Trenton Swanson doesn’t mind sharing his secret — or rather, one of superstition — when pesky muscle cramps strike. Whatever he can do to help out a teammate or another high school athlete who is putting everything out on the line for their team.
It’s not the typical visuals seen on high school sidelines, such as yellow mustard bottles or jars of pickle juice.
When he needs quick relief, Swanson, the Camas High senior receiver and safety, downs packets of hot sauce.
“I might just carry that superstition with me for the rest of my life, to be honest,” Swanson said earlier this week, ahead of Friday’s Camas-Battle Ground showdown at District Stadium. “I might be 40 years old playing indoor soccer and carrying packets of hot sauce with me before every game.”
Until then, Swanson has plenty of work still to do for the Papermakers (7-1 overall, 2-0 4A Greater St. Helens League), winners of seven straight games ahead of Friday’s 7 p.m. game against the Tigers (7-1, 1-1). It’s the regular-season finale for both teams.
For a football program that prides itself on a next-man-up mentality, Swanson has taken that title to the next level as a senior.
Through eight games, he’s Camas’ leading receiver with 760 yards and six touchdowns and also has 40 tackles and three interceptions — including an interception return for a touchdown — at safety.
He booted a career-best 62-yard punt against Glacier Peak, and a week later against Kamiak, had a touchdown trifecta by scoring one each on offense, defense and special teams. He’s also the backup placekicker to Jackson Tyler.
There’s no shortage of snaps for Swanson.
“I pride myself in doing everything — wherever I can,” he said. “I really like it.”
In last week’s 52-27 victory over Union, Swanson recorded his fifth 100-yard receiving game and had a career-high 12 catches on 16 targets. But what Swanson is most proud of are others in the receiving corps,including Chase McGee and Anthony Forner, and how first-year starting quarterback Jake Davidson continues to exceed expectations.
“There were pretty high expectations for him,” Swanson said. “I know a lot of people were saying our team’s success this year is a lot on Jake and I still agree with that because he was coming in fitting a role with pretty big shoes to fill. And I think he’s filled them.”
Head coach Jack Hathaway had no problem rambling off all the positions Swanson could play, if needed. He also added quarterback since Swanson did run a trick play under center as a ninth grader and did lead Camas’ Liberty Middle School to the middle school league championship.
“That’s what makes him a specialist,” Hathaway said.
Furthermore, the coach said: “He knows what everybody else is doing, too. A lot of guys know what they’re supposed to do, but understanding what everybody else is supposed to do, too, it’s pretty special.”
Swanson knew 2023 would be a big season since bigger expectations would be placed on his shoulders.
In preparation, when turning out for Camas’ track and field team last spring, he added the 100 meters to his events to build up his speed work. He also anchored Camas’ 4×100 relay that reached regionals.
The conditioning didn’t stop there.
It continued well into the summer, which he credits for why he’s in the best shape of his football career. In Camas’ 21-9 league-opening win over Skyview in a battle of top-10-ranked teams, Swanson was in on every snap except kickoff and kick return.
“I’ve never been this conditioned in my whole life,” he said. “Summer training was really hard, and I think the conditioning we did over the summer is harder conditioning than any game I’ve played this year, which is not how it was last year. And I think that’s honestly the biggest difference in me just being able to play the whole game.”
