A Moment with Blair Bush, a Center for All Husky Seasons

He played for two UW football coaches and Don James wasn't necessarily his first choice.

The University of Washington football program changed coaching hands in 1974, from Jim Owens to Don James, and it soon became clear the new leader felt no compulsion to use his inherited players.

James went through the Husky lineup and made systematic changes among the holdovers, replacing Owens players with new recruits.

Quarterback Chris Rowland, who was popular with the fans, sat down in favor of Warren Moon. Defensive tackle Kevin Richardson ultimately gave way to Doug Martin. And so it went down the lineup, until just one Owens player ended up starting multiple seasons for the new guy.

Blair Bush.

Owens took a chance on the offensive lineman because he was young for his age, just 16 when he graduated from Palos Verdes High School in the Los Angeles area, growing up where Tiger Woods crashed his car months ago. 

Bush was undersized, too, at 6-foot-3 and just 215 pounds, which is why hometown UCLA and USC passed on him.

Owens brought him in as an offensive guard. James turned him into a center.

Bush would have been fine playing for either man. Yet he seemed to enjoy his original, even old-school Husky coach more.

"Jim Owens was just an enchanting man; he was really somebody to admire," said Bush, who lives in North Carolina. "Don James demanded a lot more from you in the offseason."

Bush played one season for Owens, on the freshman team. He spent three years with James, backing up All-Pac-8 center Ray Pinney in '75 and starting for two seasons and snapping to Moon, including with the 1977 Rose Bowl-bound Huskies. 

No one else did this.

"I was the only guy from the Owens era who ended up playing a lot," Bush confirmed.

He would have gone to battle for anyone. Bush was extremely feisty, played with great leverage and felt comfortable going head to head with a nose guard, which was something new for NFL centers back then.

This got him drafted No. 16 overall in 1978, by the Cincinnati Bengals. He became one of the highest-drafted Husky offensive linemen in school history. In modern times, only UW offensive tackle Lincoln Kennedy has been taken sooner, going on the ninth pick overall to the Atlanta Falcons in 1993.

"It was more of a wrestling match," said Bush, who competed in the sport in high school. "Most Pac-8 teams played a 5-2 defense. I had 5-6 tapes against nose guards that were very helpful. I had a leg up on the others."

Fresh off a 27-20 Rose Bowl victory over Michigan, Bush joined the Bengals to begin a 17-year NFL career. Draft day was fairly primitive at that time.

"There was no ESPN," he said. "I listened to KIRO radio for draft updates."

The Bengals flew him in to speak with two beat writers, with Bush initially concerned when his flight landed in Kentucky, not realizing that was how Cincinnati air passengers traveled.

Timing was everything for him and his football career. He played in Pasadena on New Year's Day in his fourth college season. He started Super Bowl XVI in his fourth NFL season, a 26-21 loss to the San Francisco 49ers.

He played for the Green Bay Packers, Los Angeles Rams and even six seasons back in Seattle for the Seahawks (1983-88). 

He blew a knee in his ninth year of pro football, which made his career begin to wind down. He credited his long-term service to the NFL trending away from full-speed contact in practice to prevent injuries. 

Bush watches the Huskies from afar these days on the East Coast. He's not acquainted with anyone in the program. Yet he's kept an eye on the UW centers through the years, the better ones such as Ed Cunningham and Bern Brostek, and, the best one in his estimation, Olin Kreutz.

"He was just an ox-strong guy," Bush said admiringly of Kruetz, a 14-year NFL center for the Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints. "They all could just throw people around like I'd never seen before."

Yet Bush did plenty of that himself. For more than one legendary Husky coach, in more than one epic football game, at all times holding his own at center.

Find Husky Maven on Facebook by searching: HuskyMaven/Sports Illustrated

Follow Dan Raley of Husky Maven on Twitter: @DanRaley1 and @HuskyMaven