Jason Terry Replays Why He Flipped from Washington to Arizona

Jason Terry used to sell popcorn at University of Washington basketball games. He was a high school kid at Franklin High School making some spending money. He had a cart on the lower level.

One night, he caught Lute Olson grabbing a handful of corn and chastised the Arizona coach until realizing who it was and giving him a walk.

Terry next shared in a televised news conference with fellow guard Donald Watts to tell Seattle how they were verbally committing to become Huskies together. There was nothing binding about this, though.

Twenty-five years ago, the UW connection for him ended right there.

Olson didn't come back for more popcorn, he came back for Terry. The legendary coach, who recently passed away in Tucson, flipped the left-handed guard, turned him into a first-team All-America guard and shared in a national championship with him at Arizona.

This past May, Terry, two seasons removed from a 19-year NBA career, returned to the Pac-12 school as an assistant coach for Sean Miller's staff.

Terry spoke to Wildcats Radio about his 1995 decision to pass on the Huskies for the Wildcats. He mentioned how it wasn't easy, how he was a Seattle guy, someone who has the 206 area code tattooed on him. He even said his heart was purple and gold. But it wasn't enough to keep him leaving home.

Takeaways from that Tucson radio interview begin with his mother encouraging him to broaden his horizons:

"My mother just told me, 'Listen, I know you love Washington but if you want to be a professional basketball player, the best place for you was at University of Arizona. At least give them an opportunity to go for a trip.' "

Terry spoke about his last-minute recruiting Arizona visit:

"My good friend (Federal Way's) Michael Dickerson was already there so that was a plus for me. But going on my trip, on my recruiting visit, meeting guys like Kelvin (Eafon), meeting guys like Damon Stoudamire, Khalid Reeves, Joseph Blair, and seeing how close they were, it was something you wanted to be part of. I didn't get that feeling for any other school that recruited me."

Terry weighed in on the Lute Olson factor, especially at practice:

"You had a head coach that was very personable, but he was stern. I just remember being at practice and he was on Michael Dickerson the whole practice. Like I had never seen that before. But I understood. I had a high school coach that was just like him, so I can relate to it and seeing that reliability was something that I knew I needed. I needed a coach to ride me like he rode a lot of good players because it was gonna bring the best out of me."

Terry liked the dry heat of the Arizona desert, too, which was an nice change-up from home:

"Obviously the weather. I mean it was 80 degrees. I'm coming from somewhere that rains every day. That was a big part of that as well. So it was a no-brainer for me."

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