A little history on the Chelan High School 1954 football team

CHELAN - The 1954 Chelan High School football team was inducted into the Chelan High School Athletics Hall of Fame on Friday, Feb. 1. Six members of the team  were present and were recognized at halftime of the boys varsity basketball game against Omak. A plaque  now hangs on the Chelan Athletics Hall of Fame wall in the Community Gym honoring the team.

The 1954 State B Championship football team led by Head Coach Bill Richards and assistant Bill Lippincott, is the only football team in Mountain Goat history to win a State Championship. The tile was voted by Washington State Sport Writers and then given to a team based on season record and league standings. Recipients of the Warling trophy were typically voted on by coach polls and media ballots, as there was no Bowl Championship Series to assign status at that time in high school sports.

The 1954 Goats ended the season with a record of 8-0 with three shut outs. They began that season taking on the previous state champions, Tonasket. With a little over half the players that Tonasket had, the Goats defeated them with a final score of 26-7. They went on to compete and win games against other teams in the Independent B Division, including Grand Coulee, Manson, Quincy and Leavenworth, as well as three A league teams, ending the season undefeated with 271 total points scored and allowing only 46 points scored against them, having three shutouts and kept three teams to seven total points.

“We had a good offense and a good defense,” explained Jack Holmes, a member of the ’54 Goats in a 2017 interview. “We had some good athletes to be able to run the type of formation that had been changed from my Sophmore to Junior year.” Holmes explained that in previous years, the team had run a single-wing formation, where the Quarterback would be in the backfield, and the T-formation that is most frequently seen now was transitioned to during Holmes’ Junior year.

On Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017, the 1954 Chelan Goats Football team was recognized and attributed for their hard work and dedication as part of current Coach Travis Domser’s efforts to make the players aware of “the idea that there were players and teas before them … to understand and appreciate the legacy that they are inheriting,” according to a letter sent out to the players of 1954. During halftime of the Goats versus Ephrata Tigers game, six members of the championship team took the field, as their achievements were announced and applauded throughout the fan-filled bleachers.