Sports Today: Tigers to induct 4 into Hall of Fame

While the Douglas High football program opens its season at 7 p.m. Friday at home against Reed, it will also enshrine four of its past legends as has become tradition at the school.

The Tigers will induct Walt Powers, Rod Blanchard, Chris Griffith and Zach Weber.

The late Powers, who coached football, basketball and track at Douglas from 1945 to 1961, leads this year's class of inductees.

He coached the Tiger football team to the first winning season The R-C has on file in 1951 with a 6-1 record. He coached a total of 14 seasons (1945-53 and 1956-61) with a 34-62-3 record.

In basketball, he coached the Tigers to a 114-72 record (.612).

During his tenure, he installed light poles and lights at the Downtown Ballpark in Gardnerville where Douglas played the first night football game in Northern Nevada.

He retired from coaching in 1962 to become the athletic director at Douglas until 1973.

In 1963, he personally constructd the Fred H. Dressler Field athletic complex at the present Carson Valley Middle School site that Tiger teams played on until the current Douglas High campus was built.

He also served an eight-year term on the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association board of control starting in 1964 and is a member of the University of Nevada Athletic Hall of Fame.

His son, Gary, is a member of the Douglas High School Baseball Hall of Fame and has coached the University of Nevada baseball team since 1983.

Blanchard was the starting quarterback for the Tigers in 1966 and '67 and started in the defensive secondary in 1965.

He helped lead the Tigers to an 8-2 overall record and 7-1 record in conference play in 1967, the year Douglas moved up from the A league to the AA.

The Tigers entered the year project to finish at the bottom of the standings, but instead claimed a share of the conference championship and lost 14-13 to White Pine in the state championship game.

Douglas' eight victories marked the most in school history up to that point, a number that was tied only four times over the next 35 years before the 2003 squad won its first 11 games.

Blanchard was an all-league and all-state selection in 1967 at defensive back and also started for the Tiger basketball and baseball teams.

He went on to play baseball at the Oregon College of Education (now known as Western Oregon) and retired from teaching this past June after a 28-year career in Oregon, Douglas County and Carson City.

He's been married to his wife, Amelia, for 37 years and has three adult sons, two daughters-in-law and four grandchildren.

Griffith was a varsity defensive back for three seasons starting in 1995, recording 98 solo tackles in 19 games, and started at quarterback in 1996 and 1997, leading the Tigers to their first playoff berth since joining the large-school league in 1979.

He threw for 1,557 yards and 13 touchdowns in his senior season.

He also handled the kicking duties for the Tigers and converted 82 percent of his field goal attempts, including a school record 57-yarder during a scrimmage, while at Douglas.

He averaged 57.58 yards on kickoffs and 44.3 yards on punts.

During his career he was an all-state defensive back twice, an all-conference quarterback once and an all-divison kicker and punter multiple times.

He was an All-USA Today honorable mention quarterback during his senior and junior seasons and was listed on the Nevada Top 15 by Student Sports Magazine in September of 1997.

Griffith went on to start at place kicker for UCLA for four years, where he was named first-team All-Pac 10 by College Football News. He is currently the Bruins' top all-time PAT kicker and stands No. 6 all-time in points scored for any position.

Weber was a defensive force while at Douglas and was named the Division II Defensive Player of the Year in 1996.

He helped lead the Tigers to their first regional playoff berth at the large-school level in 1996 as Douglas compiled a 7-3 record.

He went on to play at Boise State in college where he was a starter for the Broncos and a first-team All-Big West defensive end his senior year.