I have this recurring nightmare of a shadowy specter approaching my deathbed, leaning over close, and whispering in a deep, creepy voice: “You missed one”. And maybe I will, but it won’t be McDermitt. They almost got me, but the CPHC staff takes this stuff very seriously, and our research team became aware of McDermitt’s little ruse a few years ago. You see, though most of the town of McDermitt is actually in Nevada, and the athletic teams compete in the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association, my Google Earth tells me the state line runs right through the school building, and the football field is wholly within the state of Oregon, meaning all of their home games are played right here in the Beaver state. Pretty sneaky, McDermitt, but the cat’s out of the bag now.
If you take Highway 95 south at Burns Junction, instead of north, you’ll eventually find McDermitt. When I asked the lady in Jordan Valley what we should look for between the two towns, she just shook her head and said “sagebrush and jackrabbits”, and she wasn’t wrong.
I first heard of McDermitt’s football team while reading an article by John Glionna a few years ago. For years the school has had trouble finding enough players to field a team in Nevada’s 1A-8-man division, and Glionna does a great job of documenting those struggles, so you should read that before you continue. He then wrote a follow-up story last year that puts this game in context, so you’ll also want to read that one. I was hoping to get to McDermitt to watch the Bulldogs break their losing streak, and there was part of me that was a little disappointed when I saw the score of their Owyhee game last year, but it’s a trip that takes some planning, and it wasn’t until now that we could get there and see them in action.
Driving through southeast Oregon it’s easy to convince yourself your on some other planet: The mountains, the rocks, the miles of nothing but sagebrush, then the miles of no sagebrush at all. It’s eerie if you aren’t used to it, and even more eerie is driving down into the depression in that landscape where you see the first trees you’ve seen for hours. Just when you were surely on the edge of the earth, there’s McDermitt. McDermitt was born of Fort McDermitt, which was built a few miles southeast of the current town to protect the stage line that ran from Virginia City to Silver City, Idaho, just east of Jordan Valley, and was named for a Lt. Col. McDermit who died fighting the natives in 1865. That fort now belongs to those natives as part of the Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation that extends into both states just east of town, and the majority of the residents of the area are affiliated with the Paiute or Shoshone tribes.
Mining, especially of mercury, has historically been the economic basis for the local economy, but the last of the mercury mines closed over 30 years ago, and population has been in decline since then, though a few gold mines continue to operate. These days the reservation, the school district, and the Say When casino are the biggest things going in McDermitt. With that in mind, we checked into our room and walked across the street to see if we could put the Say When out of business. They may have been happy to take the money we spent on dinner and drinks, but they hadn’t seen us play blackjack yet. Looking back on it, maybe playing the penny-ante blackjack machine was not the best plan for bankrupting the casino, but Mrs. Ednold and I did both end up winning, and slept soundly knowing we’d be back to finish them off after breakfast.
When we walked back in the next morning, I half expected to see our pictures on the wall, alerting staff to be on the lookout for the card-counting cheats who had taken them to the cleaners the night before, but I didn’t notice any. After the biscuits and gravy, we decided to go for the kill this time, playing keno at 5₵ a pop. That proved to be a poor decision, and we ended up saying “when” before the house did, but that just means the Say When casino will still be there next time we’re in McDermitt, which is a comforting thought.
So, it was a slightly humbled pair that drove east on Stateline Road to grab a parking space beside the other cars lined up with a view of the football field. The field is surrounded by a dirt/sand running track with a press box/snack bar combination apparently made from a shipping container or two. It probably got a little warm in there, but it works well for the purpose. There were small aluminum bleachers set up on each side of the field, and they did get some use but, as with the other small schools we’d been to, most of the fans in McDermitt sat up their folding chairs at the edge of the field, or just walked around without ever settling in one spot, or stayed in their cars with a perfect view of the action.
It was a warm afternoon, with a gusty wind to make the sun bearable. I’d guess that wind is probably common on the little prairie surrounded by mountains, and a few actual tumbleweeds made their way across the field that has been carved from the edge of the desert. After a few minutes the Bulldogs made the ¼ mile walk from the school building to the field, and there was Coach Egan, and Lonie Tobey, and all-around superstar Shanden Camas, and I got the feeling something special was about to happen again.
The four Bulldog cheerleaders took the field to lead the crowd in the Star-Spangled Banner, holding a U.S. flag along with the state flags of both Nevada and Oregon, and then it was on. At the time, I wasn’t too worried that the team from Wells had a dozen extra players on their sideline. They had had to make the five-hour trip from east of Elko earlier, and wouldn’t be ready for what they were about to see from the Bulldogs. And I wasn’t even too concerned when they went right down the field and scored in the first quarter. McDermitt answered with a score of their own when Camas caught a pass in the end zone right in front of me, with a lady I soon found out was his proud mom standing right beside me. It was an amazing play, and the Bulldogs had tied it up, 8-8.
That proved to be the high-water mark for McDermitt, though, and I should have seen how it was going to go. Those extra Wells players allowed them to send in fresh platoons every play or two, while most of the Bulldogs played every single play of the entire game. With the temperature around 80°, it would have been asking a lot of any team to keep up the intensity for long. It may have gone differently with a larger roster, but no amount of conditioning could have prepared their nine players to win this game, and Wells had opened up a 28-8 lead by halftime.
If having to play every down wasn’t enough, this game was homecoming, and the players also played a part in the halftime ceremony. It was a traditional ceremony like we’re all familiar with, with the princesses in gowns and the queen, as voted on by the football players, receiving her tiara and sash. All of the princess except the middle-school princess were escorted by football players, and I’d just like to remind them that maybe the boys in the chess club would like a chance someday, too.
The cheerleaders disappeared shortly after halftime: They were also on the volleyball team, and had to get ready for their own game that afternoon. That seemed like a good time to grab us a couple of hot dogs from the snack bar, and we weren’t surprised or disappointed with what we got. The action was much the same in the second half, with Shanden Camas scoring again in the 4th quarter to make the final score 48-16.
At some point, though, the crowd forgot to pay much attention to the scoreboard. The PA announcer continued with his upbeat commentary, and the Bulldog fans seemed happy just to have a chance to get together and socialize with their neighbors and support the players. Just being there, watching kids play a game in the sun on the only patch of green grass withing 100 miles, surrounded on three sides by sandy dirt and sagebrush with bare mountains off in the distance is good for anyone's soul. As may be expected of an unincorporated town of 100 people or so, the crowd wasn’t overwhelming, but there couldn’t have been too many residents who weren’t there, and none of them took the loss too hard.
We didn't get to see McDermitt's second win in the past two seasons, but when we planned this trip months ago, there was no guarantee the game would be played at all, so it kind of feels like we won anyway. I'm tempted to suggest to someone that the Bulldogs may want to look into playing in the OSAA, where they could play 6-man football and have a better chance of having enough players each season. Jordan Valley wouldn't be a short trip, but it's a lot closer than Wells, or some of the other places McDermitt has to travel to. I don't know if the people there consider themselves Nevadans or Oregonians or only members of their sovereign tribes, but I would think the OSAA would welcome them. They have a great story, and maybe if they played some of our teams, I could see them without having to travel quite so far.
When the game was over, Mrs. Ednold and I got in The Bucket and started driving north. We didn't stop driving for a very long time.