Down By Six

By Chris Martino and Joe Martino

Father and son, American transplants to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, set out to coach football together.

With hand-me-down gear, no facilities, no money, no training equipment, and no youth steeped in football traditions, they unleashed their hard-nosed, no-excuses brand of football. Their small, unsuspecting, working-class town was on the map in two short years as its Parksville Posse community league team captured the British Columbia provincial (state) championship crown.

 

Marshaling a posse of supporters and bringing a third American transplant on board, they took their brand of football to the local high school. In just their second season, the Ballenas Whalers finished as runners-up in the championship game and in their third season as AA high school provincial (state) champions!

Down By Six is their story. Starting with little more than a desire to spend time together, how did this father and son team create two championship programs in a town that everyone said was too small for such things?

 

(340 pages, 86,000 words)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Madman Method Media
• Release date: May 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223492177

Book preview

ALSO BY CHRIS MARTINO

AND JOE MARTINO

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IT TAKES A POSSE

DOWN BY SIX

NO EXCUSES, CHAMPIONSHIP FOOTBALL

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CHRIS MARTINO

WITH

JOE MARTINO

Copyright © 2023 Chris Martino and Joe Martino

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

The advice and strategies found within may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that neither the author(s) nor the publisher are held responsible for the results accrued from the advice in this book.

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Front cover and back cover photo credit: James Clarke

First printing edition 2023.

Madman Method Media (Publisher)

10021 Bentley Drive

North Royalton, Ohio 44133

Email: [e-mail]

To Cathy Martino

Table of Contents

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

YOUR ROADMAP

BLOOM WHERE YOU’RE PLANTED

Big surprises in small Pack-ers

False start

THE PARKSVILLE POSSE—YEAR ONE—1998

What’s in a name?

On the train to Clarke’s-ville

I swear, you swear, we all...

The longest mile

Confounded course corrections

Failing to plan is planning to fail

Under one condition

Down-by-six

One play at a time, fundamentally

Finish! Strong! Together!

Pride before the fall

SCRIMMAGE VS CAMPBELL RIVER FIGHTING EAGLES

EXHIBITION VS COLWOOD WARRIORS

EXHIBITION VS NANAIMO LIONS

WEEK 1 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS CAMPBELL RIVER FIGHTING EAGLES

WEEK 2 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS COLWOOD WARRIORS

WEEK 3 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS GORDON HEAD GUARDIAN

WEEK 4 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS PORT ALBERNI SEA LIONS

WEEK 5 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS COMOX VALLEY RAIDERS

WEEK 6 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS NANAIMO LIONS

WEEK 7 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS SAANICH WOLVERINES

WEEK 8 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS PORT ALBERNI SEA LIONS

WEEK 9 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS COMOX VALLEY RAIDERS

WEEK 10 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS PORT ALBERNI SEA LIONS

WEEK 11 NORTH ISLAND DIVISION FINAL—PARKSVILLE POSSE VS CAMPBELL RIVER FIGHTING EAGLES

WEEK 12 ISLAND FINAL—PARKSVILLE POSSE VS COLWOOD WARRIORS

THE PARKSVILLE POSSE—YEAR TWO—1999

Oceanside Youth Football Association

Talkin’ smack, pride of champs, Ross and the General

Let there be light!

SCRIMMAGE VS CAMPBELL RIVER (THE TUBE STEAK LUAU)

EXHIBITION VS COLWOOD

WEEK 1 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS PORT ALBERNI SEA LIONS

WEEK 2 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS COLWOOD WARRIORS

WEEK 3 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS CAMPBELL RIVER FIGHTING EAGLES

WEEK 4 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS DUNCAN CHIEFS

WEEK 5 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS COMOX VALLEY RAIDERS

WEEK 6 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS PORT ALBERNI SEA LIONS

WEEK 7 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS VICTORIA ROUGHRIDERS

WEEK 8 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS CAMPBELL RIVER FIGHTING EAGLES

WEEK 9 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS NANAIMO LIONS

WEEK 10 PARKSVILLE POSSE VS COMOX VALLEY RAIDERS

WEEK 11 NORTH ISLAND DIVISION FINAL—PARKSVILLE POSSE VS COMOX VALLEY RAIDERS

WEEK 12 ISLAND FINAL—PARKSVILLE POSSE VS NANAIMO LIONS

WEEK 13 PROVINCIAL SEMI-FINAL—PARKSVILLE POSSE VS ABBOTSFORD FALCONS

WEEK 14 PROVINCIAL FINAL—PARKSVILLE POSSE VS VERNON MAGNUM

THE BALLENAS WHALERS—YEAR ONE—2000

Football in a box and a Silent Sentinel

Ragnar and the whale

You got to fight for your right to...

Create the standard. Work to the standard.

Football 101 for ladies

Paintballs and a double-edged sword

Blindsided

Spring Jamboree and V.I. Camp

Paint phantom and boosters

Jockeying for position

Pride and unis

EXHIBITION VS TIMBERLINE WOLVES:

WEEK 1 BALLENAS WHALERS VS JOHN OLIVER JOKERS:

WEEK 2 BALLENAS WHALERS VS PORT MOODY BLUES:

WEEK 3 BALLENAS WHALERS VS FRANK HURT HORNETS:

WEEK 4 BALLENAS WHALERS VS TIMBERLINE WOLVES:

WEEK 5 BALLENAS WHALERS VS CENTENNIAL CENTAURS:

WEEK 6 BALLENAS WHALERS VS SENTINEL SPARTANS:

WEEK 7 BALLENAS WHALERS VS DELTA PACERS:

WEEK 8 BALLENAS WHALERS VS BARSBY:

THE BALLENAS WHALERS—YEAR TWO—2001

The brat pack

Condition-al course corrections, curriculum cogs, campouts, and Clarke out

Field of streams

Cheers to the blue and white

Pop culture

EXHIBITION VS COWICHAN THUNDERBIRDS:

WEEK 1 BALLENAS WHALERS VS TIMBERLINE WOLVES:

WEEK 2 BALLENAS WHALERS VS JOHN OLIVER JOKERS:

WEEK 3 BALLENAS WHALERS VS FRANK HURT HORNETS:

WEEK 4 BALLENAS WHALERS VS WINDSOR DUKES:

WEEK 5 BALLENAS WHALERS VS JOHN BARSBY BULLDOGS:

WEEK 6 BALLENAS WHALERS VS HOWE SOUND SOUNDERS:

WEEK 7 BALLENAS WHALERS VS SEAQUAM SEAHAWKS:

WEEK 8 BALLENAS WHALERS VS COWICHAN THUNDERBIRDS:

WEEK 9 BALLENAS WHALERS VS DELTA PACERS:

WEEK 10 PROVINCIAL WILDCARD—BALLENAS WHALERS VS PORT MOODY BLUES:

WEEK 11 PROVINCIAL QUARTER-FINAL—BALLENAS WHALERS VS SALMON ARM GOLDS:

WEEK 12 PROVINCIAL SEMI-FINAL—BALLENAS WHALERS VS JOHN OLIVER JOKERS:

WEEK 13 PROVINCIAL FINAL—BALLENAS WHALERS VS WINDSOR DUKES:

THE BALLENAS WHALERS—YEAR THREE—2002

Pride, principals, and provincials

Junior Whalers set sail. The Posse ride ends.

Post-secondary promises fulfilled

MORE MARTINO METHOD

COACH CHRIS’S CONDITIONING

TEAM RULES

DEFENSIVE PHILOSOPHY—COACH JOE

THE BOOSTER CLUB

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

On why football succeeds in small-town Parksville:

On playing everybody:

On Ballenas Whalers Football and its effect on the school culture:

On a defining moment or trait that shaped football in Parksville:

On one thing you wish had been different:

On what We Finish Strong, We Finish Together means to you:

On Chris and Joe’s coaching style:

On the rivalry—Birth of a Border Battle. Healthy or unhealthy?

On the best thing about football:

IN CLOSING

About that promise to name it Philip Field...

Post-game

My way or the...

What’s the secret?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

FOREWORD

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The goal at the beginning was to spend quality time together. Football presented more than ample opportunities to do just that. Joe, ever the mentor, took on the general manager/assistant coach role while Chris became the head coach of the teams they led. The evolution produced success after success on and off the playing field, built upon a core belief system that applies in every imaginable situation/context.

Joe and Chris believed in blooming where you are planted. This growth mindset calls for one to be the best one can be with the tools at hand. It takes a seed of an idea and calls for a focus on everything that will enable it to grow from root to tip. This focus casts aside wanderings and agendas that are not essential to the mission of blooming. At its core, this mindset seems to convey the idea of trending upward by saying, It ain’t perfect, but it’s better. Then it asks, How do we make ‘better’ better? No detail or minutia is too small to be immune from this scrutiny.

We build organizations upon relationships. The Parksville football programs began with a father-and-son relationship. Joe Martino and his son Chris started their collaboration when Chris was a youth player, and when his playing days finished and he matured into adulthood, Joe remained Chris’s supporter as a father and mentor. The two embarked on a coaching journey together as they saw the value of football in the lives of the players, coaches, and families involved.

It began with a community football program in Parksville and eventually led to the founding of the Ballenas Whalers high school football program. The Whaler story begins with special people and on a foundation of ideals. It is a living idea that has endured and thrived across decades and a succession of people who have embraced its meaning and watered the program with commitment, passion, and not a small amount of toil and sweat. The program has faced and has overcome adversity by never straying far from the founding core ideals they built initially around.

The vision of what excellence looks like is the North Star the organization constantly uses to orient itself. As a result, bringing one’s individual and team self to a higher level becomes ubiquitous throughout the program. Rallying around this higher level produces respect, dignity, non-condescension, and unity throughout the program—bottom to top and top to bottom.

All involved point the same way, making all the sweat, toil, and mental focus more efficient. Things get done properly and thoroughly without distraction. And when you are competing with other organizations in the same time frame, you can bet you use your seconds, minutes, and hours better than most of the competition. It produces a powerful compound interest in your favor in the competitive arena.

Once this mindset is in place, the wins happen at all levels of the program. On the field, it expresses itself in the championship prism: Can we win this play? Can we win the next one? Can we do this in rapid succession? When these questions get answered through practice and repetition, and the mindset translates onto the field of play, the next evolution of a championship season occurs. Stacking winning plays on top of one another leads to winning games. Games won, stacked upon one another, produce a winning season that results in the most favorable playoff seed, and ultimately the process leads to a championship game.

Several years after the inception of the Ballenas Whalers, Joe and Chris moved on from their roles as coaches and organizational leaders. What happened when they left? Simply put, the Whalers not only sustained their high level of play but thrived and continued to grow. With the hindsight of time, this is the highest form of a living testament to their good works. Two fine people left, but their ideas lived on, preached, instructed, internalized, and actualized. Successive coaching staff, boosters, players, and program members at all levels have absorbed this culture and transferred it generationally. There is no reason to think that as long as the ideals survive, the program will not continue to thrive and succeed across the years and decades to come. Future names and faces may change, but the Zen remains.

The Ballenas Whalers are one of British Columbia’s flagship high school football programs. Their story is unique, courageous, and enduring and merits sharing, celebrating, and passing on to future generations. It is a tale rich in football lessons that, in reality, are life lessons.

This book contains one of life’s North Stars. I would implore the reader to absorb the story, history, and lessons from the narrative. To members of the Whaler program, past, present, and future, and everyone else out there: If lost or in a place where you seek to orient yourself, go back to the book and reread it. You will discover where you are and where you are heading.

Robert E. Stevenson Jr.

John Barsby Football

INTRODUCTION

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What would you think of our writing a book about our time coaching football together? Chris asked this question in the summer of 2020.

Write a book? Are you kidding me? Do you know how much work that is? Besides, who would want to read it beyond the two of us? I’d sold my business and was in my tenth year of retirement and enjoying my life of relative solitude. Football memories were twenty years old and fading—the details, anyway. There are a lot of small-town-does-good football stories out there, I said. And like those, ours even had that working-class, blue-collar thing so popular in books and movies today. What makes this one so different?

But... but... all of theirs already had football programs. This story about this town is different, Chris insisted. So I heard him out.

It is a story about a small, blue-collar community with no football program. It built one. What’s more, it won a championship right out of the gate! Then did it again, creating a high school program! It, too, became champions! He talked of how a scrappy gaggle of parents and townsfolk saddled up like some wild west posse on a quest to build a community football team and an entire support organization—a family. And by the time the cloud of dust settled, their ride had also produced two high school teams and a booster club! And two cheer and stunt teams! You have a point. That is pretty incredible, I had to admit.

A father and son coaching duo led the entire effort. Not only had the whole experience begun as nothing more than a way to spend time together, but there was the additional twist of the father flipping the script by taking a back seat and installing the son as head coach! How many stories like that are there? he asked.

Well, when you put it that way.

YOUR ROADMAP

From community league to high school football.

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1997

–Martinos help coach Parksville Packers

–Junior bantams aged 11-13 years

–Football Nanaimo’s (Canadian rules) community league

–Undefeated season, league championship runners-up

1998

–Martinos create and coach Parksville Posse

–Bantams aged 14-15 years

–Football Nanaimo’s (Canadian rules) community league

–Ten, now fourteen-year-old Packers, move up to this team

–Seventeen, mostly fifteen-year-olds with no football experience, join

–North Island Division Champions, Vancouver Island Championship runners-up

1999

–Oceanside Youth Football Association (OYFA) forms as Parksville leaves Football Nanaimo

–Martinos coach Parksville Posse bantams

–Ten return, now fifteen-year-olds, joined by three more from that ‘97 Packers team

–Twelve more first-time players join

–North Island Division Champions, Vancouver Island Champions, B.C. Community Football Association Provincial Champions

2000

–Ballenas Whalers Football created

–Chris Martino, head coach; Sean Hines, defense; Joe Martino, manager

–AA Senior varsity team, B.C. Secondary Schools Football Association (B.C.S.S.F.A.) (American rules)

–Seven return from the champion Posse team

–Five return from ‘98 Posse team, having sat out a year

–Balance is first-timers

–Whalers miss the playoffs by four points

2001

–Chris Martino departs for the States

–Sean Hines, Whalers head coach; Joe Martino, manager

–Twelve from ‘99 Posse champion team, six from the 2000 Posse, plus first-timers

–B.C.S.S.F.A. AA Championship runners-up

2002

–Joe Martino departs as Ballenas Whalers manager

–Last of Martinos-coached players (four) remain

–B.C.S.S.F.A. AA Champions

2003

–Ballenas Whalers create AA junior varsity team

–OYFA dissolves Parksville Posse, continues with pee wee and junior bantam teams

BLOOM WHERE YOU’RE PLANTED

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Your diamonds are not in far distant mountains or in yonder seas; they are in your own backyard if you but dig for them.―Russell H. Conwell, Acres of Diamonds.

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What if we hadn’t heard those shouts and whistles that day?

Stowing the soccer practice gear in the truck, Dad and I stop to listen. It sounds like a game in the distance behind that grove of trees, but there’s no soccer game we know of happening today. Besides, the cadence of these whistles is different, though familiar. We lock the vehicle and head off through the woods. As we emerge from the trees, we’re shocked to see the spectacle of a football game in progress! There’s a proper field, goalposts, clubhouse, referees, and fans, and the sunlight glistening off the helmets of two football teams goin’ at it. It is Pioneer Park in Nanaimo. We each turn to the other, stunned, confounded, and thrilled.

Ours is a family of San Francisco Forty-Niners fans. I attended youth football camps in the Bay Area run by 49er stars. I was almost thirteen and about to sign up and live out my football dream when everything changed, and we left the U.S. for Canada. We emigrated from California in 1990 and settled first in Nanoose Bay and then in Parksville, the small seaside tourist town, a half-hour drive north of Nanaimo.

Vancouver Island sits just off the west coast of British Columbia, Canada, like a miniature version of California if it fell into the sea. Sliced by the 49th parallel just above Washington State, the Johnstone, Queen Charlotte, Juan de Fuca, and Georgia Strait separate it from the mainland. It is accessible only by air or ferry service. The Island, as inhabitants refer to it, has one of the mildest climates in Canada and is a preferred destination for retirees fleeing the rest of the country’s colder weather. The rainforest green of the area’s playing fields is the first thing to catch my attention. They stand in lush contrast to the red dirt lots that pass as playing surfaces in California. Victoria (the capital of B.C.), at the southern tip, is the largest city on the Island and holds about half the population. Nanaimo, midway up the east coast, is the next largest. We felt welcomed and comfortable in the blue-collar, working-class resort community that locals call Oceanside.

But my biggest disappointment was being told upon arrival that there was no football in the area. So, since arriving, it’s primarily been soccer for my brother, Nick, and me, though it ended for me when we saw this football game today.

*    *    *    *

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It’s 1997, and I just completed my final season of a less than illustrious two-year stint playing for the Canadian Junior Football League’s (CJFL) Vancouver Island Sharks, Canada’s semi-pro league. Two years of persistent back pain from an earlier accident while riding in a friend’s car mar my performance with the Sharks. Before that, I played with the Nanaimo Redmen midget team for two years, winning the Island championship. Anyway, my dream of Big Boots Martino entering the college or pro ranks as a kicker has fallen short of the goalpost and now lies as lifeless as a dead ball on the turf. Dad’s leaving his post on the Football Nanaimo board soon, too, so football is ending for the Martino family. It’s been a great ride.

Mom and Dad have spent almost two decades attending practices and games for darned near everything supporting us two boys—soccer, t-ball, track and field, baseball, and football though Nick dropped out of sports at around age twelve, opting for video games and computers. Mom sewed more banners and flags than I can count, supporting her boys’ sports activities, and Dad’s helped with teams and sat on his share of boards and committees. Both work but make time, often the only parents attending practices. They say it’s their way of watching their boys grow up.

They own and Dad operates a medical equipment company serving the greater Oceanside area, encompassing the towns of Parksville and Qualicum Beach. Mom also works in a fabric store and does construction cleanup for a custom home contractor. Parksville’s principal claim to fame is the world-class Sand Sculpting Competition it hosts, to which tens of thousands of beach-going tourists flock annually. Once predominately supported by mining and forestry industries, the local economy has morphed into service-oriented sectors to serve the area’s large retirement community. The attendant minimum wage jobs keep forcing the graduating youth to move away in search of a toehold on the economic ladder and start families.

Just as I’m hanging up my cleats and thinking football’s over, Dad comes to me with the idea of creating a second team in Parksville as a fun way for him and me to continue spending time together. The junior bantam Parksville Packers is a team of Oceanside youth ages eleven to thirteen. It practices in town but plays games at Pioneer Park in Nanaimo under the auspices of Football Nanaimo, a Canadian-rules community league. The prevailing wisdom is that the Oceanside community is too small to support anything of its own, let alone a second team. Dad thinks otherwise. He seems to think he might get Football Nanaimo to agree. I like the idea. Besides, he’s saying I should be the head coach and handle the offense, and he’ll take defense! He presents the plan, and the Football Nanaimo board members like the thought of supporting a second junior bantam team of Oceanside youth to grow its league, so we’re off to present our plan to Mike Watson.

Big surprises in small Pack-ers

We don’t know him. Mike Watson doesn’t know us, either. Dad only knows of him from past comments from other board members who’ve witnessed some of his antics. Watson’s reputation in the league stems from his on-field abrasiveness with league officials and what some see as his too-rough approach with young players.

Coach Mike is lanky, crusty-edged, and a tradesperson who has been volunteering with the Packers for some time and usually only turns out a few players from Parksville. He’s not had much success in winning games, saying he’s never had a season over .500.

We reasoned that since he’s never been able to register enough players to fill a team, even if we end up with two teams at around seventy-five percent capacity, it means more of our youth will play football. He’s pretty skeptical. He thinks the numbers won’t be there and is not alone. It’s commonly said that the area is too small for anything more. But in the end, he figures he’s got nothing to lose by our shooting for a second team.

Dad and I did some light promoting in the schools, and when registration day arrives, it looks like our efforts are paying off as the increased numbers roll in. We’re unsure if we’ll have enough to fill two teams, but we’ll surpass previous registrations.

At about midway through the day, we encounter the first of what we’ll privately call Watson moments. Watson says he’s changed his mind and insists, I think the best thing to do is fill the Packers first before we go thinking about a second team.

But that’s not what we agreed to. We don’t even know how many we’re going to have for sure yet, we said.

Excited by what he sees as an opportunity to have a team filled for the first time, he digs in and says, I’ve decided we’ll get all the registrations in, fill the Packers team with the best, and cut the rest if there are not enough for two teams. That’ll give me a full team.

Now we’ve gone from not having enough to fill a team to cutting kids? It is not what we envisioned or agreed to. I said we should stand our ground and insist, but Dad figured it was not worth arguing with the guy. After all, we’re supposed to be having fun here. We roll our eyes. It makes no sense to us. So the dream of a second junior bantam team in Parksville will have to wait.

As the registration wraps up, we’re surprised when Watson asks if we’d be interested in coaching with him, as he has just one other guy helping. I’m skeptical, given this experience, but as my dad says, it will at least give us time together. Apprehensively, we agree to do it.

Before you know it, the preseason is here. We do our best to incorporate a structured approach to things. I’m calling the offense, and Dad has the defense. Soon, we get glimpses of maybe why Coach Mike has had difficulty fielding competitive teams. Don’t get me wrong here. Kudos to anyone giving time to the community’s youth, regardless of his experience or lack thereof. At least he’s out there! After all, it’s not all about winning, particularly at the youth level. But little things like not knowing how the quarterback should place his hands under the center are pretty elementary and learned in a coaching clinic or two.

One particularly trying moment is in a drill with two lines of players facing each other twenty yards apart—the ball carrier and the tackler. At full speed, the pursuing tackler tries to stop the ball carrier. It ends in brutal collisions, one of which sends a tearful player home, never to return. When we question him about the wisdom of such a drill, Watson responds, This is where we separate the men from the boys. This man is eleven years old!

Thin in understanding the fundamentals of the game or its positions, Watson emphasizes the smashmouth aspects of his teaching. Gawd, I despise that term as applied to youth football. Hey, I get it. Football is a physical game. And opponents of Martino-coached players usually point first to how hard-hitting we are. So our players get it, too. But, unlike a team or family unit, Watson’s seems a more pack-like vision, evidenced by gathering the young players in the failing light of one breath-filled fall evening to lead them in a repeated primal howling like a pack of wolves.

Calling him out for stunts, like smoking stogies while pacing up and down rows of eleven- and thirteen-year-old players like a military field marshal produces no change. He has a peculiar tendency to double down on his antics when confronted, resulting in more fantastic displays.

It’s all unnecessary and frustrating, but I’m taking Dad’s advice and staying focused on the task. My dad and I admire those leaders who keep their heads, control their emotions, and are not prone to histrionics. Young players accept a person at face value, and the coach’s conduct is vital. That young person will grow up and may decide to coach, and the style he first emulates will often be one he experienced as a young player.

So, Coach Mike’s antics make the year more trying for us than it has to be though Dad says at least some of our approach is rubbing off on him as displays of shouting at a player while grabbing his facemask have ceased, as have some of the more abrasive barbs thrown at referees. Despite it all, we finish the regular season undefeated, though we lose to Nanaimo’s Wellington Broncos—a team that holds the seeds of a future rivalry—in the league championship. Overall, it’s a banner year for a group previously toiling away with little success.

Dad’s of the mind that Watson is deserving of recognition for the success with the league awards presentation approaching. He argues that changing his approach somewhat to allow the two of us into the mix couldn’t have been easy for him. I can’t figure out my dad sometimes. As frustrating as working with Watson was for us this season, he can put that aside and champion him for an award. But he’s fair like that.

When he submits Watson’s name as his Coach of the Year nomination to the Football Nanaimo board, I’m not surprised at the pushback he gets. Coach Mike has not endeared himself to folks on the