Dear Coach Sarkisian;
Thank you.
I don't know if you'll ever really understand what this season has meant to me. I've bled purple and gold since the 1978 Rose Bowl victory over Michigan. Somewhere in my 11-year-old brain I decided that I wanted to go to the University of Washington and be a part of this community. When it came time to apply to colleges I only filled out one application. Fortunately I was accepted and the indoctrination was complete.
As a UW student I had season tickets to UW football each year, and the ritual of joining friends for breakfast before trekking down to Husky stadium was something I looked forward to each fall. Sun or rain, win or lose, we were always there.
When we won a National Championship in 1991 I was ecstatic. Don James had found all of the right pieces to the puzzle and had executed that season to perfection. I rode that high for several weeks.
Then came the scandals, the accusations of cheating, the resignation of Coach James in protest, the revolving door of coaches, none of whom were able to fully bring the program back. Even Rick Neuheisel, while producing wins, brought back the scrutiny of scandal to my beloved program, so he had to go.
When Ty Willingham was named as Keith Gilbertson's successor, I breathed a sigh of relief. Gilby had tried hard, but there was too much baggage left from Coach Neuheisel's departure. I had seen that Notre Dame had fired Coach Willingham, but never believed that we would be able to hire him. When we did, I was convinced that his no-nonsense style would bring the program back to the top of the Pac-10 and back into the national scene. We all know how that ended up.
But even through that 0-12 season I believed that things would turn around. I admit that I rode the Coach Willingham bandwagon longer than my fellow fans, being the naive optimist that I still am, even into my 40s. After the Apple Cup loss last year, though, even I had to admit that he wasn't going to be the savior that I hoped he would be.
Which brings us to you, Coach Sark. When you showed up you promised to bring a belief in winning, something that was sorely lacking here in Montlake. Coincidentally I believe that the Huskies lost it while playing BYU last season. Jake drove the team down the field for a game-tying touchdown only to have the Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalty called. The Huskies never really recovered from that game.
Everything I've seen and read about the team this year has shown that the players have drunk the Kool-Aid that is your optimism and spirt, and they believe in themselves again. It will be a very long time before I forget the feeling of watching the last minutes of the USC game, tears streaming down my face as I watched Eric Folk's field goal split the uprights and the fans flooding the field in celebration. However, if the win against USC closed the door on last year's season then the win against Arizona bolted it shut. Toward the end of the Arizona game most of the fans had given up, convinced that it was over with close to three minutes left on the clock. Even I figured that we had put up a good fight but still had some work to do. Your players didn't give up. They fought hard and were rewarded with a friendly bounce of the football that allowed them to win the game. I didn't cry like I did after the win over USC, but I was deliriously amazed.
So thank you. I know that you're only halfway through your first season here, but you've lifted up an entire nation. I hope that you understand just how much we needed someone like you here. I hope it's a long ride.
