Asked to Compare Styles of his 3 UW Coaches, Cook Had Ready Answer

Alex Cook is one of 39 University of Washington football players out of 115 who've had to answer to and try to impress three Husky head coaches in Chris Petersen, Jimmy Lake and Kalen DeBoer.

As he spoke with a handful of reporters on Monday, Cook, the sixth-year senior safety from Sacramento and a returning starter, was asked not who was the best leader of that group but how they differed as motivators?

Cook tackled the question like he would a running back charging around the end.

Without hesitation.

His corresponding answer was both thoughtful and detailed as he connected language to volume levels to respect when discussing the three men he's played for at the UW.

"We'll put it this way: coach DeBoer has never said a curse word. I've never heard him curse. I've never seen him raise his voice. He demands everybody's attention. I don't know how, but he grabs everybody's attention. There's a level of respect that everybody on the team has for him, and that was the same way with coach Pete. Coach Pete didn't have to raise his voice. He didn't have to curse or anything like that."

Now Cook was careful to say that he still holds a great deal of respect for Lake, who was good enough to be elevated from co-defensive coordinator to Petersen's replacement as head coach, but not able to avoid getting fired.

Still, it's pretty clear to everyone now that Lake had an emotional side to him that bordered on a lack of self control, and eventually it cost him everything.

A year ago, Lake ran a month of fairly organized and upbeat spring football practices while readying a veteran team for a presumed championship run.

Yet in the middle of one of those April workouts, the second-year Husky leader revealed a crack in his coaching armor.

He absolutely lost it on a morning in which his players looked listless and stumbled through a couple of drills. For several seconds, Lake let fly with a string of expletives meant to get everyone's attention and put things on track.

When he was done, there was kind of an awkward silence before the players picked up the tempo and powered their way through the rest of practice.

Now swearing is nothing new to football. You can watch almost any college or NFL game on TV and see someone on the sideline mouth a certain word or words you can't repeat in church.

Listening to the current UW players, they seem to respond best when encouraged rather than berated. They appreciate a show of strength, a sense of control, all of which would better serve their team, especially with everything on the line and where one false move could spoil everything.

That's exactly what happened last November when Lake allowed his emotions to get the best of him during the Oregon-Washington game. Running the sideline, he shoved reserve linebacker Ruperake Fuavai away from a sideline dust-up with the Ducks and seemed to strike him on the helmet.

The Huskies went on to lose the football game, and Lake his coveted coaching job. He was a fiery competitor going back to his own playing days as an Eastern Washington defensive back, but he needed to better channel his impulses as the coach and he didn't do it.

DeBoer brings a much calmer approach to the job and he's been well-received by the Huskies so far. Of course, he'll have to back everything up with victories. Yet his even temperament so far has won over Cook and a lot of his teammates.

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