5 Things We Didn't Know About Jimmy Lake
Jimmy Lake made his head-coaching debut for the University of Washington football team 10 months ago, beating Oregon State 27-21. On a cold night. In a completely empty Husky Stadium.
No one except his fellow coaches, players and some school staffers were there to enjoy it with him because of the pandemic.
Lake gets a do-over on Saturday in terms of soaking in the thunderous college football atmosphere. Against Montana, he will lead his team out onto the field finally with all of the trappings.
Fans. Sirens. Band. Cheerleaders. Beer. Helmet Car.
Getting to know Lake more intimately, we've learned he was born in Walnut Creek, California, once the home of the Pac-10, and raised in Spokane, as one of four boys — three brothers and a cousin — in a military family that moved around a lot, even internationally.
Becoming the Husky coach is unique enough. Yet on the verge of his first full season in charge of all things football in Montlake, here are five not-so-well-known facts, some gleaned from this well-done Lake profile compiled by The Inlander, an Inland Empire publication, about this man:
1) Never Too Many Twins
Jimmy, 44, has a twin brother, Jayson, who is a boat dealer in Clearwater, Florida. They were starting safeties together at Spokane's North Central High School. Lake was the centerfielder on the baseball team and Jayson played next to him in left field. The look-in-the-mirror part of the Lake story does not end there. Jimmy married his high school sweetheart, the former Michele Taylor, who has a twin sister.
2) Lake and Shaw Near-Miss
Lake was all set to play football in 1995 for Western Washington University, and even accepted a couple of academic scholarships from there, but he ended up at Eastern Washington once the Cheney, Washington, school came after him hard. Had he gone to Western, he would have played for a coaching staff that just hired a new guy in the profession, David Shaw, as outside linebackers coach and later tight-ends coach. Shaw coached in Belllingham for the 1995 and 1996 seasons. Lake and Shaw, of course, now go head to head in the Pac-12 each year as the UW and Stanford coaches.
3) Defending Against Huard
In the summer of 1995, Lake was a late invitee to the East-West Summer Classic, Washington state's high school football all-star game, that would be held in Spokane for the first time in 15 years. He played for the East squad, which included future Huskies in wide receiver Joe Jarzynka (Gig Harbor), defensive lineman Mac Tuiaea (Hanford) and tight end Anthony Mizin (Aberdeen) against soon-to-be UW players in defensive lineman Kurth Connell (O'Dea), wide receiver Dane Looker (Puyallup) — and a highly touted left-handed quarterback named Brock Huard (Puyallup). The East team won 17-14, with Jimmy deflecting away a potential TD pass from Huard to Looker. Lake, of course, now has a very touted lefty QB on his UW team in Sam Huard, Brock's nephew.
4) Football Military Brat
Sons of Master Sergeant Leon Lake, Jimmy and his twin sibling Jayson began playing tackle football as young kids while living at Clark Air Force Base in the Phillipines. Their team was named the Seahawks. They also lived on a NATO base in Turkey and early on attended kindergarten at Fairchild Air Force Base outside of Spokane. Their father was 53 when he died in 2000 of a congenital heart defect.
5) UW Second Chance
Fifteen years before he was hired as the Husky head coach, Lake was fired as the UW defensive-backs coach, as part of Keith Gilbertson's staff that suffered through a 1-10 season in 2004, the worst in school history at the time. He returned a decade later as an assistant for the second time with Chris Petersen. Not many coaches get let go by a school in a lesser position and come back triumphantly as the head coach. Lake's starting secondary in 2004 consisted of cornerbacks Sam Cunningham and Derrick Johnson, and safeties C.J. Wallace and Dashon Goldson, the latter becoming a two-time Pro Bowl selection during his 10 years in the NFL with four teams. Lake and Goldson just missed being reunited as player and coach with the Tampa Bay Bucs by a season.
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