Inside The Huskies

Trading Cards Help Alleviate the Enforced Sporting Pause in Place

Unveilings have spurred a large audience and a renewed interest in collecting with the pro and collegiate teams shut down. Check out the UW-related cards.
Dan Raley|
Trading Cards Help Alleviate the Enforced Sporting Pause in Place
Trading Cards Help Alleviate the Enforced Sporting Pause in Place

One thing you can't wipe out during a stay-at-home pandemic is athletic trading cards. In fact, it's an industry experiencing a resurgence online.

While the rest of the sports world takes a long pause, breaks, or card unveils, broadcast live have become exceedingly popular across the country, responsible for a significant boost to the card world and providing a ready source of entertainment, according to Sports Illustrated's Emma Baccellieri. Check out her story. 

Chris Justice, a card dealer in North Carolina and breaker, cites a 25 percent boost to his business, and a 1,520 percent increase in new customers, from sports enthusiastists stuck at home.

In Seattle, all but a scant handful of card shops have disappeared, but a healthy online business persists throughout the city. Some of it is customized collecting. 

While baseball was the orignal impetus for trading cards long ago, nostalgic collectors have branched out in other, creative directions. 

Take football, for instance. University of Washington football-related trading cards. 

This particular avenue has created a fairly devoted number of collectors, each seeking former local heroes that go as far back as Arnie Weinmeister, a former Husky lineman who became an NFL standout and later an influential and intimidating union boss in Seattle.

You're not a serious UW collector if you don't have all of the NFL cards that were produce for Huskies running back Hugh McElhenny, nine in all. 

Three decades ago, Steve Emtman was all the rage in the NFL, a fearsome UW defensive tackle who became the No. 1 overall pick in the 1992 draft following the Huskies' national championship season. 

Of course, if you really want to get after it, there are niche cards to be uncovered that involve UW players such as Tom Scott, a Sonny Sixkiller passing target who became a CFL Hall of Fame inductee, and Ray Pinney, an offensive lineman who moved from the NFL to the USFL.

Check out the gallery of UW-related cards here. It's just a sample of what's out there. Try and match it. After all, you probably have a lot of time on your hands these days.

The Washington running back was an All-American and then an NFL Hall of Fame inductee. He has nine trading cards.

These two former Huskies have some of the oldest trading cards among UW players. 

 The All-American quarterback played at Washington alongside Hugh McElhenny and emerged with several trading cards. 

These former 1970s Huskies turned up on niche cards, created for the CFL and USFL.

As the 1992 No. 1 NFL draft pick, this former UW defensive tackle had no shortage of trading cards created for him. 

Published
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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