Don Jones and Jim Callerame will be at McKenzie Stadium on Saturday to watch their sons play in the high school football state semifinals.
Ayden Jones is an all-league defensive lineman for Camas, which will face Gonzaga Prep in a 4A state semifinal at 1 p.m. at McKenzie Stadium.
Joe Callerame is the Trico League MVP for Seton Catholic, which meets Montesano in a 1A state semifinal at 4 p.m. at McKenzie Stadium.
But Don Jones and Jim Callerame will feel like they have a lot of sons on the field Saturday at McKenzie.
The two fathers are part of a special link between the last two Clark County programs still alive. It’s a link that goes back more than a decade.
In all, 17 players from the Camas and Seton teams grew up playing Pop Warner football together on teams coached by Don Jones and Jim Callerame.
For Camas, that includes Jaxon Goode, Jake Davidson, Anthony Forner, Jared Forner, Ayden Jones, Sawyer Clifton, Titan Brody, Nikko Speer, Jack Macdonald, Chase McGee and Thor Brody.
For Seton, it includes AJ Bradshaw, Joe Callerame, Jacob Williams, Garrett Nebels, Lukas Morse and Thomas Clute.
The first year Don Jones coached several players was in 2014, when the players were 7 or 8.
“The kids were absolutely awesome, and they loved to play football, even as little kids,” Jones recalled. “They were easy to coach, and the parents let us be coaches.”
Jim Callerame, who coached older levels of Pop Warner football, took over coaching the players in 2017.
“I remember that team just had a spark,” Callerame said. “There were like X-factor kids on that team. And I know it sounds like I’m saying that now looking back. But that defense I coached was probably the best defense I had ever coached. And remember thinking that at the time.”
Those teams had a lot of success and won a lot of games. But it was the personalities of the players that stick most with both coaches.
“Jacob Williams is an outstanding human being,” Jones said. “His dad DeShawn played at Oregon State, so he’s got that pedigree. But I knew in that first year Jacob played football, he just had this mentality. He was unstoppable. And he’s just a good kid.”
Callerame remembers playing a game against a smaller team that was clearly overmatched by his own.
“I told the kids if you get (an interception), just run out of bounds,” Callerame recalled. “We’re not going to blow them out. It was a character thing. And one of the first plays they run on offense, this kid runs the ball and Titan (Brody) came up and smashed him at the line and pulled the ball out of his hands. The play happened right in front of me, so Titan looked right at me. He kind of shrugs his shoulders then he gave the ball back to the kid and tackled him. It was the cutest moment I’ve ever seen from the toughest kid on the field.”
In 2019, Callerame as head coach and Jones as an assistant, the East County/Camas Pee Wee Jets Pop Warner team brought all together with a dozen current Seton and Camas players on the roster.
“That’s one thing I try to instill in the kids when they’re young,” Jones said. “Football, it’s a brotherhood. And when they get together for reunions or whatever — and I know to the kids that seems a long way away — but when they get together, they won’t talk about baseball or wrestling. They are going to talk about football. Because football creates a brotherhood. It doesn’t matter if you go to Seton. It doesn’t matter if you go to Camas. You’ll always have that brotherhood. It’s like a family.”
Jones said last week after Camas beat Arlington in a state quarterfinal at Doc Harris Stadium in the afternoon, several players returned to watch Seton Catholic play Life Christian in a 1A quarterfinal that evening at Doc Harris.
Callerame added that when Seton had a first-round bye two weeks ago, several Cougars went to watch Camas beat Curtis.
“They are a little family, man,” Callerame said. “That group stays in contact. They’ve got a strong love for each other. I think you’ll see some of that this weekend.”
While both teams have hopes to advance to the state finals next week at Husky Stadium, Saturday will be the last time Don Jones and Jim Callerame will be able to watch their former players on the field in Clark County.
“It’s been an emotional rollercoaster for me,” Callerame said. “I could not be prouder of any one of these kids. Every time you bring up a name — Nikko Speer, Jacob Williams, Garrett Nebels, any name — I just get filled with pride. When I finished my last youth game a couple of weeks ago with my youngest son, I was giving a speech to the team. … And for the first time, I actually started to tear up. I told the kids ‘This isn’t about you.’ This is about this whole thing. It’s ending, right? That’s how I feel now. I’m super proud, and at the same time, I’m super sad that it’s ending.”
Jones has a similar feeling.
“I have nothing but good things to say about the Seton boys,” Jones said. “They’re great kids. And they and the Camas kids, they’ve all come a long way. And I think as someone who is a coach and a parent, you can sit back and just be proud of that. You can say, hey, I coached these kids.”
