Even in retirement, Scott Eaton remains busy. Running errands. Doing household chores. Chasing after the children of his "second family." Oh, and being inducted into Halls of Fame.
Eaton was a three-sport star at Medford who went on to compete in two sports at Oregon State and play six years in the NFL with the New York Giants. He and his OSU basketball teammates of 1965-66 were recently inducted into the State of Oregon Sports Hall of Fame. The team, for which the 6-foot-3 Eaton started, was the nation's top defensive squad, beat Elvin Hayes' Houston team and came within one game of the Final Four.
Eaton lives in Bellevue, Wash., on Lake Sammamish. He and his wife of 24 years, Cindi, have a daughter, Christine, 15, and a son, Joe, 10. The kids play on premier soccer teams that are in action seven days a week and travel often. Eaton doesn't coach but helps manage the teams.
"They work me too hard," laughs Eaton, 62, who also has two kids from a previous marriage, Tracey and Jennifer, and five grandchildren.
After leaving the NFL because of nerve damage in an eye, Eaton traded industrial stocks on Wall Street for eight years, then moved to the Seattle area and was part of a group that formed Ragen MacKenzie, a trading firm that later was bought by Wells Fargo. He worked for the latter until last year.
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"I hope my kids have as much fun in high school as I did," says Eaton. "I really enjoyed it back there. I look back on all my coaches, and my high school coaches were some of the best I ever had. It was just an enjoyable time. There's so much pressure on kids nowadays, I just encourage them to have fun. It goes by quickly. There's enough pressure later."
At Medford, Eaton competed in track in addition to playing football and basketball. In football, Medford won state his sophomore year and was second his junior season. As a senior, Eaton, the quarterback, missed the Klamath Falls game with a broken finger. Medford lost 7-6, and it cost it a trip to the playoffs.
Following his prep career, Eaton might have considered a football scholarship, but a knee injury in the Shrine All-Star Game, in which he was named the outstanding back, steered him toward basketball.
A defensive specialist, he played on the 1964 Beaver team that featured Mel Counts and lost in the NCAA West Regional to Seattle, a team OSU had twice beaten. It also defeated highly ranked Indiana and Cincinnati. His senior year, the Beavers' tallest player was 6-6 Ed Fredenburg.
"We didn't have a big team, but we played really well together," says Eaton.
After limiting Hayes to 14 points and defeating high-scoring Houston 63-60 in the West Regional semifinals, the Beavers lost to Utah, 70-64, and came up short of the Final Four. The Beavers were 62-21 in Eaton's three seasons.
Eaton delayed his graduation so he could play one season of football. He showed enough that the Giants drafted him in the eighth round, and he played six seasons, three at cornerback and three at strong safety. Quarterback Fran Tarkenton was the team's star player, and Eaton covered the likes of Bob Hayes, Paul Warfield and Lance Rentzel.
In the offseasons, he learned about trading stocks and turned that into a long and successful career.
Reach sports editor Tim Trower at 776-4479, or e-mail ttrower@mailtribune.com.
