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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781633198753 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 09/01/2017 |
| Series: | 100 Things...Fans Should Know Series |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 7 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Dawgfather
After a restless night's sleep, Don James awoke at 6:30 am on January 2, 1992 in a 14-floor suite at the Anaheim Marriott. It had been just 12 hours since James' Washington Huskies completed a perfect season with a thorough dismantling of the Michigan Wolverines in the Rose Bowl, and yet the coach and his wife, Carol, spent much of that night and early morning anxiously awaiting results from the final tabulation of the college football coaches' poll.
There was reason to fret: the Miami Hurricanes, who also completed a 12–0 season on New Year's Day, had already been declared the national champion in a vote of media members for the Associated Press poll. (It was the closest vote in the history of the wire service poll with Miami receiving 1,472 votes to claim No. 1; the Huskies received 1,468 points to finish No. 2.) As dawn approached on January 2, results from the CNN/USA TODAY coaches' poll had yet to be announced, and James believed that the delay was a bad omen for Washington. "We didn't get it," he said to Carol. "Nobody's got to nerve to call and give us the news."
Finally, at 6:41 am the phone rang. It was Bob Roller, an advertising executive representing the coaches' poll, and he had good news. Washington, he told James, was No. 1 in the coaches' poll — the Huskies were national champions.
James cried at the press conference later that morning. "It's just a great day in the life of a football coach," he said. "I'm emotional now ... It's so difficult to express the feelings I have for these kids. For them to not get a piece of this would have been a tragedy."
The Huskies' perfect 1991 season had a perfect ending for the most successful coach in UW history. He was affectionately nicknamed "the Dawgfather" and, to this day, more than two decades after his abrupt resignation as head coach, Don James remains synonymous with the dominance that the Huskies had when they reigned over the Pacific-10 Conference for much of his 18 years as head coach. "When all is said and done, Don James has no peers," said Don Heinrich, the Huskies' All-American quarterback from the 1950s who later became close with James. "He has taken a school that plays in the rain and brought it to a national power and success in bowl games. It gives him the recognition of what kind of coach he is. He ranks with the great ones. I equate him with Bear Bryant, who, in my opinion, was the top banana."
Funny story about James and Bryant, Alabama's Hall of Fame coach. In the 1960s, when James was an assistant coach at Florida State and Bryant was in the middle of his reign at Alabama, they had a chance meeting at the Miami airport one day. "We were walking at the Miami airport, and Don turned to me [and whispered], 'Carol, there's Bear Bryant,'" Carol recalled in a 2016 interview. "And as we got closer to him, he saw us and said, 'Well, hi there Don James, how are you?' And he shook his hand. And they talked for a couple minutes, and when he walked away he said, 'Carol, I think I've arrived in coaching.'"
It was a seminal moment for the young coach. Some three decades later, James received the Bear Bryant Award as college football's Coach of the Year after leading the Huskies to that perfect season in 1991. "When he got that award," Carol said, "it was really meaningful to Don. It meant a lot to him."
And yet James was not the first choice to become the UW coach in 1974. He wasn't the fourth choice either. The search to find the successor to longtime coach Jim Owens lasted nearly a month. It was December of 1974, and UW athletic department administrators considered about 120 candidates for the job. That list was whittled down to about a dozen serious candidates, a handful of whom were brought to Seattle for interviews.
California Bears coach Mike White and former Green Bay Packers coach Dan Devine were among those who turned down UW's initial offers. The 41-year-old James, who had just completed his fourth season in his first head coaching job at Kent State, was largely unknown in the Northwest. When Don and Carol arrived in Seattle to formally interview for the job on December 20, 1974, the marquee at Husky Stadium greeted them with the message: "Welcome Don Jones." Oops.
Don was offered the job two days before Christmas. A few days after the holiday, James flew from Ohio out to Seattle. A couple weeks later, Carol, their three children, and the family dog — a half-poodle/half-schoodle mix named Barbie — followed him. "I am extremely excited about coming," James told The Seattle Times after his hiring. "I am honored that I've been chosen."
Born in the football hotbed of Massillon, Ohio, James was a quarterback and defensive back for Massillon High, leading the school to two state championships. It was in Massillon where Don and Carol had met at the local fireman's festival. They were both born in December 1932; she is 26 days older —"and he never let me forget it," she said.
They were practically inseparable from then on, attending the University of Miami (Florida) together. He was the star quarterback, she was the cheerleader. At Miami, James set five passing records and was named the team's top scholar-athlete before graduating in 1954.
He was an assistant coach at Florida State, Michigan, and Colorado before landing his first head coaching job at Kent State in 1971. James' first team at Kent State included future Hall of Fame linebacker Jack Lambert, current Alabama coach Nick Saban, and future Missouri coach Gary Pinkel. "Coach James was my coach, my mentor, and my friend, and there probably isn't anyone who influenced my life more than he did because of his leadership and the example that he set but also professionally as a coach," Saban said. "Our program today still reflects many of the things that we did and that I learned from Coach James when I first got into this profession, which he inspired me to get into this profession by asking me to be his graduate assistant at Kent State."
At UW James had a 12–14 record through four games in the 1977 season. That's when things took a sudden turn, and Warren Moon and the Huskies won six of their next seven games to claim the Pac-8 Conference championships and earn the first of James' six trips to the Rose Bowl. In Pasadena UW defeated Michigan 27–20. In the 1980s UW won more games (84) than any other Pac-10 team. "It was a special time and a special place, and he was really a special person," said Joe Steele, a UW running back from 1976 to 1979.
The Huskies' dominant 1991 team might be the best in conference history and was led by All-Americans Steve Emtman, Mario Bailey, and Dave Hoffmann. In 1992 James led UW to its third consecutive Rose Bowl berth, where the Huskies lost a rematch to Michigan 38–31. It was the last game James would coach.
On perhaps the darkest day for Washington football — August 23, 1993 — the Pac-10 announced a two-year bowl ban and scholarship reductions after a scandal involving several UW players receiving money for little or no work done in Los Angeles. Feeling betrayed, James resigned the same day in protest. "We had done so much for the league," James told The Seattle Times in 2006, "and rather than regard us as family, they went after us because we were so good. It wasn't the NCAA. It was the Pac-10 and our administration."
The qualities former players hold long after their time with the Huskies are the integrity, humility, and perseverance James preached above all. "I met him when I was 18 years old. He had a profound impact on my life," Pinkel said. "Coach James was a huge influence on my life, personally and professionally; I wanted to coach because of Don James. He was my idol. He was my mentor. The values he taught included hard work, ethics, determination, perseverance, integrity, teamwork, and he was one of the most successful men with the most humility that I've ever met in my life. There were invaluable lessons that applied to my life when coaching kids for the last 36 years."
James died from the effects of pancreatic cancer in October 2013. He was 80 years old.
"He was a special man and meant the world to me," Saban said. "There aren't enough words to describe not only the great coach he was, but how much he cared for people and the positive impact he made in the lives of everyone he came in contact with. Coach James was my mentor and probably did more than anybody to influence me in this profession."
CHAPTER 2
The Greatest Setting in College Football
Likely no one has been to more games at Husky Stadium than Jim Lambright, who was involved in 386 total games for the Washington Huskies as a player, assistant coach, and head coach.
In the fall of 1957, Lambright was a sophomore at Everett High School when he attended his first game at Husky Stadium. He went to the game with a couple buddies but without tickets. As they tried to sneak in from one corner of the venue, they encountered a chain-link fence surrounded by barbed wire. It was no deterrent: they maneuvered around a small opening in the wire and arrived inside the stadium.
Nearly six decades later, Lambright couldn't recall the opponent or the score that day. But he knew the Huskies won and he knew he was hooked. "I remember looking around, being big-eyed, mouth open," Lambright said. "It was unbelievable."
Many, many more who have entered the "The Greatest Setting in College Football," as UW calls it, have surely felt the same.
Built in 1920 for $600,000 — it was initially named Washington Field — Husky Stadium has been Seattle's iconic venue for nearly a century. On a warm September afternoon, the views from the top of the bleachers — with Lake Washington's Union Bay just a long punt away from the east end zone, the Cascades beyond that, the Space Needle and the Olympic mountains toward the west, and Mount Rainier to the south — are simply wondrous. "I'd put it out there by itself as the grandest view in all of sports," said Keith Jackson, the longtime ABC college football announcer. "I've hit most of the major stadiums in the world and I don't remember one that offers that."
In 2013 UW completed a $280 million overhaul to the stadium — a long-overdue renovation that put Husky Stadium on par with any program in the ever-expanding facilities race around college football. The two-story, 83,000-square-foot football operations center, built in as part of the west end of the stadium, offers ample space for players and coaches to train, study, recover, and relax. The building's amenities — from a hot tub to a two-seat barber's room adjacent to the locker room shaped like a "W"— were designed to help with the all-important goal of attracting the attention of high-profile recruits. "When recruits come in here, I don't know where else they're going to go in the country and see better," then-UW coach Steve Sarkisian said.
Some 36,000 cubic yards of concrete were used in the new construction, and the renovation featured 93 luxury suites and 447 total bathrooms.
History surrounds Husky Stadium. For the record, it was Bob Abel, the UW quarterback and student body president, who scored the first touchdown on the dirt-covered field at Husky Stadium on November 27, 1920 before a crowd of 24,500. Abel scored on a 63-yard return of a blocked field-goal attempt. (UW wound up losing to Dartmouth 28–7.)
Two presidents gave speeches at Husky Stadium. In fact, on July 27, 1923, president Warren G. Harding made his final speech in front of a crowd of 25,000. He died of a heart attack six days later in San Francisco. Nearly 70 years later, on July 21, 1990, former president Ronald Reagan opened the Goodwill Games with a short speech before a crowded stadium on a sweltering evening. Husky Stadium was the site of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Goodwill Games; it also hosted the games' track and field competition, where 33 stadium records were set.
Charles Lindbergh, during a barnstorming tour in 1927, buzzed the stadium before landing at Sand Point Naval Air Station. During World War II, a number of military-themed events also were held there. UW graduations are an annual event at Husky Stadium, too.
"It's got a great history," said Tom Porter, co-author of the 2004 book Husky Stadium: Great Games and Golden Moments.
The stadium's first expansion was completed in 1937, increasing capacity to 40,000. Capacity was increased again — to 55,000 — in 1950 when the south side upper deck was built in 1950 but not without skepticism. Only 30,245 attended the Huskies' season opener that September, and many were fearful that the south stands would collapse. Those who stayed home missed Hugh McElhenny running for 177 yards in the Huskies' 33–7 victory against Kansas State. It was also the first Band Day, featuring high school marching bands from around the state, which has long been one of the more popular traditions at Husky Stadium.
Working in the old Husky Stadium press box could feel like a thrill seeker's paradise, especially when the crowd got the place shaking. The press box, which looked like a vintage camper trailer, hung from the south end roof high above the field. "I learned to put on layers of clothing in case the weather changed," said Jackson, who early in his illustrious broadcasting career called UW games for 10 years for Seattle's KOMO radio. "And I learned if the game got exciting, things would shake and to expect my chair to start to move — otherwise I might have wanted to carry a parachute."
When filled to capacity — now set at 70,083 — Husky Stadium is one of the loudest places in college football. That was evident when the Huskies hosted Boise State on August 31, 2013, for the first game after the massive renovation. Washington won 38–6 before a crowd of 71,963.
CHAPTER 3
The 1991 National Championship Team
Washington's 1991 defense is generally acknowledged as the best in the history of the Pac-10/Pac-12, and there's a good case to be made that it's among the best ever in college football. As a whole the UW team that would go on to rout Michigan in the Rose Bowl and claim a share of the national championship is viewed by some as the best in conference history.
The Huskies, however, hardly looked the part early one September evening.
Before celebrating their perfect march to a national championship, the Huskies found themselves surrounded by 76,304 hostile fans clad in red at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska, on September 21, 1991. Ranked No. 9 in the nation, the Nebraska Cornhuskers had taken a 21–9 lead late in the third quarter in their highly anticipated nonconference game before a national television audience. The Huskies' fourth-quarter comeback that day would define their season and become a seminal moment for the program. "It's a big victory, to beat a team like Nebraska at home," UW coach Don James said after the Huskies' 36–21 victory. "They don't lose very many at home ... We had adversity and fell behind and then when we fumbled the punt and fell further behind — that's a time when a team can hang it up and quit. But it was a great fourth quarter for us."
Led by quarterback Billy Joe Hobert, running back Beno Bryant, and that mauling defense, the Huskies scored 27 unanswered points to close out the game, including 20 points in the fourth quarter. Bryant, who lost a costly fumble earlier, scored on a 15-yard touchdown run with 19 seconds left in the third to cut UW's deficit to 21–16. After a UW defensive stand, Hobert found Orlando McKay on an eight-yard touchdown pass that put the Huskies ahead for the first time 22–21 with 11:20 remaining in the game.
On Nebraska's next possession, UW linebacker Jaime Fields forced a fumble recovered by Paxton Tailele for Washington. That set up Hobert for a short touchdown run to make it 29–21. UW tailback Jay Barry closed the door with an 81-yard touchdown run to push the lead to 36–21. "These kids are really special," Keith Gilbertson, UW's offensive coordinator, said after the game. "When you get down 21–9 in the heart of Big 8 country and you come back like we did, hey, that's special."
The Huskies finished with a staggering 618 yards of total offense, including 335 rushing.
"That was just as good an ass kicking as you could have in the second half," said UW center and captain Ed Cunningham. "It was the varsity against the freshmen. I think that's what gave us our swagger, maybe ... We came into hallowed ground, and their fans hated us when we got here, and they gave us a standing ovation when we left. We started to figure out we were pretty good."
Legendary Nebraska coach Tom Osborne was impressed, noting UW's defense "is one of the best defenses we've seen over the years."
The superlatives continued to roll in for the Huskies defense throughout the 1991 season, which culminated in a 34–14 thumping of Michigan in the Rose Bowl and completed the Huskies' 12–0 season. Washington was voted the national champion in the coaches' poll.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "100 Things Washington Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Adam Jude.
Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books LLC.
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Table of Contents
Foreword by Damon Huard,
1. The Dawgfather,
2. The Greatest Setting in College Football,
3. The 1991 National Championship Team,
4. Purple Reign: 1985 Orange Bowl,
5. Return to Glory: 2016 Pac-12 Champs,
6. 1960 Rose Bowl Upset,
7. Another Rose Bowl Stunner,
8. Too Much Tui,
9. Moon's Miracle: The 1975 Apple Cup,
10. Chris Petersen Comes Aboard,
11. Steve Emtman,
12. The Father of Husky Football,
13. Dobie's Perfect Decade,
14. The King: Hugh McElhenny,
15. All I Saw Was Purple,
16. Napoleon Kaufman,
17. Lincoln Kennedy,
18. Sonny Sixkiller,
19. Warren Moon,
20. George "Wildcat" Wilson,
21. Don Heinrich,
22. Whammy in Miami,
23. 2001 Rose Bowl,
24. 2002 Apple Cup,
25. Sailgating,
26. Rick Neuheisel's Abrupt Exit,
27. Knocking Off USC,
28. Montlake Jake,
29. Cold-Blooded Isaiah Thomas,
30. Brandon Roy,
31. "Hook" Houbregs,
32. Super Mario,
33. Iron Man,
34. Oh, What a Night!,
35. Huskies Make Their Point,
36. Bob Schloredt,
37. The Huards,
38. The Billy Joe Hobert Scandal,
39. Sound the Siren,
40. Dillon's Spartan Effort,
41. 1990 Rebirth,
42. Back on Top: 1992 Rose Bowl,
43. From Sundodgers to Dubs,
44. The Miraculous Interception,
45. A Season to Forget,
46. Lawyer Milloy,
47. Do the Wave,
48. The Hitman: Dave Hoffmann,
49. 2003 Apple Cup Upset,
50. Don McKeta,
51. Man of Steele,
52. Cody Pickett,
53. Who's the Best QB?,
54. Browning's Breakthrough,
55. 2011 Alamo Bowl,
56. The Helmet Car,
57. 2012 Upset of Stanford,
58. Greg Lewis,
59. Ross' Speedy Return,
60. Jacque Robinson,
61. Nate Robinson,
62. 1981 Win Against USC,
63. The Dawgmother,
64. The Thursday Speeches,
65. Jim Lambright,
66. Bark for Sark,
67. Keith Price,
68. Shaq: A Do-It-All Star,
69. Budda Baker,
70. Three Dawg Night,
71. Happy Sack King,
72. Huskies Shut Down Desmond Howard,
73. Huskies in the Hall,
74. Randy Hart,
75. Marshawn's Joy Ride,
76. Reggie Williams,
77. Pettis' Historic Punt Return,
78. Simply Marv-elous,
79. Bicentennial Breakthrough,
80. Washington's Wunderkinds: Schrempf and Welp,
81. Todd MacCulloch,
82. 1953 Final Four,
83. Bob Rondeau,
84. Messin' with Texas,
85. Chris Polk,
86. Get in Line,
87. Skansi's Miracle Catch,
88. Jennifer Cohen,
89. Sing "Bow Down",
90. A Defensive Renaissance,
91. UW's All-Time Team,
92. Read "Boys in the Boat",
93. Kelsey Plum,
94. Women's Final Four,
95. Uncle Hec,
96. Down Goes Gonzaga,
97. Washington Stuns UCLA,
98. Lorenzo Romar,
99. Freshmen Phenoms Chriss and Murray,
100. Markelle Fultz,
Acknowledgments,
Sources,