Inside The Huskies

Time to Remember Chris Welp and Retire His UW Number

The Husky big man was an unforgettable player who deserves the ceremony that will honor him.
Dan Raley|
The late Chris Welp is having his No. 40 retired.
The late Chris Welp is having his No. 40 retired. | UW

Christian Welp wore No. 40 for the University of Washington basketball team and when dressed in that shirt he always was good for at least 20 points on game night.

Yes, 40 was a good number for him. That was also his career high scoring night in 1986 against UCLA. That was his best against the best.

That was the big German center easily turning around and hitting soft jumpers as he made his way through the key. Or the 7-footer deftly putting the ball on the floor like someone several inches shorter than him and driving to the hoop.

For those of us who knew Christian Welp, he was not only an extraordinary player for his size, he was probably the best teammate, the most accommodating interview and the least assuming personality one might have encountered at the old Hec Edmundson Pavilion.

On Sunday, the school will honor the man who died in 2015 at age 51 by retiring his number and permanently putting it in the rafters while the current Huskies (9-6 overall, 1-3 Big Ten) host Ohio State (11-4, 3-2) in a conference match-up at 3 p.m. in Alaska Airlines Arena.

I first watched Welp play in the state basketball tournament as an exchange student for Olympic High School on the other side of Puget Sound and became someone the Huskies scrambled to sign when he proved to be a dominant player.

I covered his entire college career when he scored 2,073 points to become the UW's all-time leading scorer. The conference player of the year. A four-year starter. An NBA draft pick.

I actually was speaking to Christian in the locker room at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion after a semifinal game during the original Pac-10 basketball tournament when an agent with a Southern accent somehow got inside and rudely interrupted our interview, trying to get his attention and do business on the spot.

Welp politely and kindly showed the intruder the door and we resumed chatting, with the big guy sharing how agents had been hounding him from the moment he arrived in Los Angeles, offering him stuff but getting nowhere.

I last spoke to Christian Welp in 2004, when I was still a sports writer for the now-defunct Seattle Post-Intelligencer and he was retired from pro basketball, having gone from the NBA to European pro ball to living a normal life in the Seattle area.

It was time catch up with him and his world, and Welp was the doting family man as was relayed in this Where Are They Now story I put together and the accompanying photo below with his kids.

Christian Welp and his kids in 2004.
Christian Welp and his kids in 2004. | Jim Bryant/Seattle PI

Sadly, Welp wouldn't get to see his them grow up to become adults. He wouldn't get to be there when Collin, in the red top, turned into a 6-foot-9 college standout for Cal-Irvine and play internationally like he did.

He wouldn't get to see his daughter, Ally, bravely stand in there on this Sunday afternoon and talk to the media before the game about her dad, just he used to deal with me and other reporters in the same building.

Welp's number will remind everyone of a great player, a decent human being, an adored dad and someone who never should be forgotten. Forty will look good hanging with the others.

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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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