On Montlake

On Montlake

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On Montlake
The Day After: Michael Penix Jr., UW's offense could be all-time good
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The Day After: Michael Penix Jr., UW's offense could be all-time good

Three games in, it's starting to feel like you're watching one of *those* seasons.

Christian Caple's avatar
Christian Caple
Sep 17, 2023
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On Montlake
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The Day After: Michael Penix Jr., UW's offense could be all-time good
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The calm after the storm. (Photo by Christian Caple/On Montlake)

Curious what it might be like to work less and get paid more, I left my job at The (Tacoma) News Tribune in the summer of 2017 to become a pension-contributing employee of the local government. Specifically, I left to become communications director at Pierce County’s workforce development organization, a 10-month stint that feels less and less like it actually happened with each passing year.

The CFO was a big UW guy, and was excited to tell me he had attended the school. I asked which years he was there. 

“Early ‘90s,” he said with a knowing grin.

Say no more, yeah?

UW students of that age inarguably enjoyed the greatest era in Husky football history (with apologies to Gil Dobie). A 1993 graduate, for example, would have witnessed three consecutive conference championships and Rose Bowl appearances; an unbeaten, split-national-title season; the 1992 game against Nebraska; the “All I Saw Was Purple” game against USC in 1990; and would have watched myriad stars like Steve Emtman, Lincoln Kennedy, Mario Bailey, Dave Hoffmann, Mark Brunell, Billy Joe Hobert, Greg Lewis and many more.

(1994 graduates would have witnessed all of that, too, and also the abrupt resignation of Don James and the subsequent first year of probation. 1993 was a good year to get out.)

Point is, merely mentioning that one matriculated at UW in the early 1990s evokes certain memories, or certain images of memories, if you didn’t happen to live through them.

I’m starting to wonder if future generations might come to regard 2023 in a similar light.

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