Canzano: You catch more than fish with a boat
A boat. NFL players. An epic trip.
Today’s column begins with a fishing boat. The 29-foot Willie Nemesis Big Water Sled is made from all-welded aluminum. It’s specially engineered for big rivers and estuaries, and near-coastal waters.
This particular boat is rigged with a large Mercury outboard engine. The owner of the boat and the guy at the controls is Bill Monroe Jr., who happens to be the son of Bill Sr., the legendary outdoors writer.
See?
We’ve already moved past the boat. We’re onto the people in it. But I want to linger on that vessel for a moment. Because if you walked past the boat at the dock, you might think to yourself, “There’s a perfectly fine fishing boat.” But what I’m focused on today is how the seats in that fishing boat get occupied each spring.
On Friday, two NFL football players were in that boat. They fished alongside their long-time mentor, a guy who worked as a coach, athletic director, and high school principal. They told stories, caught fish, and had an unforgettable day on the Columbia River.
Bill Sr. is a gifted wordsmith and advocate for the outdoors. I worked with him for a couple of decades and admire and respect him. His son, Bill Jr., told me on Saturday morning that his father was blessed with the ability to hook people with written words and bring them to the outdoors.
“I don’t got that,” Bill Jr. told me. “But I take people out there and share the outdoors. That’s what I do. I get them in the boat and take them out.”
Osa Odighizuwa and Samson Ebukam were in Bill Jr.’s boat on Friday. Odighizuwa, a defensive tackle, plays for the San Francisco 49ers. Ebukam, a linebacker, suits up for the Atlanta Falcons. Both attended David Douglas High School, where they had the amazing fortune of crossing paths with Greg Carradine.
Carradine is a lifelong educator and mentor. He coached high school football and took kids under his wing, season after season. He treated them like his own children. It’s what Hall of Fame teachers and principals do, and Carradine is a gold jacket guy in that respect.
Anyway, they were in the boat on Friday. There was a second boat launched at the same time, which had two other NFL players in it. I asked Bill Jr. who the players were. “No idea,” he said. But if you asked Jr. how many bites they had between the two boats on Friday, he knows (19), and he also knows how many fish they kept (5).
“It was a good day of action,” he reported.
Bill Jr. is an expert fisherman and one of the best guides in the Pacific Northwest. It’s how he makes his living. He told me about all the good conversations on his boat on Friday. It was a special experience to observe two NFL players bonding with their former coach — a guy who practically raised them.
“You start to get to know these people,” Bill Jr. told me. “They’re well known. They play a sport professionally, but here they are in the outdoors, getting back to nature. They’re in my boat with someone who taught them how to be men, how to live right, and they’re just wide-eyed being in the river.”
Bill Jr. says the players talked about NFL rule changes and the push from ownership to expand the regular season and play more games. They talked about NFL salaries, the return of Aaron Rodgers, and DK Metcalf, who was suspended last season for two games following a sideline altercation with a fan.
The Metcalf suspension is an interesting topic, fishing trip aside. Missing two games cost him $555,556 in salary, and voided $45 million in guaranteed compensation. Metcalf might still earn that money, but it’s no longer guaranteed because of the suspension and a clause in his contract. It’s a cautionary tale.
Between the bites on the lines, there was a lot to discuss about life, family, and football. Carradine put the trip together. I’ve always said that there are only two kinds of people in the world — unifiers and dividers. You’re either bringing people in your circle closer together, or you’re dividing them. That old football coach and educator always has his arms stretched wide and is always pulling people closer.
As Bill Jr. said, “It was awesome. It was a cool trip. Everyone was happy, we caught lots of fish, and we all got sunburns.”
I want to take a moment to thank all the educators out there, like Mr. Greg Carradine. There are dozens of them in your region this month who will show up at middle school and high school graduations.
I happened to be at a high school graduation ceremony in California on Friday night. The graduates looked thrilled. Their parents looked proud. The teachers wore robes, too, and they bounced about, posing for photographs with the departing students. The teachers looked genuinely excited to be there.
In some cases, they’re just doing some teaching. In other cases, they’re also mentoring, advising, serving as life coaches, father/mother figures, disciplinarians, guardian angels, and even providing financial support.
I know teachers who have paid for summer programs for kids, funded tutoring programs, bought school supplies, shoes, backpacks, clothes, and performed welfare checks at students’ homes when what they saw at school didn’t look or feel right.
I ran into one of my ex-high school classmates at that graduation ceremony I attended on Friday night. Darren Yafai is coaching football and teaching history. He’s in his 34th year of teaching high school students. When I saw him, we hugged and slapped backs. I told him, “You never left high school,” and I meant it as the greatest compliment. We need people like ‘Yaf’ on the front lines, fighting an important fight, guiding young people, just like Mr. Carradine did for decades at David Douglas High.
He gave the world the gift of his time, effort, and energy. He took the time to care. He listened. He provided an example. I’m glad he caught a fish on Friday, but man, he’s been doing that for decades in the classroom.
Mr. Carradine posted something to his social media account a couple of weeks ago. It was a note to parents. It’s worth sharing.
He wrote:
“Parents of student-athletes entering their freshman year, if I can offer one piece of advice:
“Put your child in a program where they are celebrated, not tolerated.
“Find a school that values who they are, invests in their growth, and creates opportunities for them to succeed both on and off the field. The right environment can make all the difference in their confidence, development, and overall experience.
“If you know, you know.”
Before I leave you to the rest of your day, I want to say one more thing about that 29-foot boat. It’s made from welded aluminum. Built strong. It’s designed for big water and fishing. But the truth is, the instant that the vessel pushes off from the dock, it detaches from some of the complications of the world.
It’s basically a conversation chamber. The captain and passengers, all alone, at last. It’s not unlike the ride you might take in your car after practice or a game with your own kid. I have three daughters. I typically don’t turn on the radio when they’re in the car. I don’t play music unless they insist. I much prefer the live performance that is happening in the car.
I miss my oldest daughter terribly. She’s away at graduate school. I’ve been thinking lately about the trips we made when she played club volleyball. We traveled to Arizona, Washington, and California. There were endless hotel stays and plane trips. But it was the car rides and conversations I remember most.
Neither of us got a sunburn or caught a fish, but that was great, too.
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Another great piece, thanks John!
One of my life’s disappointments was my daughter not wanting to play softball, as I did up until my 40’s. We are both left handed and I saved my mitt for her, just in case. I’m 72 now, she’s turning 50. She’s never touched a ball (gads, she joined choir in high school. To a jock it was the worst!🤣) I forgave her because her only child, my grandson, played every sport he tried out for, including Ultimate Frisbee, (what on earth was THAT, I wondered?) tournament level. He graduated, with honors (white cords, iykyk) from Oregon State Business school yesterday. I am content to oil my glove every blue moon and hope,maybe, a great-grand will be a first base lefty.