Being a Washington Huskies Fan is Definitely NOT for the Faint of Heart

Thurs.-Sat., December 3-5, 2020 

A good thing that has come out of the pandemic for me, and I guess for many others as well, is the time to sit back and reflect on life and its many mysteries.

This me time has allowed me to make quite a few discoveries such as . . .

. . . I NEVER thought about this

before the Coronavirus hit

Thursday morning was time for our

weekly Varese Skorpions Offensive

Zoom meeting

This week's topic was "The Wonders of the Running Back Screen Game."

Thursday afternoon was also the start of Laurie's conversion from the last of the Thanksgiving decorations to the onslaught of her fifty year love affair with Christmas bric-a-brac.

It all started with the buying

of our Christmas tree with Jacob

helping to make the pick at

Big Wave Dave's Christmas Tree Lot

Our University of Washington

ornaments, courtesy of Paul Sabolic,

looked great as always

Laurie's Italia themed decorations

looked awesome as well

Both of these sets of family heirloom Christmas memorabilia are quite heavy, which is why we do not place them on our tree.

Speaking of the tree . . .

The 2020 Contreras Family

Christmas Tree

On a walk in our neighborhood

we discovered a possible Christmas

lawn decoration massacre

Mike and I listened together to this

Zoom discussion with great interest

Several of the women who played for our

Europe Warriors team in Mexico City last

December are playing for these teams in the

Women's National Football Conference

If Covid-19 allows it, try to make it out to a game near you, I think that you will be pleasantly surprised.

Speaking of American football . . .

Stanford Cardinal (1-2)

at Washington Huskies (3-0)

Saturday's game would be a rarity for the Dawgs, a daylight game scheduled to kickoff at 1:00 p.m.

While Stanford's record did not look good, it must be remembered that Cardinal Head Coach David Shaw's record against the Huskies was 6-3.

Last year, the Contreras family traveled to Palo Alto to watch Stanford's latest effort on The Farm to make our beloved Huskies look like a pre-Charles Atlas 95 pound weakling in handing Washington a soul crushing 23-13 loss.

Although that score doesn't look all that bad, it is Stanford's ability to run the ball at will with some timely/deadly play action passes that are just daggers in the heart of Husky fans.

Laurie set up a mini-spread for

us to enjoy with son Mike while

viewing this year's contest

The Cardinal were facing difficult circumstances as Santa Clara County where Stanford is located had issued a no practice/no play order until at least December 21st for ALL teams calling this county their home including Stanford, San José State and the NFL's San Francisco 49ers.

As a result, Stanford spent the week in a hotel in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue working out alternately in the hotel's parking garage, a city park and a local high school's game field.

Talk about being resilient!

Today's contest in Seattle would be the 91st game between these two West Coast universities.

The series started in 1893 with a 40-0 Stanford victory in Seattle.

"POWERS" was a good word

to describe a disappointing day

For the second straight week, the Huskies had to overcome a large, 21 point halftime deficit as we trailed 24-3.

Offensively we responded by outscoring the Cardinal 23-7 in the Second Half but it was a case of too little, too late. In essence, even though they only scored once, the Cardinal still controlled the clock and the tempo. This was especially true with their offense's high First Half third down conversion rate of six for seven. On their one unsuccessful third down play they still converted on the subsequent fourth down.

With this win, Stanford now leads the all-time series 44-43-4.

Up next for the now 3-1 and still PAC-12 North leading Huskies is a regular season ending trip to Eugene to play the Oregon Ducks (3-2).

A win against the Ducks would put the Huskies into the PAC-12 Championship Game against either USC (3-0) who play a Covid-19 rescheduled game on Sunday against Washington State (1-1) or the Colorado Buffaloes (4-0).

I wonder if Oregon will dare to run the ball on the Huskies?

2020 Thanksgiving Weekend in a Pandemic

Wed.-Wed., Nov. 25-Dec. 2, 2020

Thanksgiving Weekend, is a traditional time in America for family, football and food.

Food was definitely NOT

a problem . . .

. . . neither was football

Unfortunately, being with family in this pandemic year of 2020 was a problem.

The Coronavirus was in its ferocious Second Wave in the United States and health officials voiced their views against large family gatherings. Thus forewarned, Laurie and I opted to stay at home on Thanksgiving Day and share a modest lasagna dinner.

On Friday, Mike, Vanessa, Jacob and Mary joined us for a more traditional turkey dinner.

On Saturday, the six of us drove down to my Mother's home to have a small gathering that included my sister Linda.

In a roundabout, social distanced way we did meet with part of the family after all.

Now, back to football . . .  

Friday marked the 100th

anniversary of the first game

at Husky Stadium

On that long ago day, the 7-2 Dartmouth Indians defeated the 1-5 Washington Sun Dodgers 28-7.

Sun Dodgers?

The FIERCE Sun Dodger logo

In 1920 and 1921 this was the UW's official nickname.

In 1922, the university came to its senses and became the Huskies.

Sun Dodgers, really . . .

On Saturday, the 2020 Huskies (2-0) would host the Utah Utes (0-1).

The San Francisco 49ers (4-6) would

travel to Los Angeles to take on the

host Rams (7-3) on Sunday

Friday night saw this colorful

match-up between the 3-0 Oregon Ducks

and the 1-2 Oregon State Beavers

Once you got past the neon uniforms, it was a great game to watch as the Beavers pulled off some last second heroics to win 41-38.

Jacob with Great-grandmother Chuny

at her home after giving her a drawing

Mary getting comfortable

Great-grandmother Chuny

with Jacob and Mary

It was good to see the two little ones interact with my Mother.

Saturday we were ready for

HUSKY FOOTBALL!

TE Cade Otton was a BEAST in this game!

Despite his efforts, Utah led 21-0 at the half.

No problem, whatever the Husky coaches said at halftime worked as the Huskies roared back in the Second Half.

 

Yes, The Dawgs scored 24 unanswered

point to improve to 3-0

The 3-0 Huskies sit atop the PAC-12 North standings while the 3-1 Oregon Ducks are in second place.

On to the NFL . . .

After coaching our Women's

Europe Warriors team in Mexico City

last year, I found this news quite

exciting for all the women who

love and play our sport

The 49ers completed their two game

sweep of 2020 series between these

old rivals

No one said that being a Rams' fan would be easy.

Notes from the net . . .

It made all the difference

in the world

Just when you think that it

can't get any zanier

But I had great intentions

With the weekend behind us, it was time to get Jacob back to work at on-line school in our home while at the same time putting away Laurie's myriad Thanksgiving decorations in order to start setting up for Christmas.

Jacob loves all of Laurie's

stuffed Christmas animals

Smashing Pumpkins?

Laurie read somewhere that it was a good idea to smash your leftover pumpkins to allow a feast for wildlife.

What 8-year old boy would say "NO" to such an opportunity?

Dropping it off of our short back yard retaining wall didn't do the trick, so . . .

It was time to hack at it

Using a new tool, Jacob

finally beat it into . . .

. . . SUBMISSION!

We'll find out Thursday morning if any critters liked their Thanksgiving feast.

Rams WIN and Some More American Football Doings

 

Mon.-Tues., Nov. 23-24, 2020

The Los Angeles Rams (6-3) traveled across the country for an important Monday Night Football contest on national TV against the Tom Brady led Tampa Bay Buccaneers (7-3).

It shaped up to be a real CORKER!

The Rams needed a win to keep pace with the Seattle Seahawks who upped their record to 7-3 with a win over the 6-4 Phoenix Cardinals last Thursday night.

But first I had to go do some shopping . . .

Camarillo shopping mall

Christmas tree?

THIS I do well!

WE DID IT!

It was indeed a CORKER!

The Rams are tied with the Seahawks atop the NFL's NFC West Division.

Tuesday was again a big football day for me.

It started with a one hour Zoom

meeting with the Varese Skorpions

This week's topic was "The Inner Workings of the Sweep Play."

I had a good time with it.

The rest of the afternoon was spent

breaking down Monday night's video

of the Pioners' practice in Barcelona

I'm happy to say that the Pioners Offensive Line that I am working with from far, far away is showing steady progress.

Now if the Covid-19 pandemic will just let us have a season in Spain . . .

The Week That Was

Tuesday-Sunday, Nov. 17-22, 2020 

It was another week of good weather in Southern California but mentally I continue in a bit of a fog.

Many factors have contributed to my personal situation including the typical non-changing of seasons in the southland.

Now, combine that with the missing of the usual markers of time like Fourth of July's fireworks, birthday celebrations, dinners with friends, visiting high school football practices, not doing color commentary for the Ventura County Star's Game-of-the-Week podcasts and not going to any high school, college or NFL games. 

All of this has contributed, at times, to my inability to discern what day, month or season we are in after largely being self-quarantined in Italy and the USA for almost NINE months now with no clear end in sight yet.

Yes, the COVID-19 vaccine is near at hand, but how soon will its effects stem the tide?

Meanwhile, back to the Wonderful World of American Football . . .

If it's Tuesday, then it's time for . . .

. . . another Zoom meeting with

the Varese Skorpions

This week we answered questions about the mysteries of the Skorpions Counter play with the coaching staff and players.

As always, GRAZIE to Coach Bumba for organizing the session and to Coach Santa for acting as our interpreter.

It was a fun hour with our beloved Italian team.

I was not done with American football

quite yet this week

I also had to breakdown and analyze videos from three of the Pioners practices in Barcelona this past week.

On the plus side, I have seen much improvement in the month or so that I have being doing this labor of love for our good friend, Pioners Head Coach Bart Iaccarino.

On the negative side, Spain is in the midst of the COVID-19's Second Wave, just as we are. Thus, they are facing several restrictions as to their practice times, field usage and on-field protocols not to mention problems getting players to commit to even coming to practice in these iffy times.

Still, I appreciate and look forward to being allowed access to both the Skorpions and Pioners' preparations as it does afford me a modicum of normalcy throughout these troubling timers.

I highly recommend that both

the Skorpions and Pioners invest

in Air Jordan gloves for the 2021 season

We had another good week with the grandkids.

Jacob built a fort

He and his guard dogs kept a

good look out for invading Huns

Mary was enchanted with the

afternoon sunlight going through

the prism-like glass in our front door

Mary is not crazy about insects

and spiders, maybe this will

give her a different perspective

A trip to the park was not all

that easy to actually do

This was the fourth park in Camarillo that we drove by.

We were first checking for a lack of people and people with face masks before deciding to stretch our legs.

It's a good thing that I have

ambidextrous pushing skills!

The next day we rewarded ourselves

for our grand parenting skills

I REALY have to get a better

handle on my salad making

The best map of Spain

that I've ever seen

Saturday night was time for

Huskies PAC-12 football on TV

Arizona Wildcats (0-1)

at

Washington Huskies (1-0)

Being a traditionalist, I was not crazy about the use by the Huskies of their all black uniforms.

That being said, these alternate uniforms did look good.

" . . . mighty are the men who wear the purple and the BLACK . . ."

That is just NOT how the university's fight song goes!

After being ahead 37-0 in the

Third Quarter, the Dawgs

cleared their bench

The Husky coaching staff did not panic as Arizona made a bit of a comeback with the back-ups on the field and stayed the course giving their younger players valuable playing time.

Speaking of playing time . . .

On Sunday the 113th Apple Cup

Game was cancelled

The annual Washington-Washington State game has been a season highlight for both universities and alumni for a long, long time. This year's game was scheduled for this coming Friday, November 27th in Pullman but a COVID-19 breakout amongst the Cougars team forced the unwanted but necessary cancellation.

It is the first time that the Apple Cup Game has not been played since both the 1943 and 1944 games were halted due to World War II concerns.

This great collegiate rivalry started in Seattle in 1900 with a 5-5 tie, the first of six ties in the series. Washington State was known as the Washington Agricultural College in those days.

As for the Apple Cup's history, the Washington Huskies lead the series 74 wins-32 losses-6 ties.

The Huskies have won the last seven games with the Cougars and ten of the last 11 Apple Cups.

While looking up all of this information, I also came across some more interesting Husky football trivia.

During the 36 year span from 1957 to 1992, Washington had only two Head Football Coaches who each held the post for 18 years.

Jim Owens was the Huskies Head Coach from 1957-1974 going 12-6 in Apple Cup games.

Don James led Washington onto the field as Head Coach from 1975-1992 with a 13-5 record against the Cougars.

What I found interesting was that in the now 28 seasons since Hall of Fame Coach Don James retired, the Huskies have had seven Head Coaches.

These are the marks of these seven Husky coaches in the Apple Cup, a combined 20-7 record:

Jim Lambright, 1993-1998, 4-2

Rick Neuheisel, 1999-2002, 4-0

Keith Gilbertson, 2003-2004, 1-1

Tyrone Willingham, 2005-2008, 1-3

Steve Sarkisian, 2009,2013, 4-1

Chris Petersen, 2014-2019, 6-0

Jimmy Lake 2020-    , 0-0

Reading Is FUNdamental!

An interesting historical perspective

on virtually every conceivable facet

of one of the world's greatest rivers