GoHuskies Magazine, December 2020

Born and raised in Seattle’s Central District, Anthony Washington is a true Husky who wants to make a difference in his community.

Washington, who played Husky basketball as an undergraduate, discovered a passion for teaching and returned to the UW for his master’s degree in special education. He strives to empower and engage his students during class and advocate for them beyond the classroom.

DECEMBER 2020

IN THIS ISSUE

From the Athletic Director’s Desk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 What a long, strange year it's been. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 10 Questions with Women’s Basketball’s Alexis Griggsby . 13 Twenty years ago, the “Cardiac Kids” took Husky fans on a run to the Rose Bowl. . . . . . . . . . 14 Dick and Marilyn Ditlevson continue a 65-year-old season-ticket holder tradition any way they can . . . . . 22 The Shot: Indelible images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

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GOHUSKIES VOLUME 14 / ISSUE 3 / DECEMBER 2020

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FROM THE ATHLETIC DIRECTOR’S DESK

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e miss you! I hope everyone is continuing to stay healthy as we close out 2020, a year that has challenged us all in many ways. With all of the changes this past year, one thing remains the same – we have absolutely incredible student-athletes, coaches and staff here at the University of Washington, and amazing supporters who are passionate about their Huskies.

I’ve never been prouder of our students.

They have faced the unthinkable over the last 10 months and have embraced each obstacle with such grit, grace and gratitude. Our football team has been able to complete its Pac-12 North Champion season! Things weren’t perfect, and we are all disappointed that the season was cut short due to COVID-19. Our students, coaches and staff worked hard to put themselves in a position to play for a Pac-12 Championship and in a bowl game, and we know Husky Nation was looking forward to watching them in the postseason.

With that said, we are grateful for the tireless efforts from our medical team, who worked aroundthe-clock to make the season happen and put the health and well-being of everyone involved as the greatest priority. Because of their work, our student-athletes were able to take advantage of every opportunity they had to do what they all love to do – COMPETE. Head coach Jimmy Lake and his leadership of our football program was phenomenal all season long. You will not find anyone more positive than Coach Lake. He is someone who cares deeply about his players first and foremost, and someone who doesn’t allow them to get caught up in the negative noise that we’ve all faced more than ever this year. A few weeks ago, they added another tremendous class on Signing Day, and we are ready for the next wave of Dawgs to join the proud tradition we have built on Montlake. With new Dawgs comes an end of an era for the seniors departing the program. We want to thank

Jennifer Cohen

them for the incredible impact they had on and off the field during their time at the UW – they will be missed!

I’d also like to recognize senior Elijah Molden.

Elijah exemplifies why we exist as an athletic department. What he accomplished on the field speaks for itself, but what he did off the field deserves special acknowledgement. Among many additional off-the-field accolades, he was named a finalist for the prestigious William V. Campbell Trophy, honoring his academic success, football performance and exemplary leadership. With this award, Elijah received an $18,000 postgraduate scholarship as a member of 2020 National Football Foundation Scholar-Athlete Class.

Our students can come to the University of Washington to compete for championships and have life-changing experiences because of your unwavering commitment to our department. We are so grateful for each and every one of you and for all that you do to make this such a special place.

We are all hopeful for the new opportunities 2021 can bring, and we can’t wait to see you back on campus when the time is right. Wishing you and those close to you a Happy New Year from Husky Athletics!

Go Dawgs!

DESIGN Robert Becker

Football & Men’s Basketball Flagship Radio Station: 950 AM KJR Seattle Sports Radio

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FOOTBALL IN

2020 PAGE 4

GoHUSKIES

BY MARK MOSCHETTI FOR GOHUSKIES MAGAZINE

A

s he stepped onto the field for the first practice of the season on Oct. 9 — a very-much delayed first practice of the season — Race Porter felt something that he hadn’t felt in many years.

Sure, he was in his University of Washington workout uniform. Sure, he was with his pandemiclimited pod of teammates. And of course, he was thrilled to be there.

As he took it all in, Porter’s mind flashed back to his days of growing up in Seattle, when he put on a different workout uniform – a kid-sized one – and stepped onto a different field with different teammates … … and sensed the exact same thrill as he did on that early October Friday.

“It felt like my first time playing football all over again,” the UW punter says with a laugh.

“Just a smile on my face, trying to give high-fives to everyone I saw on the field. It was so great to be back out there and being able to adapt to all of the new situations and circumstances.”

Since the coronavirus threw every aspect of life out of kilter last spring, "adapt" became the order of the day for Porter, for his fellow Huskies, and indeed, for athletes at all levels of sports, everywhere.

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am Taimani certainly knows about adapting. As Washington’s season lurched forward throughout the autumn, the sophomore defensive lineman from Salt Lake City cherished any chance afforded him to put on his pants, jersey and helmet – especially if meant being able to tangle with players from another team in different-colored pants, jerseys and helmets.

“One thing I look forward to taking advantage of every week is the opportunity to play a game,” Taimani says. “Like with Utah being a backup game for WSU, and the whole season being short, just being able to play is probably the best part and helps make everything feel normal – even with the fans not being there.

That’s the only odd part.”

Indeed, finding out your Saturday opponent on Tuesday (as happened during Thanksgiving week when the Apple Cup was canceled and the Huskies wound up playing Utah instead) and then facing that opponent in an empty stadium where the silence can be deafening are just a couple of the things that have passed for “normal” in 2020.

“We’ve learned that it’s just about relying on each other and trying to stay positive and trying to motivate everyone,” Taimani says. “We’ve gotten a lot closer, especially being in a bubble and being around each other. It’s meeting guys from the other side of the ball that you didn’t really know well – wide receivers, some of the quarterbacks, and some of the tight ends."

Adds Porter, “The past few months, I’ve been trying to be grateful to be around all my teammates and all my brothers, and to be able to play football again.”

Adjusting To The New Normal When coronavirus restrictions were first imposed in the state last spring, Porter and Taimani were in the same situation as other UW student-athletes: Their classes shifted online, all team activities were halted, and they went into quarantine mode.

“During the period in the offseason when we had to go home and couldn’t see the guys and we were kind of on our own, it was easy to get down,” Porter says.

Still, Porter kept busy, devoting a chunk of his time to building a clothing business that he has started. Taimani learned to construct a computer from scratch, something he said he has always wanted to do.

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GoHUSKIES

Throughout the ensuing months, schools, conferences, the NCAA, medical experts and government officials worked to formulate protocols that would allow athletics to resume – although any resumption would look markedly different from what everyone was accustomed to before COVID-19.

The first step was – and still is – daily testing.

“We’re definitely getting used to it,” Porter says. “At first, it was kind of weird sticking that thing up your nose every day. But now, I try to turn it into a funny conversation with whoever is helping out that day.”

While some conferences around the county started football in late September or early October, the Pac-12 was one of the last holdouts, before settling on a limited schedule that would begin the first weekend of November.

The one caveat was that there would be no fans – none rooting for them in Husky Stadium; none rooting against them in other venues.

“We’d love to have fans, especially at the big games. I feed off the fans,” Taimani says. “But, I’ve learned that even without fans, I can bring my own energy. That's the thing that we've been preaching. We’re learning to build off each other and keep each other going and just keep that energy up.”

Porter agrees, saying, “It’s a new experience (without fans), but it makes you better once you learn to deal with it. At the end of the day, it’s just playing football. But, it’s different, for sure.”

Finding Some Success, In Spite Of It All The Huskies won their first three games, including a 21-point comeback against Utah, before falling, 31-26, to Stanford on Dec. 5. That 3-1 record ultimately earned UW the Pac-12 North Division title and a spot in the championship game against USC. But, an increase is positive COVID cases among the Husky players, and the required quarantining of additional players under contact tracing protocols, left them below the minimum number of student-athletes needed to participate in the game.

Instead, they had to watch as rival Oregon went in their place, and defeated USC to win the Pac-12 title.

Even so, contending for the division crown from start to finish under the challenging circumstances is a source of significant satisfaction for Taimani and Porter.

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“I’m proud of how we’re playing, especially with a short season and adjusting on the fly,” Taimani says. “You may be practicing for one team, and then the next week, it’s someone else. I’m proud of the team for sticking together.”

Porter agrees, saying, “Going into the season, there was a lot of speculation with Coach (Jimmy) Lake being new, a whole new offense, and a new quarterback situation. Coach Lake just echoes getting better every day, and I think we’ve all taken on that mentality.

“It’s so awesome to see some of the resilience,” Porter adds.

“We’ve had guys test positive, but they don’t skip a beat. They quarantine, but they come back as strong as ever. Whether it’s staying in your circle and doing all that stuff, it has made me proud to be part of a school and a team like Washington doing it the right way.”

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10 QUESTIONS WITH... WOMEN’S BASKETBALL’S

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ALEXIS GRIGGSBY

niversity of Washington guard Alexis Griggsby is back for her senior season on the hardwood for the Dawgs. The Northridge, Calif. native, has made a significant impact on Montlake in each of her seasons in the Purple & Gold.

What has been your favorite place to visit in Seattle?

“My favorite place to visit is really anywhere there is water. It’s being able to look at the stillness of the water and having every problem feel as if it isn’t one.”

Where is the most interesting place you’ve ever traveled to?

“Probably the Bahamas. The most interesting things were the driving (it was crazy) and how people support each other.”

What do you do in your free time?

“I like to sing, watch cooking shows, and cook when I have food in the house.”

If you were to create a slogan for your life, what would it be?

“With God, there is always a way.”

What are the things on your personal bucket list?

“I want to travel the world, go hang gliding, and meet Beyoncé.”

Who is your biggest basketball inspiration?

“My brother Alex is my biggest inspiration because he showed me how the game should be played. I’ve always looked up to him, even if he doesn’t know it.”

What do you love most about playing basketball?

“I love the feeling I get when we win a game.”

Who were your favorite basketball players growing up?

“My favorite basketball player growing up was Lisa Leslie, because she showed me that Black females could have a lot of control.”

Can you talk about some of the experiences that have been opened up to you through the sport and how they have changed your life?

“Basketball has taught me to open up to new people because people are always changing on a team. It allowed me to get my college paid for and made my parents proud.”

What do you think it means to be a game-changer or have a game-changing moment?

“It’s doing the little things that no one sees that keeps us ahead, or, when you think it’s going downhill, but things go in your favor.”

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LOOK BACK 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001

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BY MARK MOSCHETTI FOR GOHUSKIES MAGAZINE

he calendar says that one of the most talked-about seasons in University of Washington football history began on Sept. 2, 2000.

But, in Larry Tripplett’s mind, the autumn that ultimately would live on in Husky lore didn’t begin that Saturday before Labor Day in 2000, with a home victory against the Idaho Vandals.

Rather, it began the Saturday before Thanksgiving in 1997, with a home loss to Washington State.

“Ryan Leaf and WSU came into Husky Stadium and beat us in the Apple Cup,” recalls Tripplett, a defensive tackle from Los Angeles who was redshirting as a freshman in ’97. “That year, when that happened, I just knew that the freshmen and the sophomores, we became really determined on getting to the Rose Bowl.

“But, you have to go through a process a lot of times when it comes to sports,” he continues.

“The next few years, we went through that process. We went through rough times, tough times, got a new coach (in Rick Neuheisel). All of those things sharpened us and prepared us for the (2000) season. When that season started, we knew it was our time, it was our momentum, and we were not going to be denied.”

Adds Ryan Fleming, a senior punter on the 2000 squad out of Seattle Prep High School, “We had a lot of guys who had the toughness from Coach (Jim) Lambright’s era kind of meshing with the spirit that Coach Neuheisel brought. Put those two together, and it just brought something out of the team that hadn’t been there before.”

By the time that season ended with a victory against Drew Brees and Purdue in the Rose Bowl, it would include a scintillating Husky Stadium win against highly hyped Miami, a hang-onfor-dear-life squeaker against Oregon State, a 48-point Apple Cup rout of Washington State in Pullman … and, yes, a tragic injury to a beloved teammate.

Although 20 years have passed, the memories of those 11 fall Saturdays from September through November still resonate, whether it was the fourth-quarter rallies that earned the team the nickname, "The Cardiac Kids," or a hard-nosed defense that netted 33 quarterback sacks, 79 tackles for loss and forced 18 fumbles.

“It’s crazy how it has gone by so quickly – and how it makes me feel old now to think about it,” says the 42-year-old Fleming, now a father of three and financial planner, who still lives nearby, in Kirkland. “I’m not sure there have been any (UW teams) that have played better as a team. …

The results bore that out.”

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Behind In Fourth Quarter?

No Problem A five-point win. Several three-pointers. Come-from-behind performances in eight of their 11 victories.

Throughout the 2000 season, the Washington Huskies never had an easy Saturday.

But, they had a lot of winning Saturdays.

“It was a mix of characters that blended well together,” says Derrell Daniels, a senior inside linebacker who tied for the team lead with 97 tackles, including four for loss. “You had offensive linemen hanging out with defensive backs off the field, and running backs hanging out with defensive linemen. When we got on the field, that helped us out, too.”

Quarterback Marques Tuiasosopo, a senior that year hailing from the Seattle suburb of Woodinville, agrees. He notes that while other teams in the same national upper echelon as the Huskies might have been more talented, “We believed in our hearts that we were tougher than them and that we could always win the game.

“When it came down to it,” he continues, “we would all look at each other, on the sideline or in the huddle, and we didn’t have to say much. Everyone had that look in their eyes that said, ‘Let’s get this done and win this game.’”

For all of those comebacks, Washington had three games in which it never trailed — and, arguably, those were arguably its biggest victories of the season: 34-29 against Miami, 51-3 at Washington State, and 34-24 against Purdue in the Rose Bowl.

The Apple Cup was satisfying revenge for the seniors who had endured that 1997 loss in Husky Stadium that sent the Cougars packing for Pasadena.

The Rose Bowl was … well, it was the Rose Bowl. Enough said.

But, the catalyst for all of it just might have been the Miami game. In front of 74,157 fans in Seattle, the Huskies, coming off their 44-20 season-opening victory against Idaho, built a 21-3 lead by halftime, then fended off a furious comeback by a No. 4-ranked Hurricanes team that featured more than a dozen future NFL Pro Bowlers, including Clinton Portis, Willis McGahee, Reggie Wayne, Santana Moss, Andre Johnson, Jeremy Shockey, Bryant McKinnie, Ed Reed, Patrick Buchanan, Mike Rumph, Dan Morgan, Jonathan Vilma, and others. Highlighting the Huskies' Hurricane humbling was a 50-yard sideline scamper for a third-quarter touchdown by true freshman tailback Rich Alexis, a Boca Raton, Fla., native playing in just his second collegiate game. (In one of his more memorable quotes, Neuheisel said after the game that he called that play for Alexis because he knew the freshman's parents would be watching back home in Florida, and "I just wanted them to see that he was here and he was OK.") “In the Pac-12, people thought we were a good team and were going to have a good season. But, I don’t think people on the national level thought that,” says Tuiasosopo, now 41, a father of three in his fourth year as the tight ends coach at California. “I think (the Hurricanes) thought they were going to come in and whoop us around. But, our group, we were tough. We weren’t going to give them an inch. We felt like we were pretty good.”

As for those 74,000 fans, they made themselves heard – and then some.

“I think it was the first or second play of the game, I got a tackle for loss, and the crowd went nuts,” recalls the 41-year-old Daniels, a special education teacher and high school football coach in California. “We just fed off that for the whole game.”

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Adds Fleming, “Often times, you come into the season, and you’ve got confidence, and say, ‘Yeah, we can play with anybody.’ For us, that showed us that we could. Obviously, there were a lot of talented players on that team.

But, for four quarters, we were able to get them. That set the stage for the rest of the year.”

Dealing With Tragedy A 23-16 stumble at Oregon in Week 4 would turn out to be the only blemish on Washington’s win-loss record.

But, the Huskies suffered an immeasurable loss – one that extended far beyond the football field – on a rainy October afternoon at Stanford.

Late in the third quarter, senior strong safety Curtis Williams and a Stanford player slammed hard into each other near the goal line. Williams went down.

The resulting injury left him paralyzed from the neck down. He died 18 months later, in May 2002.

“We heard that thud (of the players colliding), and it kind of got quiet,” Fleming recalls. “The guys on the field knew the gravity of the situation because they were there."

The game was paused for a long time as team doctors attended to Williams on the field, before placing him into an ambulance and rushing him to the Stanford Medical Center.

“A lot of the rest of that game was just a blur,” Fleming says.

While the Husky offense continued to roll — ahead 17-6 at the time of the injury, UW stretched it to 24-6 with six minutes left in the game — the defense, understandably, was shaken. Stanford scored three straight touchdowns — and recovered an incredible three onside kicks (one negated by a penalty) — to go up 28-24, the last score coming with just 53 seconds left.

“When it happened, it was kind of like football didn’t mean that much anymore at that point,” Daniels recalls. “Our mind wasn’t really there for the rest of the game and they took the lead late. Luckily, we had Tui on our side.”

With the ball on their own 20-yard line, a teammate in the hospital, and a downpour limiting the passing game all day (Tuiasosopo had just 136 yards passing coming into the drive), it would have been easy — understandable, even — for the Huskies to throw in the towel.

“There were a lot of emotions on the sidelines, and some of the guys were like, ‘I’m done,’” Tuiasosopo recalls of the moments after Williams went down. “I remember telling them that we had to pull this one out for Curtis. This was a serious deal, but we’d gone through a lot as a team and felt we could pull it together, and that could help Curtis."

Tuiasosopo hit Todd Elstrom for 27 yards to get the Huskies near midfield, then found Wilbur Hooks for 31 yards down to the Stanford 22-yard-line. One play later, he saw Justin Robbins waving his arms as he broke free in the end zone and fired a bullet that the true freshman snared for the game-winning score. Three plays, 80 yards, 36 seconds. Even in its darkest moments, this team always found a way.

"We rallied and got it done," Tuiasosopo recalls.

“That spoke to the resiliency of the team, even in a crisis situation and difficult times, Fleming adds. "After the game, Coach (Neuheisel) brought us into the team room and let us know [the situation with Williams] wasn’t good. After we showered, we went outside, and a lot of the families were there, especially being down in California. I was hugging my parents and we were just crying for minutes.”

“When it happened, it was kind of like football didn't mean that much at that point,” Daniels recalls of the paralyzing injury to Curtis Williams at Stanford.

"Our mind wasn't really there for the rest of the game. Luckily, we had Tui on our side."

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Revved Up For The Rose Bowl That resiliency kept rising to the forefront. The following Saturday at home against Arizona, with fans wearing "25" stickers and the team playing with "CW" embroidered on their shirts in a tribute to their fallen teammate, Tuiasosopo scored on a 2-yard run with 1:10 left to lift the Huskies to a 35-32 comeback victory. A week later in Los Angeles, Washington rallied again, this time from 21-14 down at halftime to get past UCLA, 35-28 – which was all the more satisfying because it was a loss to the Bruins the previous year that knocked the Huskies out of Rose Bowl contention.

Then came the 51-3 blowout of Washington State in Pullman.

“Everyone who was there in ’97 knew it was a revenge game,” says Tripplett, a 41-year-old father of four who lives in California and owns a hotel adjacent to the Arizona Cardinals’ stadium in Glendale. “I’ll never forget Ryan Leaf running up and down our stadium, banging on our locker room. They had roses in their mouths. We knew we had an opportunity going into that game.”

The victory, coupled with Oregon’s State’s 23-13 defeat of Oregon, meant UW was on its way to Pasadena. With a 10-1 record, the Huskies were one of four teams being talked about for a spot opposite Oklahoma in the national championship game — UW, Miami, Florida State and Oregon State, all of whom had finished the season 10-1. It was a tangled web — Florida State's one loss had come to Miami, which might have made the decision a nobrainer ... were it not for the fact that Miami's one loss was to Washington.

Add in Oregon State, and the Huskies were the only one of the four teams that could claim two victories over one-loss contenders ... but, the comefrom-behind nature of so many of UW's wins had national media questioning the Huskies' dominance. Ultimately, Florida State was selected, sending UW to the Rose Bowl to play a Purdue team led by a future NFL Hall of Famer.

“Of course, we would have loved to play for the national championship,” Tripplett says. “But, we had the opportunity to go to the Rose Bowl and play against Purdue and a great player in Drew Brees.”

Even 20 years later, Daniels still has a tone of awe in his voice as he remembers the hours leading up to the game.

“I remember coming out for warm-ups, and everyone was on the golf course tailgating – you don’t see too many people in the stadium. We went back in and then came out right before kickoff, and all you see is a sea of purple. It’s like, ‘Whoa – this is real now.’ That energizes you a little bit.”

Williams visited the team in the locker room before the game, then watched his teammates from the press box. For the Huskies, it was their first time seeing their teammate since he was placed into an ambulance at Stanford nearly two months earlier. They dedicated the game, and their effort, to him.

Washington raced to a 14-0 lead, but Brees led Purdue back to a 17-17 tie early in the third quarter. The Huskies, though, put 17 straight points on the board to pull away. Before the game, many in the media had said that Pac-12 teams were soft, and the Purdue line would be able to out-tough the Huskies.

The final game stats told a different story — Washington accumulated 297 rushing yards to 137 for the Boilermakers. The longer the game went on, the more clear the Huskies' physical dominance became.

“We knew if we kept grinding them down, the yards would be there, and the points would come with it,” Fleming says.

Although the calendar says 20 years have passed, don’t try convincing any of the Huskies that it has really been that long.

“Time has flown by – everyone says that to you as you’re aging and growing up, but you don’t really believe ’em,” Tuiasosopo says. “It’s almost been like the blink of an eye.”

“Hard to believe 20 years have gone by so quick,” Tripplett adds. “I feel like it was just yesterday that we were there.”

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SEASON TICKET

Loyalty Runs Deep

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BY MARK MOSCHETTI FOR GOHUSKIES MAGAZINE

hey couldn’t meet with some of their friends in the parking lot at Husky Stadium. In this most unusual of seasons, fans weren’t being allowed inside.

So, Maralyn and Dick Ditlevson came up with the nextbest thing they could think of on a University of Washington football Saturday.

“We did one game with one friend and our daughter,” Dick says, “out in the garage, watching TV and cooking brats.”

That, in a nutshell, has been life for the Ditlevsons and many other longtime UW football season ticket holders this fall.

But now, with government and health officials strongly urging against any kind of social gatherings because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, it’s just the two of them: the games on TV, the brats on the grill, Maralyn and Dick rooting on the Huskies from their home in Olympia about 65 miles south of Seattle.

“We’re trying to act our age and play by the rules,” Maralyn says. Adds Dick, “We’ve followed it and watched all the games. But, we’ve pretty much been hunkered down.”

The Ditlevsons have had their Washington football season tickets since 1995, when Maralyn’s mother, Helen Mechelsen Child — a 1942 UW graduate who was president of the university’s Associated Women Students — transferred her tickets to them.

Helen and husband Gerry Child, both of whom have passed on, had owned season tickets since 1959. At that time, Maralyn was just 12, and while she didn’t attend every game, she recalls that “families could get extra tickets in the end zone for kids.”

That started her connection with the Huskies. Even at that young age, she PAGE 22

learned to enjoy those Saturdays for much more than just the games.

“My parents would always park and eat well,” she says. “They would bring up things, and they would be heating soup. It was just all the fun tailgate parties they had with their friends. Then we would join in. The tradition of it is fabulous, besides the football.”

Showing Some Good Stuff While they’ve been “hunkering down” and cooking those brats in the garage, they have liked what they’ve seen on the television screen. Although the Huskies wound up playing just four regular-season games, they made an impression on those who normally would be out there to support them on Saturdays.

“We thought they played well,” says Dick, a 1968 UW graduate with a history degree who is now 76 and retired after starting and building up his own law firm in Olympia. “The comeback against Utah (from 21-0 down to a 24-21 victory on Nov. 28) was amazing. I feel good about the future for them.

There’s a lot of youth there, and I think Jimmy Lake is a good coach who’s going to be a great coach.”

Adds Maralyn, who’s 73, and attended Washington for three years before subsequently working as her husband’s legal assistant for 35 years, “We love watching the kids develop. We ache for them this fall because it has been so hard on all the athletes. But, we’re doing our best to watch it, and we love it when there’s a game on.”

Continued on page 25 GoHUSKIES

“His mom was coming in from Spokane and my sister was coming up from Oregon. We said, ‘Why not get married Friday night and go to the Apple Cup on Saturday?'” Maralyn recalls. “That’s a fun memory. We said we spent our honeymoon at the Apple Cup.

Matter of fact, their 39-year marriage started the night before the 1981 home showdown with Washington State.

“His mom was coming in from Spokane and my sister was coming up from Oregon. We said, ‘Why not get married Friday night and go to the Apple Cup on Saturday?'” Maralyn recalls. “That’s a fun memory. We said we spent our honeymoon at the Apple Cup." (The Huskies delivered a wedding gift of sorts by beating the Cougars, 23-10.)

The couple also enjoy college basketball, and had season tickets for a decade until the late-night drives back home to Olympia in the dark and often rainy weather became less enjoyable.

“We love college hoops, big-time,” Maralyn says. “We still follow it – we follow all the sports, and we’ve gone to other things.”

Like everyone else, the Ditlevsons are eagerly awaiting the time when the pandemic is past, and people are back to work, back to school and back to good health. Because then, they’ll be able to get back into their seats on the south side of Husky Stadium.

“It’s going to be great,” Dick says. “I’m really looking forward to getting in the parking lot and seeing some old friends that we chat with when they’re in the same parking lot that we are. Going into the stadium is going to be really cool.”

And, they’ll be sure to bring some brats.

GoHUSKIES

PAGE 25

Photographs by RED BOX PICTURES

SENIOR SALUTE

Elijah Molden runs out of the tunnel one final time on Senior Day at Husky Stadium

To purchase Husky Athletics photography, visit www.HUSKIESPHOTOSTORE.com

PAGE 26

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