EVERETT – The tears inside the Tacoma Dome locker room had dried. The low of losing the biggest game in school history had been replaced by the high of actually making it that far.
Things were looking up for the Mariner High School football program in the days following the 1998 Class 3A state championship game. After going where no Mariner football team had gone before, the Marauders looked into the future and liked what they saw.
Darius Washington, a senior running back on that team and now a starter at Eastern Washington University, remembers his thoughts following the disappointing 29-27 loss to Capital of Olympia.
“I thought they were going to go on and win the (1999) state championship,” Washington said of the Marauders.
And he wasn’t alone. Despite losing a strong senior class, Mariner would enter the 1999 season with arguably the two best players in the state.
Nothing, it seemed, could take that away.
But in the weeks, months and years that followed that trip to the state title game, Mariner’s football program fell to depths no one expected. The ascent from that nadir has been a long, slow process.
Heading south
Mariner’s fall from grace started with the high-profile transfers of star players Teyo Johnson and AmonGordon in the summer of 1999. Both students opted to move to San Diego for their senior years, where they would attend Mira Mesa High School together before moving on to Stanford.
The transfers were such a touchy subject that no one is willing to talk about them even today. Johnson and Gordon did not want to be interviewed for this story. Mariner head coach John Ondriezek agreed to talk about the program so long as the questions did not involve those players’ 1999 transfers.
But somewhere inside the halls of Mariner High, the ghosts of Teyo Johnson and Amon Gordon seemed to haunt the program for years.
Five years after the star players abruptly transferred and left behind a 1-8 squad, the Mariner football team is still looking for a postseason victory. As the school prepares for today’s annual game with Mukilteo School District rival Kamiak, the return to prominence has taken longer than anyone expected.
“Those kids never quit,” Ondriezek said of the teams that followed the 1998 state runner-up. “Those kids had Mariner heart. It meant something to them. So our program never took a step backwards as far as attitude.”
Revolving door
Transfers, both coming and going, have been as much a part of the Mariner football program as graduating seniors. The high school is tucked into a part of south Everett where 80 percent of the surrounding district is made up of apartments, Ondriezek said.
With apartments, come change. And with change, Mariner High has become accustomed.
“At the beginning of each month, you always get a slip of paper for a student who is either leaving or coming in. Every month,” said Dexter Griffen, the boys’ basketball coach at Mariner. “You’re always preparing for the unknown. But at the same time, when these kids reach their goals, they maybe appreciate it more than some other kids that have had an easy life.”
The ever-changing student population isn’t limited to enrollment size, either. The school’s makeup is 62 percent minority, and 29 different languages are spoken within its walls, Ondriezek said.
It’s one of the few high schools where first- and second-generation Europeans, Middle Easterners, Polynesians, Africans, Latinos, and Asians bond in their differences.
“This is America. Mariner High School is a slice of American life,” Ondriezek said. “… One of the kids that transferred from another school here, after a week, said: ‘You know, there are no popular kids here. Everyone treats everyone the same.’
“I think that quote in itself shows you the kind of school it is. There’s a tremendous amount of respect at Mariner High School for other cultures and for each other.”
The school prides itself on that diversity. School officials marvel at how kids from all different backgrounds bond in their individuality.
They also come together through somewhat of an inferiority complex. Riall Johnson, Teyo’s older brother and one of four ex-Mariner football players who went to NFL training camps last month, said his alma mater relishes in its underdog role.
“We were looked at as second tier – one step behind Cascade and Kamiak,” he said. “Kamiak had all the rich kids and the new facilities. We were taught to take pride in what we had.
“We were proud not to have everything handed to us, like Cascade and Kamiak did. We had to work for everything.”
In a nutshell, that explains how the football program was able to withstand a series of crushing blows. The first came when the Marauders’ two top players transferred. Then came the forgettable 1-8 season. The following spring, in May 2000, football player Jason Thompson and his best friend, Jesse Stoner, were shot and killed by a schoolmate in a high-profile tragedy that shocked the entire community.
Despite the turmoil, Ondriezek remembers the 1999 team as one of his favorites.
“The comment our assistant coach said during the banquet was: ‘Did we just win the state championship?’” Ondriezek said of a team banquet that occurred in the fall of ‘99. “That’s what type of kids those were. That’s what it meant to them to be a part of our football team and to work together. We probably have more kids from that football team coming back for games than we do for other games.”
Mariner finished 2-7 the following year, once again failing to make the playoffs. A promising junior high football player, quarterback Jason Morris, transferred to Jackson and eventually became a star. Another up-and-comer, Derrick Bradley, went to Kamiak after the district boundaries were altered around Casino Road. Both Morris (Eastern Washington) and Bradley (University of Washington) were recruited to play college football.
“(Ondriezek) tried to stay positive, but I’m sure there were times it was hard,” said Anthony Odell, an offensive lineman who graduated last spring. “He keeps his head up, even in losing seasons. He’s kept his head up, he’s kept going, and he’s had a couple successful seasons.”
Learning life’s lessons
Not until 2001 did things begin to look up for the football program. The Marauders went 9-2 that year, 6-4 in 2002, and 9-2 last season. But they are still looking for their first playoff win since 1998.
“Playing for a state championship was like going on an exotic vacation,” Ondriezek said. “You just want to go back. And except for a few schools, your chances are not good of getting there. You have goals every year, and our main goal is to play for a state championship.”
Even through five years of rebuilding, Mariner never lost sight of that goal.
“Every year is the same,” Ondriezek said. “There are just some things you deal with at Mariner that you don’t have to deal with at other schools. And it’s high school. They’re 15-, 16- and 17-year-old kids that have a lot of problems beyond athletics.”
Many of those kids overcome, like the Johnson brothers, Gordon and Lamont Brightful, each of whom has been drafted by NFL teams over the past four years.
Ondriezek is proud of all their accomplishments – including the two who left his team after successful junior seasons.
But there are countless others whose names never get the headlines. One such player, whom Ondriezek did not want mentioned by name, recently brought a tear to his former coach’s eye with an e-mail.
As the story goes, the troubled player often butted heads with the coaching staff while playing for Mariner in the late 1980s. Things finally became too much when the player was late for a game. Ondriezek ordered him to apologize to his teammates.
“He said, ‘I’ll apologize to the football team, but I won’t apologize to anyone over 30. Because I don’t trust anyone over 30,’” Ondriezek recalled.
Recently, Ondriezek got an e-mail from the former player that said: “Guess what? I turned 30 today. Keep pounding it in their heads. Keep pounding it in, because someday they’ll realize what it’s all about.”
It’s the kind of story that says a lot about Mariner football. And about Ondriezek, who during his 30 years as a football coach has also been on the other end of some life lessons.
“You never give up,” Ondriezek said, “because someday the values they learn here are going to carry over in life.”
Mariner High football has never given up. It’s just not the kind of program to be scared off by a couple of ghosts.
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