Inside The Huskies

Fisch Will Open Spring Practices to Husky Fans

The UW coach wants to connect with team followers.

Dan Raley

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For multiple coaching staffs, all University of Washington football practices have been off limits to the general public.

This spring, however, new Husky leader Jedd Fisch will change that practice, throwing open the doors to the 15 workouts, beginning on April 2. 

"Wide open," he said. "Anyone can come."

What's unclear is exactly how Fisch intends to do this, considering the logistics involved for the Huskies, who depending on the weather could use any one of three areas in Husky Stadium, the east practice field and Dempsey Indoor.

Jimmy Lake almost always preferred the lakeside practice field for workouts, while Kalen DeBoer showed no interest in it outside of sending kickers, defensive linemen or scout-team members there for overflow activities.

Dempsey, of course, becomes the practice alternative when the rain and the wind become disruptive, but the covered facility has a limited viewing area along the sidelines.

Yet Fisch will press forward with his plans to connect the program with fans.

"Our practices are friendly," Fisch said. "Media, public, whatever you like."

The coach said the Huskies will practice every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday through April, with a spring game or a game-like scrimmage winding up things on the weekend of May 4.

A year ago, DeBoer held a couple spring practices in March to get started early, put everything on hold for spring break for parts of two weeks and resumed football activities in April. 

Fisch wasn't interested in splitting things up.

"I really don't want to separate spring ball right now," he said. "Plus, we need a little extra time to put our offense and defense in."

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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