Clark County Today Sports Podcast

It has been a minute since our last podcast.

Life gets in the way sometimes. But we promise, it is still free to listen to our podcast!

Anyway, today we look forward to 2026 in high school sports and talk about a number of WIAA amendments that will be voted on soon by member districts.

We also do a 2025 in review in high school sports.

Plus we must revisit Tony’s great story of the Wedge Jersey Sacrifice for the Mariners. Did it work? Let us know what you think with an email.

Plus, I give an additional minute at the end of the podcast for a special salute.

This latest episode was recorded on Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2025.

Our podcast format is simple: A longtime sports reporter (Paul Valencia) discusses high school sports, and more, with longtime sports administrators and former coaches. Cale Piland is the former head football coach at Evergreen and Union and is now the athletic director for Evergreen Public Schools. Tony Liberatore is a former assistant coach and athletic director at Columbia River and is now an associate principal at Fort Vancouver.

We’re always interested in subject ideas for a future podcast. Email us a subject idea.

Send us your thoughts at: [email protected].

#HighSchoolSports #StudyOfSports #WIAA #ClarkCountySports #Podcast #SeattleMariners

A home game for Camas football.

A “home” game for Seton Catholic football.

A “road” game for La Center football, but a game that will be played in Clark County so not so much of a road game.

And a real road game for Washougal football.

Those are just some of the highlights of this episode of The Study of Sports.

It’s high school playoff season for fall sports. We give a shout out to the football teams, as well as the volleyball and girls soccer teams that are still playing.

Later, we get into pro sports, and recap the World Series. For Mariner fans, was it hard to watch the World Series this year?

This latest episode was recorded on Wednesday, Nov. 12.

Our podcast format is simple: A longtime sports reporter (Paul Valencia) discusses high school sports, and more, with longtime sports administrators and former coaches. Cale Piland is the former head football coach at Evergreen and Union and is now the athletic director for Evergreen Public Schools. Tony Liberatore is a former assistant coach and athletic director at Columbia River and is now an associate principal at Fort Vancouver.

We’re always interested in subject ideas for a future podcast. Email us a subject idea.

Send us your thoughts at: [email protected].

https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/sports/the-study-of-sports-podcast-nov-13-2025-its-november-which-means-it-is-playoff-time-for-fall-high-school-sports-and-the-sports-enthusiasts-talk-football-volleyball-and-soccer/ #HighSchoolSports #VancouverWA #Podcast #Football #Volleyball #GirlsSoccer #WorldSeries #SeattleMariners #Camas #SetonCatholic

Once again, the world of sports pushed our schedule on The Study of Sports.

This was going to be a World Series preview. Or not.

Turns out, it was not.

The Mariners came oh-so-close.

Two of our sports enthusiasts, huge Mariner fans, had plenty to say of their incredible journey and heartache.

But before we get into Mariner stories, we discuss the bizarre situation up north where a school district suspended a high school football coach, just hours before a game, investigated him, and then reinstated him just a few days later. And we note why this story is also important in Southwest Washington.

This latest episode was recorded on Wednesday, Oct. 22.

Our podcast format is simple: A longtime sports reporter (Paul Valencia) discusses high school sports, and more, with longtime sports administrators and former coaches. Cale Piland is the former head football coach at Evergreen and Union and is now the athletic director for Evergreen Public Schools. Tony Liberatore is a former assistant coach and athletic director at Columbia River and is now an associate principal at Fort Vancouver.

We’re always interested in subject ideas for a future podcast. Email us a subject idea.

Send us your thoughts at: [email protected].

#PaulValencia #TonyLiberatore #CalePiland #HighSchoolSports #SeattleMariners #Game7 #WorldSeries #EvergreenPublicSchools #SouthwestWashington #SportsPodcast #VancouverWA

We usually take a couple of weeks in between episodes of The Study of Sports.

Then again, history is being made around us.

We’ve never seen Heritage football at 6-0, and we’ve never seen the Seattle Mariners up 2-0 in the ALCS.

We had to rally everyone together for an emergency edition of The Study of Sports.

Wait, did I just write that the Mariners are up 2-0 against the Blue Jays? Poor Tony Liberatore. You know he thinks we are jinxing the M’s.

No such thing as a podcast jinx. We have no control over the outcome.

But even to this non-Mariner fan, this state sure is fun when the Mariners are on a special journey.

This latest episode was recorded on Tuesday, Oct. 14.

We ask our sports administrators and Mariners fans about their stress levels from last week’s Game 5 against the Tigers? And we talk about their feelings after two games of the ALCS.

It’s the Study of Sports, with your hosts Paul Valencia, a reporter for Clark County Today, and sports administrators Tony Liberatore and Cale Piland.

Our podcast format is simple: A longtime sports reporter (Paul Valencia) discusses high school sports, and more, with longtime sports administrators and former coaches. Cale Piland is the former head football coach at Evergreen and Union and is now the athletic director for Evergreen Public Schools. Tony Liberatore is a former assistant coach and athletic director at Columbia River and is now an associate principal at Fort Vancouver.

We’re always interested in subject ideas for a future podcast. Email us a subject idea.

Send us your thoughts at: [email protected].

https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/sports/the-study-of-sports-podcast-oct-15-2025-the-mariners-are-wait-dont-jinx-this-and-heritage-football-is-6-0-and-well-we-just-had-to-record-an-emergency-episode/

#SeattleMariners #ALCS #HighSchoolSports #HeritageFootball #VancouverWA #Baseball #Podcast #MarinersFans

A little bit of this and a little bit of that on this recording of The Study of Sports.

This latest episode was recorded on Thursday, Oct, 9, and the weather forecast for Oct. 10 was rain throughout the day. That would make for a couple of fun football games because there are still two football fields with natural grass in the 2A GSHL and Trico League.

So we ask our sports administrators what they love about natural grass in sports, but also give us some insight on why most schools around here will never go back to natural grass.

We also talk about the costs of attending high school sports and this trend to no longer accept cash at high school sporting events. Why? Well, the administrators have some good reasons.

Plus we talk about our favorite coaching when we were young.

And we gauge the stress level of our Mariner fans.

It’s the Study of Sports, with your hosts Paul Valencia, a reporter for Clark County Today, and sports administrators Tony Liberatore and Cale Piland.

Our podcast format is simple: A longtime sports reporter (Paul Valencia) discusses high school sports, and more, with longtime sports administrators and former coaches. Cale Piland is the former head football coach at Evergreen and Union and is now the athletic director for Evergreen Public Schools. Tony Liberatore is a former assistant coach and athletic director at Columbia River and is now an associate principal at Fort Vancouver.

We’re always interested in subject ideas for a future podcast. Email us a subject idea.

Send us your thoughts at: [email protected].

https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/sports/the-study-of-sports-podcast-oct-10-2025-the-costs-of-attending-high-school-sports-grass-football-fields-our-favorite-coaches-growing-up-and-of-course-mariners-talk/#Podcast #HighSchoolSports #PaulValencia #TonyLiberatore #CalePiland #ClarkCountyToday #WashingtonFootball #Mariners #GrassFields #TicketPrices

While none of us are concerned about football as a whole — the sport continues to be the biggest draw in sports television in this country.

But at the local level, there are concerns. Football has become more expensive and requires a larger commitment than 10, 20, 30 years ago, and there have been a number of high school programs throughout the country that have been forfeiting games due to participation numbers or calling off the season. Then there are those schools with smaller budgets trying to compete with more affluent schools.

It’s the Study of Sports, with your hosts Paul Valencia, a reporter for Clark County Today, and sports administrators Tony Liberatore and Cale Piland.

Our podcast format is simple: A longtime sports reporter (Paul Valencia) discusses high school sports, and more, with longtime sports administrators and former coaches. Cale Piland is the former head football coach at Evergreen and Union and is now the athletic director for Evergreen Public Schools. Tony Liberatore is a former assistant coach and athletic director at Columbia River and is now an associate principal at Fort Vancouver.

This week, we share some concerns for football at the high school level.

We also talk about the process for making an appeal in Washington high school sports.

We defend the integrity of officials, as well.

Then we get into pro sports. The Mariners are going to the playoffs! One Raider fan on the podcast shares an incredible experience in Las Vegas this season.

Oh, and we also bring up a new nickname for the podcast: Shut Up Paul!

We’re always interested in subject ideas for a future podcast. Email us a subject idea.

Send us your thoughts at: [email protected].

https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/sports/the-study-of-sports-podcast-sept-24-2025-a-passionate-discussion-on-the-future-of-high-school-football-for-some-programs-as-the-game-become-more-specialized-more-expensive/

#HighSchoolFootball #WIAA #Officials #Mariners #Raiders #VancouverWA #PrepSports #Podcast #EvergreenPS

https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/sports/the-study-of-sports-podcast-sept-4-2025-we-made-it-to-football-season-plus-one-of-our-podcasters-might-seem-like-hes-poking-fun-at-mariners-fans-but-it-only-seems-that-way/

We are back, and just in time for the start of high school football.

It’s THE Study of Sports, with your hosts Paul Valencia, a reporter for Clark County Today, and sports administrators Tony Liberatore and Cale Piland.

As many of you know, we only have a couple of podcasts during the summer. Now, we hope to be back on our regular schedule, about once every two weeks during the fall and winter months.

In this episode, we tackle the return of high school football. I ask the former coaches how it feels to lose in Week 1, after the long offseason and summer prep. We also talk about scheduling games and officials. Plus, maybe a prediction on state championship contenders from the area.

Then we touch on how NIL money is flowing into Clark County athletes. Oh sure, we’ve had athletes from the area make some decent money in college in recent years. But now we are getting our first Division I commits, athletes who are just starting their senior years in high school, and they already have six-figure deals in place. That is different.

We veer from high school sports to the Mariners. Paul shares why he loves the lovable losers of the MLB, and notes that they won’t be as fun to watch if they ever do win a World Series. Tony and Cale refrained from beating up Paul in the studio.

Our podcast format is simple: A longtime sports reporter (Paul Valencia) discusses high school sports, and more, with longtime sports administrators and former coaches. Cale Piland is the former head football coach at Evergreen and Union and is now the athletic director for Evergreen Public Schools. Tony Liberatore is a former assistant coach and athletic director at Columbia River and is now an associate principal at Fort Vancouver.

We’re always interested in subject ideas for a future podcast. Email us a subject idea.

Send us your thoughts at: [email protected].

#HighSchoolFootball #ClarkCountySports #NIL #DivisionI #SeattleMariners #MLB #VancouverWA #EvergreenPS #SportsPodcast

It is the middle-of-summer edition of The Study of Sports.

It is difficult to get everyone on the same schedule during the summer, but reporter Paul Valencia and sports administrators Tony Liberatore and Cale Piland met in the studio on Wednesday to continue their discussion of sports.

In this episode, we touch on two first bases coming to high school baseball by 2027. We agree it’s a good idea.

We also discussed a high school sports story that went national. NFL quarterback who is now a high school coach, Teddy Bridgewater, was recently disciplined in Florida for paying for food and rides for his players. Was that wrong?

We veer from high school sports to the Mariners.

And another shoutout to John Scukanek, who plays catch with someone … every day.

Our podcast format is simple: A longtime sports reporter (Paul Valencia) discusses high school sports, and more, with longtime sports administrators and former coaches. Cale Piland is the former head football coach at Evergreen and Union and is now the athletic director for Evergreen Public Schools. Tony Liberatore is a former assistant coach and athletic director at Columbia River and is now an associate principal at Fort Vancouver.

We’re always interested in subject ideas for a future podcast. Email us a subject idea.

Send us your thoughts at: [email protected].

#SportsPodcast #HighSchoolSports #Baseball #TeddyBridgewater #MLB #Coaching #EvergreenPublicSchools #Mariners #UnionHigh #ColumbiaRiver

Reporter Paul Valencia is joined by Tony Liberatore and Cale Piland to talk Columbia River and Skyview’s state championship wins, WIAA sanctions against a Seattle football program, a controversial California track ruling, and their summer plans—including one inspired by a 1970s sitcom.

https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/sports/the-study-of-sports-podcast-june-13-2025-salute-spring-sports-champions-and-revealing-our-summer-plans-plus-a-quick-trip-to-the-1970s/

#ClarkCountyWa #HighSchoolSports #SkyviewSoftball #ColumbiaRiverSoccer #SportsPodcast #WIAA #VancouverWA #TrackAndField #1970sSitcom #LocalNews

In this episode of The Study of Sports, reporter Paul Valencia and sports administrators Tony Liberatore and Cale Piland discuss how officials start a new sport.

Girls flag football has been sanctioned by the WIAA, but it is a new sport for high schools in Southwest Washington. There are more questions than answers at the moment, but the administrators break down what they know now.

We also talk about Camas pole vaulter Chase McGee and his incredible record. Then we talk about other records in the world of sports.

We veer from sports to discuss In n Out Burger and a fun little tidbit of information about the possibility of In-n-Out Burger opening a restaurant in east Vancouver. It is already there on at least one online map!

Our podcast format is simple: A longtime sports reporter (Paul Valencia) discusses high school sports, and more, with longtime sports administrators and former coaches. Cale Piland is the former head football coach at Evergreen and Union and is now the athletic director for Evergreen Public Schools. Tony Liberatore is a former assistant coach and athletic director at Columbia River and is now an associate principal at Fort Vancouver.

We’re always interested in subject ideas for a future podcast. Email us a subject idea.

Send us your thoughts at: [email protected].

https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/

#ClarkCountyWa #localnews #highschoolsports #girlsflagfootball #sportsadministration #Camas #VancouverWa #InNOutBurger #WIAA #studentathletes