Inside The Huskies

Jedd Fisch Gesture for His Players Had Nice Ring to It

The new UW football coach made sure the Huskies celebrated their big moments of 2023.

Dan Raley

Carson Bruener shows off his Pac-12 and Sugar Bowl championship game rings.
Carson Bruener shows off his Pac-12 and Sugar Bowl championship game rings. / UW

With fall camp approaching, Jedd Fisch could have stood in front of his University of Washington football players and made a fiery speech to get everyone properly motivated for what's coming. He could have referenced future possibilities, yet he chose to celebrate the past in a most memorable way.

.On Monday, the first-year Husky football coach gave out rings. Lots of rings. Three different kinds of rings.

Fisch made arrangements for a combined 74 players and staff members still with the program to receive both a shiny Pac-12 championship ring and an equally luxurious Sugar Bowl championship ring, all of which was paid for by the UW.

He directed his staff to mail out more rings to 66 former Husky coaches, players and staff members who left the school following the 2023 season after Kalen DeBoer and everyone else shared in a 34-31 victory over Oregon in the final Pac-12 championship game in Las Vegas and in a 37-31 win over Texas in the Sugar Bowl and CFP semifinals in New Orleans.

"I wanted to celebrate their success," the coach said.

Fisch did more than, too. He handed out another 28 rings to former Arizona players and staffers who followed him to Seattle and joined the UW program and he did so in a generous manner -- the coach and his wife Amber personally paid for the Wildcats rings that commemorated a 38-24 win over Oklahoma in the Alamo Bowl.

"We wanted to make sure everybody who participated in the [Pac-12] championship game, who participated in the Sugar Bowl, received a ring," Fisch said. "Hopefully the entire coaching staff as well as all of the players from Michael Penix to Rome [Odunze] on down will be receiving their rings soon."

Not long after the rings with multiple stones recognizing victories were distributed, players such as senior linebacker Carson Bruener were seen on social media showing off their newfound jewelry from a glorious time.

"You could see the smiles on our faces," Bruener said. "We got those rings and looked back on that success and that's something we want to do again."

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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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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