Vikings football team is about more than sports

Published 10:22 pm Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Snohomish County Vikings are all about football — and family.

The owner and coach, Wes Fischer, 62, has devoted five decades to sports. He graduated from Snohomish High School, played semi-pro football and was inducted into the Semi-Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004 as an executive alongside well-known NFL greats including Vince Lombardi and Bill Walsh.

Fischer, who lives in Startup, retired last season as the wrestling coach at Sultan High School. He builds men, and sees to it they gain community spirit. The team is registered as a nonprofit, said Debbie Fischer, who married the coach in 2001.

“Our goal for this year’s event is $20,000,” Debbie Fischer said. “Money raised will go not only toward the team, but to charities such as youth football programs, local food banks and Toys for Tots.”

The Vikings are a minor league team in the Northwest Football League, which has been around for 40 years. They have planned a spaghetti dinner and auction May 23 to raise money for the team and its charities.

The team has given more than $70,000 to food banks through its affiliation with Volunteers of America. Players go to hospitals to cheer the children. They’ve raised money for drug abuse awareness.

Teamwork and work in the community are both in the playbook.

“A lot of coaches that are coaching Pee Wee football in Snohomish County have some sort of present or past association with the Snohomish County Vikings,” Debbie Fischer said. “It is unimaginable how many lives we have affected in our 16 years.”

Burley Lockhart is on the team.

“I play for Wes and the Vikings because it’s a team that is about more then just football,” Lockhart said. “Wes has made the Vikings be about the community and giving people a second chance to prove themselves. Wes has always been there for me.”

And Burley said he likes to hit people on the field, too.

Players need to be at least 18, and they have had a woman on the offensive line. Last season several of their players returned to college, Debbie Fischer said, and a former player graduated from Washington State University.

They hope to start a college scholarship program.

The team has suffered many tragedies. Wes Fischer’s first wife, Donna, his high school sweetheart, was killed in a traffic accident on the way to a game.

In 1998, the couple, while driving to Edmonds, was involved in a collision on U.S. 2. Wes Fischer was injured. Donna Fischer died instantly. Players from both teams involved in that night’s game staged a vigil in Wes Fischer’s hospital room.

In 2005, coach Herb Goines died. He played football for Fischer, then became the defensive coordinator. Also in 2005, offensive lineman Gary Smart from Coupeville, 49, lost his son, Mike, in a car accident. The father and son had each played for the Vikings.

Snohomish High School graduate and Vikings player Jeff Berry died in November at age 31. A wonderful singer, he sang the national anthem at the drop of a hat, Debbie Fischer said.

“Anyone who knew Jeff loved Jeff,” she said. “He had a barrel laugh. He would knock an opposing player on his butt, then look down and laugh his great laugh and reach his hand out to pick him back up.”

In Berry’s honor this season, an MVP player will be named after each game. That player then will have the honor of wearing Berry’s number the following week in the next game.

That is the way this football family sticks together, Debbie Fischer said. A few weeks before Berry died, the coach spoke to the team at the end of a Toys for Tots charity game.

Wes Fischer told his players to look at one another. Remember the faces of your brothers, he said, as one of you may not be back.

His words were prophetic. But like a family unit, they carry on, for the good of the team and the community.

Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451, oharran@heraldnet.com.