NEWBERG — My Saturday begins — a bit sleepy-eyed — at 7:45 a.m. I walk into a meeting room on the second floor of the Duke Athletic Center next to Stoffer Family Stadium on the George Fox campus with Todd Shirley, the running backs coach who has happened upon me in the parking lot.

I have been invited to spend a game day with the Bruins’ football program by its head coach, Chris Casey, whom I’ve known since his time coaching at Aloha High in the early 2010s. When I retired from 45 years of sportswriting for Portland newspapers in 2020, Casey had extended the offer by phone. The 2020 fall season, however, was wiped away by COVID-19. Just before the 2021 campaign kicked off, I got another call from Chris. Come on down!