is receiving the Service to Youth Award at the Mount Angel Chamber of Commerce Community Awards banquet Feb. 25. Here, sportswriter James Day shares impressions of Traeger’s influence.

By James Day

It was a dismal rainy day.

Hot cocoa was flying out of the concession stand.

The homestanding Kennedy Trojans were battling tooth-and-nail against the Central Linn Cobras, with a spot in the OSAA Class 2A football semifinals on the line.

It was the fourth quarter.

Central Linn led 6-0. Two evenly matched teams had competed heroically in the mud and the rain. Kennedy had one last shot to tie the game or win it.

And a drive began, sparking hope in the full house of fans, both those under the stadium overhang and those lining the track under umbrellas.

Kennedy always plays one of the toughest schedules in Class 2A, usually opening its nonleague season with a slew of Class 3A foes.

Would that experience serve the Trojans when they needed it the most?

Would the work that the players and Coach Randy Traeger and his staff had put in since August get them over the hump?

Randy Traeger talks with his football players. Photo by Vince Teresi
Randy Traeger talks with his football players. Photo by Vince Teresi

The drive continued, although it was difficult to determine who was carrying the ball or making the tackles because the mud had obliterated the numbers. One first down, then another and another. The spectators in the stands believed. They were standing, stamping their feet, producing a deep-throated roar. With just less than a minute left Kennedy was inside the Central Linn 10 with four shots at a tying touchdown that could set up a conversion for the win.

The four chances came up short. Central Linn regained possession of the ball with two seconds left and took a knee. The game ended, and the Central Linn players sprinted around the field in celebration. The rain slackened just a bit as the Kennedy players gathered in the west end zone and formed a ragged circle, surrounded by another circle of students, parents and fans.

Teaching Virtue First
Virtue First is a nonprofit
foundation founded by
Randy Traeger to teach
character education.Virtue First’s mission:
Promoting Virtue to
Re-build the Character of America

For information:
visit the website – virtuefirst.org;
email – [email protected]
or call – 503-910-2072

Coach Traeger, who had battled health issues during the season and who arrived on the sidelines in a golf cart, walked slowly into the middle of the circle. He spoke softly, with the blustery wind hijacking some of his comments.

He told his emotionally and physically drained and mud-splattered players that they should keep their spirits high, that they had been the recipients of lots of blessings, that it had been a great season that could not be ruined by one result, by one game.

In a one-on-one interview he said that he was trying to help his players become men, and that he couldn’t have asked anything more of them on that day.

The players hugged family members and walked to the locker room with their heads held high.

Service to youth. Virtues. Putting things in the right perspective. It was all there. In the rain and the mud and in the faces of Coach Traeger’s players.

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