Mal Van Meer

As you view these pages, you will notice many concise write-ups of athletes, coaches, contributors, and teams. The person responsible for the research and the writings of many of them is Mal Van Meer.

Mal has a unique background when it comes to Astoria High School athletics. His dad taught and coached at Lewis and Clark (central) from 1953-55 when Mal was very young. He remembers going to football games at Gyro Field and watching basketball games at the Armory with his dad. Little did he know, that 45 years later, he would be writing about many of the Hall of Famers on these walls. The very ones he had watched and been around, such as his dad’s best friend while here, Pete Bryant.

Van Meer’s family moved to northern California where he went to school and participated in athletics. However, his real love of athletics came in the form of its’ history and statistics. He first started with developing northern California’s high school history and stats in basketball, football, and track & field. He continued this passion for ten years, while working as a teacher aide. This motivated him to go to Chico State University and get a degree in education. He had a yearning to go back to Oregon to teach, coach, and continue his passion of history of high school sports, especially Astoria high school sports, which Mal and his dad often talked about.

After a one-year substitute teaching job in Oakland Oregon, he moved to Knappa and taught P.E. and health at Hilda Lahta and coached football, track, and 8th grade boys and girls basketball where he was one the most successful basketball coaches in the state. He resumed his passion for high school history and statistics, researching Astoria High shoaled basketball program. This was done by spending countless hours in the Astoria public library going through the archives of the daily newspapers and many trips to the University of Oregon’s center for microfilm, which holds all of the state’s newspapers. He continued on the school football, track & field, and baseball programs

In 1997, a group of people got together to start an Astoria High school hall of fame. It became obvious, that in order to have a successful program you would need to have a history and statistics of individuals and teams. Mal was asked to become a part of the group and the rest is history. His contributions are a big part of why Astoria High Schools Hall of Fame is one of the most unique and outstanding anywhere.