The City of Seattle’s Relationship With UW & UW Football
Comments
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Jim Owens was 6 win Steve before 7 win Steve. Drove my dad crazy. Then some really bad years.UW_Doog_Bot said:
This would be such a fucking tits schedule if we had it today. We'd go 6-4 but still...DawgsCanDance said:As an old-time Seattleite that grew up in Montlake my perspective is a little different regarding the Seattle sports scene.
Picture this:
in the 50's the big thing in Seattle was hydro racing ~ the city was NUTS about the rivalry with detroit and the gold cup was the thing that the entire town stopped and watched on the local boats, along the shoreline or on TV. TV was NEW... think about that. The most exciting TV ads were the local dairy ads for cottage cheese because the color guns on the new color tv's were out of alignment and so the cottage cheese ads looked like rainbow-colored product offerings. Cool.
Seattle was a small town that basically stopped at the city limits which was around the 7/11 on aurora that people in here are fond of referring to. Bellevue was a cow town that you needed to plan a day trip to get to because the bridge didn't exist yet. The freeway system through Seattle was just being built.
Seattle was a major league west coast city from a sports perspective in the sense that the PCL baseball league consisted of all of the major west coast teams... LA, SF, San Diego, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver BC. Throw in the Salt lake city Bees and the Hawaii Islanders and that was the league.
Same with hockey... the Western Hockey league was killer with LA, SF, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver BC and the local Canucks were a dynamite team. Seattle was definitely a great hockey town and the old ice arena really rocked... Yow, it was exciting to watch the long slap shots from the blue line amidst the smoke and air horns.
UW crew was a really big deal... it was the Dawgs and Cal vs the eastern powers of Harvard and some of the other IVY league schools.
The NFL didn't really exist on the west coast until the 49ers and Rams were introduced on the west coast... so you had your choice of which of those two teams were your local favorite.
So, the college football scene was the only game in town throughout most of the west. West coast football was a regional affair ~ UCLA, USC, Washington and Cal were the teams of note but the big ten and the big 12 were really the teams that mattered nationally. No one really expected the west coast teams to do much from a national perspective until the west coast teams actually started to do something unusual ~ some of the teams started to throw the football, sometimes as much as 20X a game [origins of the so-called West Coast Offense]
Some of the games were televised but until ABC sports started televising national games, football was all about going to the game. The metro league was an important part of the Dawgs recruiting footprint. In those days the Metro league was the best part of the local football scene, and there was a city vs state all-star game at the end of the season that the City team was usually the winner of.
It was one platoon football, the teams were small and the schedule often included luminary offerings ~ Here is the 1957 schedule:
University of Colorado SEP 21 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
MINNESOTA SEP 28 ~ At MINNEAPOLIS AND SAINT PAUL, MINN.
OHIO STATE OCT 5 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
UCLA OCT 12 ~ AT UCLA LOS ANGELES, CALIF.
Stanford OCT 19 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
Oregon State OCT 26 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
University of Southern California NOV 2 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
University of Oregon NOV 9 ~ AT EUGENE, ORE.
University of California NOV 16 ~ AT BERKELEY, CALIF.
Washington State NOV 23 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
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Owens was kind of our? version of Mike Price in that he was capable of doing something really special by the schools standards when it call came together but was also not especially good most of the time.RaceBannon said:
Jim Owens was 6 win Steve before 7 win Steve. Drove my dad crazy. Then some really bad years.UW_Doog_Bot said:
This would be such a fucking tits schedule if we had it today. We'd go 6-4 but still...DawgsCanDance said:As an old-time Seattleite that grew up in Montlake my perspective is a little different regarding the Seattle sports scene.
Picture this:
in the 50's the big thing in Seattle was hydro racing ~ the city was NUTS about the rivalry with detroit and the gold cup was the thing that the entire town stopped and watched on the local boats, along the shoreline or on TV. TV was NEW... think about that. The most exciting TV ads were the local dairy ads for cottage cheese because the color guns on the new color tv's were out of alignment and so the cottage cheese ads looked like rainbow-colored product offerings. Cool.
Seattle was a small town that basically stopped at the city limits which was around the 7/11 on aurora that people in here are fond of referring to. Bellevue was a cow town that you needed to plan a day trip to get to because the bridge didn't exist yet. The freeway system through Seattle was just being built.
Seattle was a major league west coast city from a sports perspective in the sense that the PCL baseball league consisted of all of the major west coast teams... LA, SF, San Diego, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver BC. Throw in the Salt lake city Bees and the Hawaii Islanders and that was the league.
Same with hockey... the Western Hockey league was killer with LA, SF, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver BC and the local Canucks were a dynamite team. Seattle was definitely a great hockey town and the old ice arena really rocked... Yow, it was exciting to watch the long slap shots from the blue line amidst the smoke and air horns.
UW crew was a really big deal... it was the Dawgs and Cal vs the eastern powers of Harvard and some of the other IVY league schools.
The NFL didn't really exist on the west coast until the 49ers and Rams were introduced on the west coast... so you had your choice of which of those two teams were your local favorite.
So, the college football scene was the only game in town throughout most of the west. West coast football was a regional affair ~ UCLA, USC, Washington and Cal were the teams of note but the big ten and the big 12 were really the teams that mattered nationally. No one really expected the west coast teams to do much from a national perspective until the west coast teams actually started to do something unusual ~ some of the teams started to throw the football, sometimes as much as 20X a game [origins of the so-called West Coast Offense]
Some of the games were televised but until ABC sports started televising national games, football was all about going to the game. The metro league was an important part of the Dawgs recruiting footprint. In those days the Metro league was the best part of the local football scene, and there was a city vs state all-star game at the end of the season that the City team was usually the winner of.
It was one platoon football, the teams were small and the schedule often included luminary offerings ~ Here is the 1957 schedule:
University of Colorado SEP 21 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
MINNESOTA SEP 28 ~ At MINNEAPOLIS AND SAINT PAUL, MINN.
OHIO STATE OCT 5 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
UCLA OCT 12 ~ AT UCLA LOS ANGELES, CALIF.
Stanford OCT 19 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
Oregon State OCT 26 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
University of Southern California NOV 2 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
University of Oregon NOV 9 ~ AT EUGENE, ORE.
University of California NOV 16 ~ AT BERKELEY, CALIF.
Washington State NOV 23 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
Both are remembered as better coaches than they actually were because when they were good they were really good.
Basically the inverse of Chris Petersen. -
If you look at 59 to 63 he was two league wins away from 5 straight Rose Bowls. That earned him a lifetime in those days before I was able to call for the firing of coaches
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Seattle football always had an outsider mentality. National media completely ignored all Seattle sports and the city itself until the 1990s. Local media rode the dick of winning teams but Times columnists always worried about everything.Alexis said:UW was the biggest deal in town in the late 80s. But Seattle itself never did like big time football. The Seattle Times would write a glowing article about the team in the Sports section with guys like Blaine Newnham. While at the same time the Northwest section would write 2 stories about how Don James was the highest paid public employee and how that was wrong and every time a football player would get a DUI.
Fans used to make UW #1. Seattle never liked them.
The 1990 and 1991 seasons were the biggest thing to happen in PNW football EVER until the Seahawks started sniffing the super bowl.
Beating Nebraska, Michigan, and Miami in the 1990s were nuclear bomb level events after decades of being ignored by the east coast.
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As someone who was born at the tail end of the 80’s and grew up in NE Seattle most people I grew up with were big Dawg fans by individual family ties or just due to proximity to UW other than those that had other PNW affiliations. The head of the Tyee club lived on my street growing up and his son and I were close which rubbed off on my brothers and I as well as my mom being an alum.
People that were born and grew up in my part of the city are still generally big UW fans regardless of if they went to UW or not. Also a ton of alums still live in NE Seattle, versus other parts of the city which I doubt care as much about UW. Where the Seahawks have picked up massively from what I have seen is people who moved into the city from outside the region who didn’t already have an NFL teams and disaffected UW fans from the Gilby / Ty era, some of whom while still UW fans are now bigger Seahawks fans. With the final population being non college educated non city dwelling fans who have moved solidly into the fanatical 12’s camp. Most of my friends and family enjoy both teams but if we had to only follow one it would be UW and it wouldn’t be a question.
Also as UW admits more international and out of state students while some develop an affinity for UW sports many could care less.
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I grew up in Sacramento, but always had strong ties to Seattle as my Mom immigrated to America through Seattle. I grew up loving UW as both parents went there. My freshman year was Fall ‘94, and I partied in Seattle U one Friday night with some girls I knew from Sac. Crashed with them and took the bus back to the UW District Saturday morning first thing. I’ll never forget going up Broadway on the bus - the street had purple and gold banners flying from the lamp posts. Old people. Young people. Everyone slowly started to board the bus as we moved north all dressed in Husky attire. It was amazing. Purple and Gold on lampposts on Broadway heading north. Everyone cared. So cool.
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That must’ve been cool. You’re now even hard pressed to find UW banners on the Ave, never mind Boardway.AEB said:I grew up in Sacramento, but always had strong ties to Seattle as my Mom immigrated to America through Seattle. I grew up loving UW as both parents went there. My freshman year was Fall ‘94, and I partied in Seattle U one Friday night with some girls I knew from Sac. Crashed with them and took the bus back to the UW District Saturday morning first thing. I’ll never forget going up Broadway on the bus - the street had purple and gold banners flying from the lamp posts. Old people. Young people. Everyone slowly started to board the bus as we moved north all dressed in Husky attire. It was amazing. Purple and Gold on lampposts on Broadway heading north. Everyone cared. So cool.
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Was race still a bitter fan in the 50s?DawgsCanDance said:As an old-time Seattleite that grew up in Montlake my perspective is a little different regarding the Seattle sports scene.
Picture this:
in the 50's the big thing in Seattle was hydro racing ~ the city was NUTS about the rivalry with detroit and the gold cup was the thing that the entire town stopped and watched on the local boats, along the shoreline or on TV. TV was NEW... think about that. The most exciting TV ads were the local dairy ads for cottage cheese because the color guns on the new color tv's were out of alignment and so the cottage cheese ads looked like rainbow-colored product offerings. Cool.
Seattle was a small town that basically stopped at the city limits which was around the 7/11 on aurora that people in here are fond of referring to. Bellevue was a cow town that you needed to plan a day trip to get to because the bridge didn't exist yet. The freeway system through Seattle was just being built.
Seattle was a major league west coast city from a sports perspective in the sense that the PCL baseball league consisted of all of the major west coast teams... LA, SF, San Diego, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver BC. Throw in the Salt lake city Bees and the Hawaii Islanders and that was the league.
Same with hockey... the Western Hockey league was killer with LA, SF, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver BC and the local Canucks were a dynamite team. Seattle was definitely a great hockey town and the old ice arena really rocked... Yow, it was exciting to watch the long slap shots from the blue line amidst the smoke and air horns.
UW crew was a really big deal... it was the Dawgs and Cal vs the eastern powers of Harvard and some of the other IVY league schools.
The NFL didn't really exist on the west coast until the 49ers and Rams were introduced on the west coast... so you had your choice of which of those two teams were your local favorite.
So, the college football scene was the only game in town throughout most of the west. West coast football was a regional affair ~ UCLA, USC, Washington and Cal were the teams of note but the big ten and the big 12 were really the teams that mattered nationally. No one really expected the west coast teams to do much from a national perspective until the west coast teams actually started to do something unusual ~ some of the teams started to throw the football, sometimes as much as 20X a game [origins of the so-called West Coast Offense]
Some of the games were televised but until ABC sports started televising national games, football was all about going to the game. The metro league was an important part of the Dawgs recruiting footprint. In those days the Metro league was the best part of the local football scene, and there was a city vs state all-star game at the end of the season that the City team was usually the winner of.
It was one platoon football, the teams were small and the schedule often included luminary offerings ~ Here is the 1957 schedule:
University of Colorado SEP 21 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
MINNESOTA SEP 28 ~ At MINNEAPOLIS AND SAINT PAUL, MINN.
OHIO STATE OCT 5 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
UCLA OCT 12 ~ AT UCLA LOS ANGELES, CALIF.
Stanford OCT 19 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
Oregon State OCT 26 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
University of Southern California NOV 2 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
University of Oregon NOV 9 ~ AT EUGENE, ORE.
University of California NOV 16 ~ AT BERKELEY, CALIF.
Washington State NOV 23 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
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1999 Seacocks won the AFC (yes AFC) West at 9-7. And had home games blacked out from not selling out. UW And slick Rick was the hot ticket.
It took Washington sucking cock at football and the Hawks (“It’s NOW time!!!1one!!!”) being decent in a shitty NFC to flip the script in the mid 2000s with a fancy new stadium that pumped in noise. 12s!
Seattle was always, ALWAYS a Husky town before then. Now I don’t know if it will ever be that again, with Russell being a really good QB and the Pac-12 not caring about football. Everyone likes winners which was Washington and not the Hawks until about 18 years ago. I hope Russell loses both his legs to a flesh eating bacteria and Pete Carroll retires to live with his lesbian lover. -
*BoredwheyDoog_de_Jour said:
That must’ve been cool. You’re now even hard pressed to find UW banners on the Ave, never mind Boardway.AEB said:I grew up in Sacramento, but always had strong ties to Seattle as my Mom immigrated to America through Seattle. I grew up loving UW as both parents went there. My freshman year was Fall ‘94, and I partied in Seattle U one Friday night with some girls I knew from Sac. Crashed with them and took the bus back to the UW District Saturday morning first thing. I’ll never forget going up Broadway on the bus - the street had purple and gold banners flying from the lamp posts. Old people. Young people. Everyone slowly started to board the bus as we moved north all dressed in Husky attire. It was amazing. Purple and Gold on lampposts on Broadway heading north. Everyone cared. So cool.
