We Hardly Knew Ye: Don James

The greatest coach in Washington football history died yesterday at age 80.

In 18 seasons, from 1975 to 1992, James lead the Huskies to 14 bowl games. They won ten of them, including four Rose Bowls. In 1991, his 12-0 Huskies shared the national championship with Miami.

Read more here.
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Happy 150th, University of Washington!

My alma mater hits the big one-five-oh today.

I enrolled as an 18-year-old freshman in September 1987, and graduated as a 32-year-old Communications major in December 2001. (Yeah, I took some time off along the way.) My parents also graduated from there, as well as one of my sisters.

I still love the school and the campus, and the Graduate Reading Room at the Suzzallo Library (above) remains one of my favorite places on earth.

Oh, and I still love Husky football...

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New Flickr Sets!

Check out my two latest flickr sets, featuring my collections of Washington Huskies and Seattle SuperSonics pocket schedules.

Of course, you've already seen my collections of All-Star Game ballots and Mariners scorecards.

The Worst-Ever Year in Seattle Sports?

Perhaps. It's gotten to the point where Calvin feels the need to urinate on a Seahawk. Check it out:

Hawks: Off to a 1-5 start, last place in the NFC West.

Huskies: Off to an 0-6 start, tied with Washington State for last place in the Pac-10.

Mariners: Finished with a 61-101 record, last place in the AL West. Worst season in 25 years.

Thunderbirds: Moved to Kent.

Sonics: Moved to Oklahoma.
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It Was Twenty-Five Years Ago Today

Halloween, 1981: The Wave is invented at Husky Stadium.

Geez, lotsa entries here lately about big stadium events...

Anyway, the Wave's origin revolves around Robb Weller, a former UW "yell leader" who went on to a broadcasting career, most notably as an Entertainment Tonight co-host in the '80s, and now as host of a local news show in LA. Weller graduated from the UW in 1971, and was was often invited back to subsequent games as a "guest cheerleader." As he explains here: “We used to do a version of the wave, just in the student section of the stadium, but we didn’t have a name for it. Then, while I was serving as a guest cheerleader for the homecoming game in October 1981, the wave leaked out of the student section and just took off. That’s how it got started.”

The origin is explained a bit differently in Wet and Wired: A Pop Culture Encyclopedia of the Pacific Northwest, which says Weller co-created the Wave with UW Marching Band Director Bill Bissell: "For a couple years, the two had experimented with a version that moved horizontally from the bottom row of stands to the top. Although it worked well, only part of the stadium could be involved at any one time. During the Halloween game with Stanford, however, they got the idea of moving the Wave section by section in a circular fashion throughout the stadium, and the thing just took off. Bissell recalled that the players stood in awe of what the fans were doing and that Stanford almost didn’t get its plays off."

In the following days, there was no mention of this weird new crowd cheer in the Seattle P-I or even the University of Washington's Daily, but Seattle Times columnist Georg N. Myers noted: “Washington’s student rooters remained glued to their seats, mesmerized by the medicine-man tactics of Robb Weller, the irrepressible, irreplaceable yell king of a decade ago. Into the final minute, Weller had the stands in a rolling roar, standing, section by section, shouting, waving arms. The decibel level was appropriate to the outrageous commotion on the field.”

The Huskies won, 42-31, and at some point soon after, the "rolling roar" became the world-famous "Wave."

There's also an entirely different, totally bullshit version of the Wave's origin according to some clown named Krazy George.
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