Gazette-Times sports editor

Corvallis High School's roundabout search for a football coach has finally come home.

After looking elsewhere early and offering the job to another former Spartan late, the school has embraced ex-CHS standout Chris McGowan to jump-start one of Oregon's former traditional powerhouses.

McGowan, a 1985 Corvallis High graduate and now a social sciences teacher, was hired Friday and began his coaching era by meeting with his new team Monday afternoon.

"I'm real excited about it," he said Monday. "It really hasn't sunk in completely because I've been so busy trying to put things together, but when I really sit and reflect it's really pretty special deal. It is a great tradition."

It's a job that will require some patience, and McGowan certainly exhibited it during the search for a successor to 19-year coach Gary Beck, who resigned after CHS finished 1-8 this past season.

McGowan pursued the job immediately and was a candidate from the get-go, but CHS also recruited an unidentified "super-candidate" coach from the Portland area early. Though that coach made several visits to Corvallis and even looked for housing, he ultimately decided to stay put.

CHS then offered the job to Santiam Christian coach Steve Woods, another former Spartan, but the school district's uncertain future dissuaded him. Declining enrollment and school consolidations, among other issues, could provide tenuous standing to a first-year teacher.

"Being a Spartan guy, I would love to go back there," Woods said. "But I talked to current teachers in the district and they kind of discouraged it until things settle down.

"I just didn't feel like I could put my family through that."

Through it all, McGowan waited in the wings, first with excitement, then with fading hopes, and finally with renewed optimism.

"I kind of forgot about it for awhile," said McGowan, who played on the Spartans' 1983 state championship team. "I let go of it and didn't think about it for my sanity.

"Once it became apparent I had a shot at it again, I started letting myself go a little bit. I just felt like all I could do was be patient, not really get my hopes up too much and just let the chips fall where they may.

"Now I want to put all that behind me and focus on the future again."

CHS athletic director Bob Holt said the school district's uncertainty and the lack of an available teaching position made the job search a challenge.

In the end, though, Holt said McGowan is the right guy for the job of rebuilding a program that was a state power beginning in the 1960s and continuing through 1986.

"I think Chris will do a fine job," Holt said. "A lot of people here are very supportive of Chris, and he may draw out some people who haven't coached football in awhile to come back and help out.

"I had calls from a couple of parents who are pleased and said they'll do everything they can to help the program."

McGowan, who graduated from Oregon State in 1990 with a degree in education, started with a team meeting Monday and has scheduled a Spartan mini-camp for early June. He said he's assembled a partial staff, but wasn't ready to announce who's joining him on the CHS sidelines.

He said his long-term goal is make the Spartans a consistently successful team year-in and year-out. As for rebuilding the tradition, he said he doesn't want to burden his current players with expectations about a time they know little about.

"For these kids, that's too long ago and they can't really relate to it," McGowan said. "I'm more focused on the immediate. How people view them over time is up to them, but I can't really control those kinds of things.

"For the kids' sake, I look at it as next season matters most. It's fine to talk about it and we should be aware of it, but I think the focus needs to be on them and what we need to do."

The task is daunting.

Corvallis has won one game in three years, a season-ending victory over Crescent Valley this past November.

Enrollment is barely half of many Salem schools. Middle school program

s are defunct and youth teams are only just beginning to fill the void. For awhile, even the school seemed to lose interest in football, though McGowan said he senses that changing.

"There's no magic formula to building a program," he said. "It's a lot of people coming together and working together, including kids, community and the school. I think that's once of my strengths - working with people."

This much is certain: McGowan has no shortage of grass-roots support, including from the coach up the road who was offered the job before him.

"I still love the Corvallis tradition," Woods said. "I'll be there with all the alumni rooting him on and wishing him luck. I love the program and love what it means to the community. I'm going to be very supportive of him."

Indeed, lots of eyes will be watching to see how the school's third coach since the 1960s - Beck was preceded by the legendary Chuck Solberg - fares when he starts anew in August.

McGowan's awed and ready at the same time.

"This is a great opportunity," he said. "To be lumped in with coaches like Gary Beck and Chuck Solberg is pretty mind-boggling."