The Legend of Sixkiller: Sonny Patiently Waited His Turn
Apollo 13 encountered more trouble after an explosion prevented it from making a moon landing. Returning to Earth, the spacecraft veered off target. Unless a course correction was made, NASA warned it might be doomed.
This was a Hollywood movie plot playing out in real life, not unlike what's happening today. On April 15, 1970, the drama in space riveted the world. Prayers were sent to the astronauts.
Hundreds of miles below that same day, a lesser dilemma played out in a much different atmosphere in Seattle. This one wasn't life and death. Only jobs were on the line.
At the first of 20 University of Washington spring practices, reporters pressed coach Jim Owens on whether his team, coming off miserable 1-9 and 3-5-2 seasons, would finally throw the football with more frequency?
The old-school Huskies leader told these media members there was a good chance of that. No one believed him. The guys with the notebooks in hand knew well and good that UW passers had tossed just 19 touchdowns over the previous four seasons.
Fifty years ago as things began to sort themselves out for the Huskies, the quarterback competition involved returning senior starter Gene Willis and promoted freshmen Greg Collins, Tom Roehl and Sonny Sixkiller. Another returnee, Steve Hanzlik, was playing Husky baseball.
If anything, Sixkiller brought a noticeable swagger to this group. He was a confident player who fit in with everyone. He lived in a house in northeast Seattle and often worked out alongside Willis, who was his older high school teammate from Ashland, Oregon
"It looked really bad around here for everybody, the coaching staff, the athletes," Sixkiller said in a magazine interview. "The group I came in with when I was a freshman really loosened things up."
On that first day of spring football drills, each of the four QBs was asked to show up early and take part in a corny publicity shot. They surrounded a massive Husky shot putter named John Hubbell for a contrived photo that served no real purpose.
Sixkiller stood off to the right of the muscular track man. With his face barely visible to the camera, he looked disinterested in this fluff. He didn't do silly very well.
One thing the UW varsity football players noticed right away about Sixkiller was he had a silver tooth up front. It was a football battle scar. They kidded him about it incessantly.
"Hey, stand still, I'm trying to see myself in the mirror," one Husky player told him, leaning over in front of the quarterback.
The dental work came compliments of Sixkiller's Ashland football career. He was playing defensive back as a ninth-grader, weighing about 110 pounds, when he tackled a guy and caught the player's heel in his mouth, knocking out the tooth.
Willis and Sixkiller were teammates for the Ashland High Grizzlies. Willis was a senior and the starter, Sonny his sophomore backup. They proved to be an unusual recruiting connection for the UW, Shakespearian nonetheless considering the southern Oregon town's main attraction.
In the accompanying video, former Huskies safety Jimmy Rodgers, yet another Ashland product, weighs in on growing up with the Sixkillers.
With Willis firmly entrenched behind center, Ashland High coaches decided to play the little-used Sixkiller on defense in a game. He immediately broke his collarbone.
Now during these 1970 UW spring drills, it was Willis' turn to suffer football misfortune.
The starter tore knee up ligaments during the Huskies' first full-scale scrimmage, incurring an injury that would force him to miss the 1970 season and have surgery two days later.
Owens was shocked by what happened to his veteran quarterback.
"I thought he just twisted an ankle," the coach said.
Collins became QB-1. The Huskies designated Sixkiller as his backup.
It wouldn't stay that way for long.