A Quick Note
I’m jumping ahead in the timeline for a few articles and will circle back to some earlier stories later on. For now, let’s talk about Husky football, Mariners baseball, and a realization that took me far too long to figure out.
There are some things in life that become such a part of who you are that you never imagine them not being there.
For me, one of those things was Husky football.
My grandparents moved here from Sweden when my mom was three years old. My grandma worked as a cook in one of the dorms at the University of Washington, and sometime in the 1960s my grandpa started going to Husky football games.
My first memory of Husky Stadium is from when I was about five years old.
I remember holding my grandpa’s hand as we walked up the old circular ramp into the stadium. I can still picture it.
The smell of cigars and cigarette smoke.
The old-timers carrying thermoses that looked like they were filled with coffee but smelled like there might have been something extra mixed in.
The noise.
The excitement.
The feeling that something important was about to happen.
As my grandpa got older, getting into the stadium became harder for him, and eventually those tickets became my brother’s and mine.
We went to every game for years.
Going to Husky games wasn’t something I did.
It was just part of life.
The Mariners were much the same.
I was only four years old when the Mariners became a team, so I honestly don’t remember a time when they weren’t around.
Seattle sports were woven into my life from the very beginning.
Then there was Katie.
Today she’ll tell you she’s a sports fan.
When we first met, that wasn’t exactly the case.
The funny thing was that I thought she loved sports.
She was over every Sunday watching football.
She came over for Monday Night Football.
She watched games with me.
As I’ve probably proven throughout these articles, I’m not always the sharpest knife in the drawer.
It took me a while to realize she wasn’t coming over because she loved football.
She was coming over because she liked me.
Sports were just her excuse.
Eventually I took her to her first Husky game in November of 1996.
It happened to be the game where Corey Dillon had over 200 rushing yards by halftime.
At one point before a snap in the first half of the game, I leaned over and matter-of-factly said:
“Touchdown.”
I don’t know why.
I just said it.
The ball was snapped.
They handed it to Corey Dillon.
About forty yards later he was standing in the end zone.
Katie looked at me completely shocked.
She asked how I knew that was going to happen.
Without missing a beat, I said:
“I heard it on the radio earlier.”
To this day, that may be the most impressive thing I’ve ever done in her presence.
Unfortunately, it created a problem.
You can’t recreate that moment.
Trust me.
I’ve tried.
I’ve called out touchdowns, interceptions, and home runs for years.
Nothing.
Not once.
I’ve never come close to replicating the magic of my one lucky guess.
And honestly, she’s never looked at me the same way since.
At some point, life started changing.
As our kids got older and became more involved in sports, I made the decision to give up my Husky season tickets.
At the time, I thought it was temporary.
I had started noticing something about myself that bothered me.
Instead of enjoying my kids’ games, I found myself watching the clock and wishing they would end sooner so I could get to Husky Stadium and tailgate before kickoff.
That realization hit me pretty hard.
It felt selfish.
More importantly, it felt short-sighted.
Those years with the kids weren’t coming back.
I figured there would always be another Husky football season.
So I gave up the tickets.
My plan was simple.
Once the kids got older and weren’t playing on Saturdays anymore, I’d get them back.
The problem was that life had other ideas.
The kids got older.
Their sports got more expensive.
More time consuming.
Life got busier.
And if I’m being honest, I got heavier.
A lot heavier.
The strange thing is that I didn’t really notice it happening.
One season passed.
Then another.
Then another.
Before I knew it, years had gone by.
Then one day I realized something that honestly shocked me.
I hadn’t been to a Husky football game since 2008.
Fourteen years.
I had spent most of my life going to games and somehow went fourteen years without stepping foot back inside Husky Stadium.
The same thing happened with the Mariners.
Outside of an occasional game here and there, I wasn’t doing much of that either.
At the time, I blamed work.
Being busy.
Family.
Responsibilities.
All of those things were true to some extent.
But looking back, I don’t think they were the real reason.
The truth is that my weight gain had slowly taken the motivation out of doing things that were part of my DNA.
Walking wasn’t fun.
Crowds weren’t fun.
Travel wasn’t fun.
Everything seemed harder than it should have.
Eventually it became easier to stay home.
And staying home became the routine.
The worst part wasn’t that I stopped going.
The worst part was that I stopped missing it.
You don’t wake up one morning and decide you’re done enjoying life.
You just slowly stop participating in it.
Then one day you look up and realize years have disappeared.
In September of 2022, I finally made it back to Husky Stadium.
Katie was out of town that weekend. My buddy JW had tickets and asked if I wanted to go. My instinct was to say no, but I agreed. I really wanted to but knew I would pay for all the walking I was about to have to go through.
Like responsible adults, we parked near University Village and walked into the liquor store empty-handed.
We somehow walked back out carrying three bags and a bucket of Fireball.
I have no idea how that happened.
As we were leaving, JW spotted a bike rickshaw and asked the driver what it would cost to take us down to the north parking lot.
The guy threw out a number.
JW immediately said, “Deal. But we’re riding to one song and one song only.”
A few minutes later we were weaving through bumper-to-bumper traffic while “What’s Golden” by Jurassic 5 blasted from a speaker.
I still laugh thinking about what people must have seen.
Two large grown men, one significantly larger than the other, sitting in the back of a bike rickshaw surrounded by bags of alcohol while a guy who couldn’t have weighed more than 150 pounds was pedaling us to a tailgate.
It was completely ridiculous.
And it was a lot of fun. The tailgating made sure of that.
The stadium had been remodeled since the last time I was there.
The track was gone, and for the first time it felt like you were sitting right on top of the field.
As we made our way to our seats, I walked through the tunnel and into the stadium.
And that’s when it hit me.
I fought back tears.
Part of that was probably because we had gotten a little over-served while tailgating.
But honestly, most of it wasn’t.
After fourteen years away, the overwhelming feeling was simple:
I’m home.
All the memories came flooding back.
Walking up the ramps with my grandpa.
Going to games with my brother.
Years of Saturdays in that stadium.
I stood there looking around thinking:
How in the hell did I stay away this long?
It made me realize something.
I didn’t stop loving Husky football.
I didn’t stop loving the Mariners.
I didn’t stop loving sports.
I had simply stopped showing up.
I’d also be lying if I didn’t give JW a lot of credit for helping reignite that passion.
He wasn’t going to let me say no to going, and I’m so glad he didn’t.
The following year we bought season tickets.
The best part is that it’s no longer just about me.
Between JW and his son, Katie and me, our son and daughter, their significant others, and a couple of very close family friends, we’ve built something pretty special.
We have ten tickets together.
I love summer.
But every year I find myself counting down until those six or seven Saturdays at Husky Stadium.
What makes me happiest isn’t the football.
It’s knowing that my kids are now creating some of the same memories I did.
Long after I’m gone, they’ll still have those Saturdays together.
And hopefully someday they’ll be telling their own stories about the people who brought them there.
The older I get, the more I realize that’s what really matters.
Because somewhere between the bad knees, the extra weight, and the years that seemed to disappear faster than they should have, I learned something important:
Life isn’t waiting for me.
So I might as well show up.
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