Vikings have nothing to hang their heads about after hard-fought

battle in quarterfinal game

Character comes pretty cheaply these days.

The NFL's ultimate iron man Brett Fa-vre probably shouldn't be allowed near a cell phone anymore if he's wearing Crocs, human high-light reel Randy Moss is probably banned from post-game press conference podi-ums for the rest of the season and you won't be seeing Mi-chael Vick making any celeb-rity appearances on Scooby-Doo anytime soon.

That's why it's so refresh-ing to see the Charlo Vikings. It's not that they have charac-ter. They exude it. After last Saturday's loss to Chinook, head coach Mike Krahn told his team he was most excited to see where his players are going to end up ten years from now, in the game of football and in life.

"You guys are going to do great things," Krahn said.

Most telling was the way the players carry themselves. At the high school level, mo-mentum is a huge, huge deal and it's not uncommon to see kids get frustrated or lose their composure from time to time.Charlo? Not once on the sideline was anything nega-tive said. You'd be hard pressed to see so much as an eye roll. Their body language was the same during the en-tire game. Calm, ready and in control.

"Their character really came out," Krahn said. "They kept believing."

Quarterback Chico Stipe may have had his two most impressive performances in Charlo's two playoff games this year. He showed that he's not just the Western C's equivalent of video game Bo Jackson on Tecmo Super Bowl.

He's a charismatic leader that's going to lead his team whether things are go-ing smoothly or not. They may not be his best stats-wise, but they showed that even if this guy didn't have his breakaway speed and God-given physical tal-ent, he'd probably still be quarterback based on his leadership alone.

"His actions are going to speak louder than his words," Krahn said. "He's not afraid to show some emotion."

Hobbled by a knee injury during last week's game, Stipe was knocked out of the Chinook game twice. He came back in both times. The first time he edged off the field himself with cramps in both his quads.He didn't want to stop the game and have someone car-ry him off. He wanted to be able to come back in as soon as possible.

Other players, who weren't having the best game statistically, also continued to find spots to contribute at the most important times. Young freshman Jacen Peter-son came up big again in his second high school playoff game, senior wide receiver Austin Bauer kept moving the chains with his over the middle catches (the kid's not afraid to take a knock) and recovered two fumbles.

"It's more than winning football games, it's really character development," Krahn said.

At no point did the Vikings press the panic button. They had an opportunity at the end of the game, and it just wasn't their afternoon.

Absolutely no fault falls on them at all. The Vikings just didn't finish something they had worked on during the fall sports season. they worked on it over the entire sum-mer during Monday Night Football sessions and dur-ing countless lunch periods studying film.

Krahn said that both he and offensive coordinator Jim Peterson were fortunate to coach these players.

"The kids have been a pleasure to work with," he said. "It's just fun to go to practice. They're hardwork-ing, personable kids."

After their loss to Chi-nook, the school hosted a dinner for both teams in the gym. The Charlo players let the hurt wear off from the loss and moved on from it to sit down and eat with a team that had beaten them by a mere four points.

"They hung around for a long time," Krahn said. "It's just a testament to the kind of kids we have in our school."

Sometimes, champion-ships aren't won on the scoreboard.