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| Van Bradeen baptizing a member of his church. |
When you talk Inchelium football, “Van Allen” is a name remembered often in the lore of the four-time state champion Hornets. Standing 6-3 and 190 pounds in high school, he was known as one of the biggest bruisers to ever don the Inchelium jersey.
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| Van at EWU |
But something happened during his college football career that compelled him to turn towards his savior, Jesus Christ. Van Bradeen is now a pastor at Living Stone Church in Spokane.
Inchelium History caught up with Van for a telephone Q&A, where he reflected on his football career and how he discovered his purpose.
When was the last time you went to Inchelium?
I go up quite a bit up Hall Creek. I still hunt just above the reservation line right up there. As far as connecting with people, there isn’t really anybody. My mom and sister live in Coulee Dam.
Where did you live in Inchelium?
I lived down there on Cobbs Creek. My dad grew up around the whole area: Kettle Falls, Colville, Rice, Republic, that whole area. My mom actually — you know where Charettes where they have that log cabin there? — they had a little log cabin in the woods that you can’t see anymore. Then they ended up moving downtown right there. I don’t know who lives there right now, right below the mailbox there.
How many siblings did you have?
Total of five of us. In 1985, when I graduated, I was in the National Guard so I did a summer in Georgia, Fort Benning. And then mom and dad split up and that’s when mom and the kids left Inchelium.
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| Van and Inchelium teammate Clint Abell |
When did you start playing football?
We couldn’t play until eighth grade. There was nothing, no junior high football or nothing like that. Us eighth graders got thrown in the mix. During that time, Marshall Pakootas, he was two years older than me. He was quarterback for two-three years. There was my older brother Arlen, Steve Carson, Brian Finley; obviously the ones that were my age, a year older than me was Joe Bear (Swan), Lonnie (Simpson), Russell Camp, Allen (Carson).
Who were some good athletes who inspired you?
When I was in grade school, you had some amazing athletes. I thought Joe Pakootas, Lenny Ellsworth, Ken Ross, Michael Boyd. Mike…
When did that 1983 team, which eventually won a State B-8 Championship, realize it had the potential to make it all the way?
We didn’t even really understand what that meant until about honestly three quarters of the way through the season. It wasn’t a part of the culture of “state championship” (town). No one knew what that meant. Obviously having (Duane) Gatlin as the coach, Don Fox was a huge contributor as far as knowledge, football-wise. He helped us a lot in the sense that we could think we could actually do something, as far as go beyond the first or second round of playoffs, which was always what happened. I think all the years I was there we were in the playoffs. Thinking about state wasn’t really a reality until end of league thinking we might be able… There were one or two guys that graduated 82. That might have been like Marshall. Almost all the starters were back, so we definitely were feeling something special.
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| Van and his family in Inchelium |
What happened in the 1982 season, leading up to the championship run the next year?
I ended up getting hurt, I broke my shoulder. I didn’t play in the playoffs. I think we got beat by Tekoa-Oakesdale. And it was definitely the year after that we beat them in the quarterfinals in ’83 which was a nice revenge. It was really just, we were really young. I was a freshman, sophomore and when you just look at everybody. The year we won it we had 13 guys, 12 guys, everybody played everything all the time. In ’82, we were learning what it meant to try to get further.
What was the identity of that 1983 team?
I just remember we ran a lot. When Don Fox came in to assist, he stepped it up a notch as far as conditioning. We all thought he was some Nazi dude trying to kill us, but it helped us out a lot with conditioning, engraining in your system that we’re gonna work hard. We worked hard. There’s no question. We got along as a team. We worked hard, we hit hard. We hit less in college than we did in high school. Just the process of what you did. Obviously Lonnie had some crazy figure like 3,500 yards rushing. Joe Bear was a tight end and most passes went to him. I’m guessing we were 80 percent run, because there was me and Russell Camp and Joe Bear on the right side of the line so why not run every time? It was definitely heavy run, defense, I think we averaged that year 65 points. We could have done a lot more. I think we only gave up less than 5 points on average. You had Joe Bear and Clint Abell on the ends, Russell Camp on the line, I was middle linebacker, Lonnie and Tracey Flugel were other linebackers and Gary Tonasket was safety. The only time they ever scored against us was in the state championship.
How did coaches scout in those days?
Don Fox had a little more of a sense of ‘we gotta find out about these people.’ He talked to people in the state and scouted them. In college, half of what you did was watch film. They (Wishkah State) won state the year after, they had a good group of kids. We definitely knew their quarterback was good, they had a good running back. They were tough, we didn’t manhandle them like everybody else. They had two or three guys play college ball.
Are you able to flash back to the game? What do you remember about how it started?
It was pretty even for the first half. I think we might have only been up by a touchdown. They were a tough team. They had some really good players and we were in shock. We were in the Kingdome. We were total smugs. Just driving over there staying the night in Seattle coming from Inchelium that was just a total shock to us. So actually pretty much after the first quarter, Ron Washington, Fox, Gatlin grabbed us in a time out and said, ‘We can admire the Kingdome after the game, but let’s play football.’ After that we pulled ahead. Lonnie had an amazing game as usual.
At what point did college coaches start to notice you?
My junior year, the year we won state, a couple coaches from Eastern came and watched a couple of our playoff games. The head coach, Dick Zornes, at the time was looking at Lonnie, because he was racking up such amazing numbers. He walked to the field when we were warming up. But he looked at my size and I wasn’t that big, I was 6’3, 190 and so he remembered the next year to look for me as a senior. (Outside of Eastern, Western Washington, Central Washington and Whitworth were interested).
Were the exposure issues the same for Inchelium back then?
Yeah. Small school, no doubt about it. You don’t get noticed. Coaches have to, I think, promote players a lot more whether it’s summer league or school visits and we didn’t do anything like that.
Back to the 1983 championship game, were there any memories from the second half?
We definitely felt confident in the second half. It seemed like we scored right away and we stopped them a couple times and we just... At the end of the third quarter we knew, as long as we just play our game, don’t make mistakes, we will win.
Do you recall the support that was shown at the game?
That’s what’s so awesome about Inchelium. There’s a ton of people that went over, it was awesome. I remember looking up. There’s a group of people in the Kingdome. It seemed like half the town was there, which was cool. They go and show up in droves and that was awesome. It made a huge difference too. For us to show up and half the town is there...
Growing up as a kid, did you want to be a college football player?
I didn’t know it then. I always had a dream when I was in junior high I wanted to go play for the (University of Washington) Huskies. I had no clue what it even meant. All I had on my mind was football. I had a lot of tough people around me (at EWU) that kicked my butt. Once I got to senior year I was 6’4, 210, and I kind of realized I’m not quite the caliber of PAC-10 back then. Eastern sounded fun, they had some interest in me, I knew it was Division I-AA, so I was excited to go. I went out for a visit. Went out my senior year and hung out with some guys in the weight room. Coming from Inchelium where you didn’t lift weights to now you got to a weight room and there’s 85 guys lifting weights, guys bench pressing 400 pounds, it freaks you out. So I was sold on Eastern. I was pumped.
Did you have a mindset coming in that you were going to make your way onto the field as soon as possible?
I was very confident that I was gonna work my ass off and do whatever it took to become a player there. But I was very sober-minded that I was not gonna go in there and play right away. We didn’t lift weights. I benched pressed a couple times in high school. I knew I was gonna be a … I redshirted. I was just as excited to redshirt as if I got to play. I was there playing football playing scout team, having a good time and playing hard. Going into my second year that was a very frustrating year, because at that time I was a defensive end; finally settled into where I was gonna be. There was a really good starter in front of us. I knew I wasn’t going to be the starter, he was Mr. Stud. There were three of us tied for second team all the time. These two guys above me on second team were two years older than me. I played two plays my redshirt freshman year, against Weber State. And I was furious, not at Eastern, the coaches, I was furious at me for not coming in being strong enough, being ready. All that did is make me work harder. I remember after games on Saturday, Sunday I would just go run and do whatever it takes to go play. My third year is ’87 when I started defensive left tackle. And it took me two years just to get strong enough to play at that level, doing squats. My core was not that strong. Going up against guys that were 280 to 300 pounds, I was not ready for that. And so it took me two years just to get strong enough to play at that level. I was excited I was starting.
So you’re starting in 1987. What happened from there?
I started that year, then had a neck injury that was getting worse and worse and worse. That winter I got weaker and weaker and I didn’t know what was going on. I thought was done playing after a surgery. I got surgery in ’88. I wasn’t even on the team. Doctor said there was no structural damage. Came back, ’89, and I ended up starting the whole year as well. ’87 was cool because that was the first year that Eastern joined the Big Sky (Conference). And it wasn’t a great year for us. I think we were .500 that year. But we were close. I ended up being an average player. But I wasn’t any All-American player. But it was fun. I loved it; I’d do it again. Only thing I would do different is start lifting in high school so I’d be ready to go play at college.
Having gone through the college football experience, did you feel like there was potential back home for others to make it?
When I look at Inchelium, you look at Joe Pakootas, Lenny Ellsworth, Ken Ross, Marshall (Pakootas) in basketball. All these guys, the year we won state, Joe Bear (Swan), Lonnie (Simpson), Russell Camp, all three of those guys were good enough to go to Whitworth and play and start for Whitworth. But it really comes down if you want to do something, are you willing to put in the work? There were a lot of guys over the years that could have actually went and played sports if they wanted to put the work in. If you want to do it, you have the potential to do it. Lenny Ellsworth was obviously my cousin, he went to Walla Walla, he lasted two, three weeks. He was one of the best athletes to come out of Inchelium. He was just so fast, an amazing athlete. I think Inchelium and the small towns have learned it’s alright to go play college sports. Look at Marshall Pakootas, and I played with him, he averaged 35 points a game in high school and there wasn’t even a three-point line. The dude could have played D2 basketball, probably even D1.
Was the transition difficult from 8-man to 11-man football?
Obviously, I didn’t have a clue what 11-man football was. I didn’t know what to expect. That summer before, I worked out really, really hard. Not really in the weight room much but conditioning. I was freaking out, they’re gonna kill us. Actually we did a lot more running in high school than college. Everything became you practice that position. We would stay half or 60 percent of our practice was just doing drills with defensive linemen. So it became almost all techniques. In high school, there was almost zero technique talk. It was all technique. You practice your position. Film of the other offensive line. We practiced and played five weeks before school started. We did 12-hour days for five weeks. A lot of that was just preparing, learning how to put your hands on the other person’s pads. It was kind of like sitting in the outfield in baseball. “Can we start playing football?” It was a totally different world. It wasn’t necessarily going from 8-man to 11, it was going from somewhere you didn’t really work on technique to everything was about technique.
There’s a legend about a hit you put on a guy in 1983. Do you know what I’m talking about?
I have an old VHS of that. It’s the year we won state; it was St. Johns in the semifinal. I always wanted to get it put into a DVD so it would be easier. It was a guy. The funny thing was, it was fourth down and like six inches. I just hit him head on and he went flying back and he didn’t get up. He never did get up the rest of the game. At Eastern I saw him three years later.. He was gonna try to do physical therapy. We actually kind of became friends. He said for a whole year every time he sat down he would lose his feeling in his lower body.
The legend of Van Allen grew, didn’t it? You put the hurt on a lot of guys.
I’m an old man now, I’m 50 years old, but my senior year, the ’84 season, I, at Inchelium, I put out an average of three guys a game where they didn’t come back in the game. Not that I didn’t want to hurt anybody. Some of them left in ambulances, some of them just didn’t come back in the game. We always tried to hit like crazy, the whole team.
You’re not a member of the Colville Tribes, but you were raised among them. What was that (white man on the Indian reservation) like?
I was pretty ornery kid, so I was definitely picked on. I wasn’t the only white guy there. It’s about 20 percent. I remember a little bit getting picked on, called a honky or something when I was in grade school. I look back now there was good friends. I thought it was the best place in the world to grow up. Got to hunt and fish and go branding. I always worked hard around there with Camps, haying. Carl Putnam, I worked for him for three years while I was in college. I’d go home and stay at dad's and work with him.
What other memories of Inchelium do you have?
At my graduation, not that I was smart, I was the valedictorian, I remember giving my speech. I think most of my speech was thanking all the people that helped me through. I look back and I look at all the family, friends, mom and dad, Desautels, all the friends. It was a community. That was by far the best memory of the whole thing was just the friends. It was funny back then. Someone just shows up at your house and you have dinner together — you don’t do that anymore. A lot of partying going on and stuff but it was just a great community, you know? One of the coolest times during all of Inchelium was to go to Claude Shaffer’s for branding.
So when did God enter your life?
Well I grew up right across the little across church there, Chapel of the Pines. I was very good friends with John and Gladys Hanes. I grew up around that but I didn’t do it. My brother (Arlen) actually became a pastor after he came out of the service. My brother Vernon who graduated from Inchelium back in the day was a pastor. So I had some influence, people praying for me. I was crazy. I was wild and a partier. When I went to Eastern I kind of liked going to church, different churches in Spokane and Cheney. But I was still just crazy party animal just having fun. I started getting more interested and I really felt…. I’ve shared it in church many times: I was becoming a big time hypocrite. I was going to church inviting friends, but the night before, two nights before go out and have a crazy time. I just started really getting convicted or feeling guilty, this isn’t right what I’m doing here. The way I put it was God just got a hold of me. And I just really felt God speak to me in a very clear voice: You need to pick one or the other because you’re making me look bad here. It was very hypocritical and I wasn’t trying to be. I thought it was alright to go to church and enjoy that. And God just got a hold of me and said no more.
How long has it been since you ended your ‘hypocrisy’?
So from spring of ’87 to now, 30 years later, just been serving god and love people and just love sharing with people about God. Still loving life and enjoying things in life and stuff. It just totally changed my life. It was a radical experience. It was not a gradual… At that point it was a very radical experience I had with God in my dorm room. It was intense. I started sharing my faith right away. What God did in my life. I felt that I was supposed to some day be a pastor. I didn’t know what that meant. I started trying to find a church that I liked that I could serve in and serve in different churches. After Eastern I wanted to go to Bible college and learn more. I always, even at Eastern, I was on Fellowship of Christian Athletes. So I’ve always kind of shared my faith in front of people from Day 1. As far as being on a staff of church, I’ve been doing that for 7 years. It’s called Living Stone Church. You know where Wandermere golf course is? It’s right across the river, Spokane River. And it’s a cool little piece of property down there. It’s not a big church. I’m very much into the community. I’m not into trying to grow a big mass of people I’m just trying to get people to learn to be a big community and love each other. If you want to put word out to any Natives in Spokane that want to dry some deer meat out there, I have a huge smoker. Have a huge fire pit. It’s geared around community and hanging out; learning to love each other because our country doesn’t do that very well. It’s a non-denominational Christian church.
This interview took place June 21, 2017
Dude. Work on that smile. It's suppose to turn up, not down.
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