Jack of all trades

By Amanda Miles

The Forest Grove News-Times, Jul 28, 2010

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Perhaps that old cliché, “Jack of all trades, master of none” needs some slight tweaking.

At least in Carl Heisler’s case, anyway.

Heisler, a 1961 Forest Grove High School graduate, has mastered many trades dating back to his high school days, and has created a lifetime’s worth of highlights in the process.

For his achievements, Heisler has been selected as an inaugural member of the Vikings’ initial seven-member class to its Athletic Hall of Fame. The class will be officially inducted on Saturday, Sept. 11.

“You’re just dumbfounded,” Heisler said of his reaction to being included. “One of the first seven? I don’t understand it. When I was going to school, it wasn’t a big deal. You’re just doing it because you love to play.

“It means more now that you’re older than when you’re going to school.”

New Kid in Town

Heisler’s family has roots in Gales Creek, but he grew up in the Yamhill-Carlton area until moving to Forest Grove as a teenager. As a freshman at the high school, he was the new kid.

“I was just dumbfounded by all the kids,” Heisler said. After all, he had gone from a class of about 25 students up to nearly 200.

Heisler, 66, turned out for football and made the freshman team. He was a somewhat slight boy, only 125 pounds or so. He was given one of the last of the team’s leather helmets.

But the old-school headgear didn’t last long. Soon, Heisler was the team’s starting halfback. He had to upgrade helmets, then.

Midway through his sophomore season in 1958, Heisler got pulled up to varsity and became a starter from then on. The Vikings didn’t have illustrious records during his playing days, but that first season they did tie longtime rival McMinnville, and two seasons later Heisler led Forest Grove to its first win over the Grizzlies in 17 years.

“That was exciting,” he said.

By Heisler’s senior year, he was a bona fide star for the Vikings. He led the state in rushing and touchdowns. He tried to score 100 points that season, but just missed with 96 in seven games.

Much of Heisler’s success was due, incredibly, to one play: the trap.

Forest Grove often set other teams up for the trap by running an end sweep, sometimes multiple downs in a row. When the Vikings thought the defense was starting to cheat, they’d spring the trap, which was designed to look just like an end sweep.

“We would set up in that same formation like we were gonna sweep, and we allowed a guy in the middle of the line to come through,” said Tim Schauermann, a lifelong friend who was Heisler’s backfield partner in crime in those days and also nominated him for the Hall of Fame.

“Nobody blocked him. And then somebody snuck around from the side and blocked him from the side after he was in the backfield.”

The result was a hole in the middle of the field that Heisler could run through.

“We knew (Heisler) was coming,” Schauermann said. “We had to get down there somewhere and find an open body and get blocks on ‘em.”

Heisler estimates that he scored 80 percent of his touchdowns on that play.

And though Schauermann still likes to joke with Heisler that the reason he rushed so well was because of the great blocking he received, he gives Heisler a great deal of credit for that as well.

“He had an ability to make us good blockers because once he got out in the open, he knew where we were and he had good peripheral vision,” Schauermann said. “He could see what we were doing, and he would turn people into us. He would see somebody that we were coming toward, and he would put a fake on ‘em and then turn and they would turn and run right into us. He made them. He made blocking easy because often we blocked guys who didn’t see us coming.”

In addition to his gridiron exploits, Heisler also played guard on the basketball team and shortstop on the baseball team, where he tore up the base paths stealing bases with Schauermann. He was named the Tualatin Valley League Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 1961.