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Inside The Huskies

Apple Cup War of Words Is Hardly Convincing

Giggling Huskies throw out a few digs that didn't really hit hard.
Dan Raley|
Left to right, Huskies Jacob Manu, Xe'ree Alexander and Elinneus Davis speak to the media on Tuesday.
Left to right, Huskies Jacob Manu, Xe'ree Alexander and Elinneus Davis speak to the media on Tuesday. | Dan Raley

It wasn't as if the three veteran University of Washington football players came crashing into the cavernous team room in Montlake used for weekly interviews and began screaming their heads off, knocking over chairs and jostling each other to create an Apple Cup mindset.

No, someone from the back of the media gathering before them posed the following inquiry in a decidedly coy fashion to get things going.

"For any of you," this person purred, "can you give me your real answer or give me your PC answer -- how do you feel about Washington State?

From what happened next, it was hard to tell which was which from their responses?

"I hate them," defensive tackle Elinneus Davis said stoicly. "I'm sorry. That's just me, though."

"I feel the same way," linebacker Xe'ree Alexander chimed in impishly. "I just can't wait to go kill them."

Fellow linebacker Jacob Manu, not willing to play along, looked amuse and muttered something under his breath to Alexander.

The next sound coming from these guys were giggles, as if they had broken into the team candy stash late at night and made off with it.

Yep, this was Apple Cup war, declared on the spot, conducted with a pillow fight.

Predictably, Cougfan.com declared these Huskies had supplied WSU with ample bulletin board material.

Which prompts another question: same as the rotary phone, does anyone really have a bulletin board anymore?

More than likely, the combatants for each of these teams couldn't identify more than a couple of players by name on each side as they prepare to play the 118th game of the rivalry on Sunday in Husky Stadium.

It's hard to hate someone you don't really know.

More than likely, everyone has the same detached outlook that goes like this, "I'm really going to lay into No. 25, whoever he is, if he runs anywhere near me."

If anyone met Davis or Alexander, they would find it extremely hard for either one of these congenial guys to actually hate anyone.

Beating someone in a Cougars jersey is one thing, but harbor ill will?

Davis and Alexander are the kind of guys who are just as likely to knock someone down and then help them to their feet.

Later on, Alexander, who spent his first year of college ball at Idaho, just down the road from WSU, got a little more cerebral in discussing the rivalry game and his connection to it.

By now, he took a much more neutral position on this annual football soiree.

"It's everything to me, honestly," he said. "Growing up, family was a lot of Coug fans and I got to grow up into the Husky fan base. I was a little bit on the Coug side growing up, but hanging around my cousin and my uncle more, I grew up a Huskies fan. That rivalry between my family is pretty big, so it's great."

Now put that on a bulletin board, refrigerator door or electronic messaging board somewhere.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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