Minor League Football Comes To Town

WAITSBURG - Touchet Valley football fans who can't get enough of their favorite sport don't have to wait until fall to see action on Cardinal Field.

For the first time in nearly a decade, a minor league team will bring the pigskin game back to Waitsburg with some former high school stars on the new team to boot.

The Waitsburg Elite will make its first appearance at the high school field this Saturday with a team scrimmage starting at 3 p.m. The first game of the eight-game season will follow on March 30 against the Idaho Mata- dors, starting at 4 p.m. A full spring schedule of games, including four match ups at home, is available at www.waitsburgelite.com

Four of the 38 team mem- bers are from Waitsburg or Prescott, team co-owner and quarterback George Marti- nez, a Touchet native, said in an interview.

They include Brandon Tate (WHS '03), a running back; Andrew Mings (PHS '06), a line backer; Zach Alexenko (WHS '09), a safe- ty; and Eshom Estes (WHS '12), an offensive/defensive tackle. The other players are mostly from Walla Walla, Milton Freewater, Pendleton and the Tri Cities, but team members are excited to have Waitsburg as their home field because interest in the league is expected to be higher here than in Walla Walla, Marti- nez said.

"We knew it'd be an awe- some place to play," he said. "We know it's a real football town."

Martinez, who co-owns the Waitsburg Elite with former Walla Walla Com- munity College tight end Jeff Knowles, said he got inter- ested in setting up his own team when he played for the Blue Mountain Stars in 2006.

The Stars were based in Waitsburg during the 2004 season and regularly drew 600 spectators to the stands, a community response that impressed the team's owners and players, including Mar- tinez. More recently, when Martinez came to Cardinal Field to watch his wife's younger brother, Owen Lan- ning, play for WP, he ap- proached booster club chair and school board member Ross Hamann about the possibility of basing a team in Waitsburg.

The rest is history. The Waitsburg school board re- cently gave a green light for the use of the field and now Waitsburg is one of seven teams in the Washington Football League, a division of the Greater Northwest Foot- ball Association. The other teams are from Spokane, Snohomish, Wenatchee, Tri Cities, Palouse, Okanogan and Treasure Valley, Idaho.

The Waitsburg Elite's head coach and offensive co- ordinator is Johnnie Brown, a Touchet grad from '03, and Clay Lindsey, a former Car- dinal quarterback and line backer who graduated from WHS in '03, is defensive coordinator.

As the starting quar- terback, Martinez himself has some history under his belt. His took his eight-men Touchet Indians team to state twice as a freshman and sophomore, winning the championship both times.

Now, he just wants to bring his love for the game back to the area and keep games affordable for local football fans. Tickets are $8 at the gate and $6 on line. Season tickets (four home games) are $24.