The logging town of Vernonia, Ore., is nestled into the foothills of the Coast Range, halfway between Portland and the coast. It’s 15 miles off Highway 26, and it’s the type of place that, unless you are going there, you would never know the town exists.
Vernonia is also the town where I grew up. The high school had 240 kids walking its halls when I graduated in 2006, and my class had a grand total of 34 people. This usually gets an incredulous laugh from people who went to schools such as Clackamas or Sheldon, which boast more than 2,000 kids. Needless to say, when it comes to sports, the main worry for the Mighty Loggers isn’t whether or not they’ll compete for a league title – it’s whether or not they’ll have enough kids to field a team.
Vernonia’s sports scene is much like other small towns around Oregon. The town shuts down Friday night to go watch the football team under the lights, and during the winter it’s not unusual to have a traffic jam on Bridge Street after a wrestling match or basketball game finishes. The town supports high school athletics, and those Friday nights are a reprieve for loggers and other people. They all come together to socialize and cheer for the high school they attended when they were young.
The reason I’m telling you about this small town that you’ve probably never heard about is because it was home to one of the more memorable sporting moments I have ever witnessed. Last winter, as many of us were winding down the fall term of 2007 and worrying about finals, Vernonia was in the middle of a crisis.
In the first week of December, the town received 12 inches of rain and sustained heavy damage from winds that reached above 80 miles per hour. It was the same storm that swept through the coast, knocking down whole stands of trees and cutting power to the region.
In Vernonia, the rain led to flooding; and in some parts of the town there was eight feet of muddy sewer water. In the high school, water lapped into student lockers, and ruined the bleachers and gym floor. The last thing on people’s minds was basketball.
But soon after the floodwaters receded and people started moving into FEMA trailers, the head coach of the boys’ basketball team, Ted Aubin, started thinking about playing again. The team’s floor was ruined and all the kids were being bused 25 miles to Scappoose, Ore., to attend school, but he got commitments from the players who didn’t leave town to start practicing again.
Just one week after the flood, on Dec. 7, Aubin and the Loggers traveled to the small town of Gaston, Ore., where they beat the Greyhounds 88-68. The matchbox-sized gym was packed with people from Vernonia, who drove the 25 miles to see their team play. To them it was more than just a basketball game. It was about the character of the town. They could rally around the 16- and 17-year-old boys because they were a team, and they didn’t let a flood that wiped out their home court stop them from playing.
The game against Gaston brought tears to some of the people in attendance because the adversity the team and the town had gone through was so overwhelming. Something simple like winning a basketball game seemed like a huge step. People were still without power in parts of the region, and homes had yet to be salvaged, but the town could at least come together as a whole and watch its team play.
For the rest of the 2007-08 season, the Loggers traveled to Scappoose to play their home games. They finished with a 12-12 record, but if you told any of the town members, they wouldn’t have cared. Records weren’t important. Family was. Sharing a common bond during a time of need was important.
One year later, the town is still recovering. The FEMA trailers still greet visitors to the town, but the gym is remodeled and VHS teams no longer have to drive miles just to practice. The hardwood was replaced with sections that can easily be lifted in case it floods again.
That’s the new mentality of the town. Every time it rains, people worry it will flood again. But the renovated gym is a symbol of rebuilding for Vernonia. When it opened this fall, people again packed the rickety wooden bleachers to cheer because the team is a part of the community, and in times of need, sports bring people together.
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