Husky fans are not well
This morning The Seattle Times has a disturbing story about the letters and emails sent to UW president Mark Emmert demanding the dismissal of football coach Ty Willingham and Athletic Director Todd Turner [times]. These letters by themselves are pretty common in sports. You can bet that however many letters Emmert received about his coach and AD, Mariners president Chuck Armstrong and CEO Howard Lincoln have received three times as many demanding GM Bill Bavasi’s ouster (or the manager du jour). And I assure you that even with the great success Mike Holmgren and the Seahawks have experienced that GM Tim Ruskell gets letters every week demanding he be fired.
That said, as the Times discovered, Seattle-area attorney and former Everett mayor Ed Hansen took it to another level. It turns out Hansen offered $100,000 to the UW Law School contingent on the firing of Willingham and threatened to stop all donations to the Athletic Department unless both Willingham and Turner were fired. Yes, a grown man was so apoplectic over a college football team’s win/loss record that he offered to pay a relatively obscene amount of money to have the head coach fired. A head coach, worth noting, whose peers recently voted President of the American Football Coaches Association. Of course, demonstrating unparalleled integrity and having the respect of one’s peers doesn’t always translate into football wins but given the utter chaos the UW football program has endured over the last decade you have to wonder about the sanity of the Husky fans calling for Willingham’s head just three years into his tenure.
But there was former public official Ed Hansen doing just that. It makes me want to write him this letter.
Dear Ed,
You’ve failed at life. Please fire yourself.
Regards,
Ryan
Oh, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the email from the Seattle-area elementary school teacher who said he’d stop attending games and buying merchandise, “because now Husky Saturdays are days of sadness and why would I want my daughter to share that?”
Good job teaching your daughter perspective, Seattle-area elementary school teacher.
Update: The Times updated their story to clarify that Hansen actually offered $100,000 apiece for the firings of Willingham and Turner for a total of $200,000. I guess he figured if he was already unhinged he might as well commit all the way and join his brethren in batshit territory.
Kudos, Ed Hansen, for your clear demonstration of what’s totally and completely wrong with college athletics.
Sad to see adults acting like first graders. I’m all about football and having the team i’m rooting for win but is winning everything?
Is there more to life than winning; evidently not for Ed Hansen.
You know, I’m a college football fan, from a college football family that takes the game too seriously, but honestly, they both need a good smack across the face.
Yeah, the Huskies have sucked. If I were a Husky grad and were upset about Ty’s performance, I’d probably be curtailing my giving to the athletic program. But good Lord almighty, offering a huge chunk of change to the Law School just to fire a coach? Calling Saturdays “days of sadness” just because the Huskies can’t play D?
GET SOME FRIKKIN’ PERSPECTIVE PEOPLE.
Honestly. They make me ashamed to be college football fans. These are the sorts of people who buy Cadillacs for star QBs or hire them for phony off-season jobs where they’re paid regardless of whether they actually do any work or not.
Someone send Harry Husky by to piss on their legs, please. Or heck, excommunicate them from the Husky Nation and force them to become Coogs.
Front-runners who are no longer in front are a sad, sad thing to see.
Oh, BTW: the elementary school teacher “said he’d bought his infant daughter a Huskies cheerleader outfit”…what the hell??
It’s this kind of crap that makes me hate college football. All of you people that keep saying that college football is “football at it’s purest” are deluding yourselves. College football is a sham and is commercialized just as much if not more than pro football. They paychecks just come in the form of a free degree that most of them didn’t have to really work for. This goddamn country needs to get it’s fucking priorities straight.
Sorry for the rant, but college football always sets me off.
I’m fairly certain the fact that Ty Willigham is black and most of these Husky fans are white plays some sort of role in this irrational disdain for the current coach.
The important thing is not how you lose, but how you win. Cheating is FAR WORSE than losing, but the job of the Coach is to win games. Its just his job description. It is the primary responsibility of the coach to teach the young men to win football games with the same principles they should use to succeed at all endeavors.
Hard Work,Determination,Preperation,Perserverence …
But if they dont win, whats the lesson?
Great Post! SeattleIAM.com has chosen this blog article as one of the top articles in Seattle for January 10, 2008. The SeattleIAM Daily Blog Review can be found on NowPublic.com and Newsvine.com
I’m fairly certain the fact that Ty Willigham is black and most of these Husky fans are white plays some sort of role in this irrational disdain for the current coach.
Well, some. I know there are some out there who say “if he were white he’d be fired by now.” Most fans, though, it’s the lack of winning that’s the problem.
I like Ty, but he’s really not getting the job done. If he can get this team to show signs of life in 2008, he’ll stay around. If not, then the alums will clamor for the Next Big Thing but not want to pony up the money to hire him.
But honestly, if boosters like Hansen want to leave, let them. I personally hope the Law School turns away his donation.
lov the huskies cougars r straight up cheaters wanna go to wu