Husky Legend: Jimmy Rodgers

Catching up with an Orange Bowl captain, hard-hitting safety and all-around character, a player who helped preserve his coach's memory.

Dan Raley | Nov 21, 2019

Husky Legend: Jimmy Rodgers /

He is one of the few things that Huskies fans like about Oregon. Wore No. 39. Played in an Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl and a pair of Aloha Bowls.

Jimmy Rodgers.

The Oregon product is our first Husky legend, a Husky Maven/Sports Illustrated feature that will appear periodically.

The safety played with reckless abandon for the Purple Reign defense, which meant he had to be tough.

Rodgers returned to Seattle to lead the push to erect a statue of Don James, his UW football coach, an effort funded by Jimmy and his teammates. He stayed to live and work in his college city. He's a real-estate broker.

Rodgers foremost is a character and the perfect place to start when addressing the Huskies football past. He tells it like it is. We'll revisit with him regularly and track down other greats.

Check out this lengthy clip with Mr. Rodgers. Check out his socks in the photo.

Published Nov 21, 2019

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.