Inside The Huskies

Unassuming Yet Hard-Hitting Clyde Werner Dies at 78

The Husky edge rusher had a career-high game of 23 tackles in the 1969 Apple Cup.
Dan Raley|
Clyde Werner was a UW edge rusher who played for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Clyde Werner was a UW edge rusher who played for the Kansas City Chiefs. | Werner family

Clyde Werner used to come into the Gig Harbor Eagles club and mix with the other members, maybe watch a football game on the TV.

Even as an older man, he looked the part of a former player. It was just hard getting him to admit to it.

He was humble to a fault, hardly impressed by himself and what he once did.

"I asked him, 'Did you play?' " said Jeff Myers, who . "And it was, 'Yeah, I played a little.' It was like pulling teeth."

Werner, who was 78 when he died from natural causes on December 23, actually played a lot of football.

He was a former University of Washington and Kansas City Chiefs edge rusher who certainly had his moments during a decade of games at the highest levels.

Coming out of Tacoma's Wilson High School, Werner was an physical specimen whose efforts were somewhat hidden away by bad Husky football in 1967-69.

Clyde Werner was a 30-game starter for the UW in 1967-69.
Clyde Werner was a 30-game starter for the UW in 1967-69. | UW

He played for 5-5, 3-5-2 and 1-9 Jim Owens-coached teams that preceded the glorious time of Sonny Sixkiller, who was a freshman when Werner was a senior.

Werner was a 6-foot-4, 245-pound pass rusher who became a three-year starter for the Huskies, starting all 30 games in which he played, and someone who saved his best performance for his last UW outing.

In a 30-21 victory over Washington State in the Apple Cup in 1969, in preventing a winless season, Werner was all over the field that day and finished with 23 tackles -- which remains 10th in school history -- with 17 of them solo -- which still is the second most in Husky annals.

"He looked like Butkus," said Myers, referring to Dick, considered the greatest linebacker of all-time.

The great Michael Jackson, who played for the UW in 1975-78 and later for the Seattle Seahawks, holds the school record for both 29 tackles and 20 solo tackles.

While winning just 9 of 30 games in Montlake, Werner didn't go unnoticed. The Chiefs selected him in the second round of the 1970 NFL Draft, a year after winning their first Super Bowl.

Werner played six seasons for Kansas City, appearing in 64 games and starting four times,

According to friends, his Chiefs jersey No. 54 now hangs in Tacoma's Harvester Restaurant.

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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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