It was the Huskies' Play of the Year — I Heard But Didn't See It
One of the benefits, or drawbacks, to covering the University of Washington football team as a beat writer is you receive access to the Husky sideline with six minutes remaining at the end of each game.
This is necessary so you don't have to fight the crowd once the contest ends and chance failing to reach the postgame interview area in an expedient manner.
Once down on the field, you basically stay out of everyone's way and watch everything finish up as best you can, though the vantage point isn't always great, especially if the game is still in question.
Sometimes you get thrust into the middle of the action when you least expect it.
Showing my age, I was fresh out of college with a new sportswriting job in Fairbanks, Alaska, when I traveled to California and found myself standing on the Husky sideline for the closing minutes of the 1978 Rose Bowl game between Washington and Michigan, which the Huskies won 27-20.
I saw UW and later Seahawks linebacker Michael Jackson make a game-saving interception along the sideline at my feet.
I watched this excitable, burly man come running down the Rose Bowl's steep stadium steps, jump up on a partition behind the UW bench area and begin yelling, "Go you hogs!" over and over. This was Keith Gilbertson, formerly a Huskies' graduate assistant coach at the time and later the Huskies' clever offensive coordinator and reluctant head coach.
Finally, I innocently stood on the Washington sideline when several men wearing ominous dark suits and radio ear plugs purposefully and rudely shoved me and few other media types from behind, moving us out of the way without a word. It was WTF? We then watched as the Secret Service escorted then President Gerald Ford up a tunnel and out of the stadium.
Which brings me to Eugene, Oregon, a month and a half ago, for the UW-Oregon game, to the sideline at Autzen Stadium.
I stood there with just over three minutes left, the UW trailing 34-27 and the Huskies with the ball at their 38. A packed Autzen Stadium was unbelievably loud. Pulling my iPhone out of my pocket, I wanted to capture this deafening atmosphere.
As I was shooting some footage, the UW sideline suddenly went crazy and players started running away from me. I looked up at the jumbotron just in time to see Taj Davis striding into the end zone, though I didn't know who it was until the public-address announcer called out his name. The stadium, all of a sudden, had quieted down.
I sat through all 12 Husky games at home and on the road, but I basically missed the biggest play of the season. I knew what happened, but I didn't see it until a few hours later in a scruffy hotel room an hour or so away, on some ESPN-TV replay.
Hey, if you want to see the UW team reaction to quarterback Michael Penix threading a difficult 62-yard touchdown pass to Davis, or so I've been told, watch my video above. The actual scoring play is captured in the embedded Twitter post. I heard it was a great play.
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