Dave Worgan Was UW Edge Rusher Who Never Lost His Edge

Over the decades and decades of University of Washington football, plenty of unforgettable personalities have put on the pads and come running out of the tunnel at Husky Stadium.

Guys who treated the game as if it was a suicide mission. A chance to go a little zany. An opportunity to really inflict some pain.

The roll call for some of these over-the-top UW characters includes Steve Emtman, Ben Davidson, Fred Forsberg, Tim Peoples and George Jugum.

Oh, and one more headliner for abject Husky craziness: Dave Worgan.

An edge rusher, or defensive end, during the Sonny Sixkiller era, Worgan was the guy you loved or hated. Embraced or ran from.

Or, in the case of Sixkiller, asked for a ride when they were both freshmen and instantly regretted it.

On crutches after hurting an ankle while running the Huskies' short-lived Wishbone offense, the fabled quarterback climbed into Worgan's car and nearly lost his hearing.

"We were going to Greek Row, and I got in the backseat and he had these fricking monster speakers in the back window," Sixkiller recalled. "He had it turned up to 100. It was c'mon, Dave. He always did things to the max -- that was Worgan."

Sadly, this former UW football player died as hard as he lived, passing away this past Friday in a local assisted-care facility. He was 75.

He passed away from a long illness. For someone who worked out even in his later years, it was not the way he would have wanted to go out if there had been a choice..

Initially Worgan showed up at the UW from nearby Roosevelt High School, from the affluent Broadmoor neighborhood, as a contradiction -- he was a rich kid who was the ultimate football bad boy.

After spending a mandatory season with the freshman team back then, Worgan played immediately as this 6-foot-2, 225-pound sophomore coming off the edge, as a head-hunter people wanted to avoid.

He would start 17 of 31 games in and around injuries. He would collect 74 career tackles and a pair of fumble recoveries.

While he began and finished his Husky career as this fearsome edge rusher, he started against Washington State in the 1971 Apple Cup at middle linebacker. The Huskies just needed an extra tough guy in the center of the action that day. His best game was a 12-tackle performance in a 22-21 victory over Purdue on the road in 1972.

"Dave was pretty good," Sixkiller said. "He was quick. He was tough. He was physical."

Worgan next gave pro football a try, going to training camp with the CFL's then Edmonton Eskimos and the San Francisco 49ers, and failed to land a roster spot on either side of the border.

"I drove him to Edmonton," childhood friend Max Norgart said. "He hurt his knee up there."

Dave Worgan's Husky jersey No. 97 hangs inside the Duchess Tavern near the UW. | Dan Raley

Worgan would take a career path that totally suited him -- he joined the U.S. Navy and went to flight school to become an airline pilot.

He flew the C-130 Hercules, a four-engine Lockheed turbo prop plane, while serving six years and getting stationed in Spain and on the East Coast in Maryland.

"It was a lot of difficult and dangerous flying that he did," said Norgart, who became a career military pilot himself.

Worgan worked briefly flying for UPS in Louisville, Kentucky. For nearly three decades, he settled in and piloted 737 passenger jets for Alaska Airlines.

Dave Worgan, second from left in the back, and his Roosevelt High buddies, like to think they were macho men. | Duchess

In more recent years, people would run into him at UW games, always tailgating, or at the Duchess Tavern, which is not far from Husky Stadium,

It is at this neighborhood saloon where his No. 97 purple jersey hangs on the wall, along with photos of him and his high school buddies in various fun-filled poses. His Roosevelt classmate Boyd Hansen owns the iconic establishment.

Friends were saddened by his death but glad for his sake that his health ordeal was finally over.

It was time for everyone to tell more Worgan stories, such as when he got thrown out of a UW freshman football game against Simon Fraser.

One of the Canadian players tried to clip him in the back and he angrily kicked the guy in the helmet. He got sent out of Husky Stadium. He stayed in character, though.

"We won and came inside and Worgan was playing one-on-one basketball with someone," Sixkiller said. "He was in his football pants, leggings, a little half-cut T-shirt. That was Dave."

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