A Postcard from Husky Stadium: Wish You Were Here
Husky Stadium feels neglected.
It's three hours from kickoff and there's almost nobody here.
One person checking my parking pass.
A few officers overseeing the parking lot.
Two guys at a west-end gate, stationed there to take my temperature for entry and have me sign a statement indicating that I'm not infected with COVID-19.
I catch an elevator. It's just me. I hit the press-box button with my elbow.
Reaching media central, a half-dozen people are on the eighth level, in various stages of game preparation.
Writers, maybe a dozen and a half on a seating chart, will be spaced more than six feet apart once they show up. If they show up.
Down on the field, another half-dozen people stand guard on the different corners of the field.
Two carts drive in and out of the tunnels and onto the field, delivering equipment.
I grew up in this place as a kid and I've seen it evolve, from one deck to two, from a crumbling facility to this upscale ballpark.
My grandfather used to run football game-day operations for nearly 25 years, from the Hugh McElhenny era to the Sonny Sixkiller era.
He would drag me along, beginning at age 10, to be his errand boy.
I wore a little ribbon that let me go anywhere in the stadium.
I used to deliver all of the attendance slips compiled around the horseshoe.
Once the games began, I often sat in an aisle on the 50-yard-line and watched Sixkiller throw it.
For any usher who tried to shoo me away, I'd confidently show him my game ribbon so he'd leave me alone.
As a Seattle Post-Intelligencer sportswriter, I covered the Husky football team for 10 years, through the end of the James era.
I used to sit in the old overhang press box that would sway when people started stomping their feet in the south-end deck.
Which means I've been to a lot of games.
Seen a lot of stuff. O.J. running 80-plus yards for a touchdown. Michigan. Nebraska. Ohio State. Apple Cups galore.
But this might be the strangest game-day setting I've ever encountered.
Wish you were here.
