Lake Comes Out of Seclusion to Talk About One of His Guys to Chicago

Jimmy Lake keeps an extremely low profile these days since his dismissal as the University of Washington football coach.

It had to be maddening, embarrassing, or both, for him to lose his coveted job last November.

He's made no public appearances in Seattle, done no local media interviews, offered no declarations of any kind.

However, Lake finally re-emerged on Monday — he did a radio segment on a Chicago sports talk show called "Mully & Haugh."

He was willing to come out of a seclusion to talk about one of his guys.

Kyler Gordon.

On Friday, the Chicago Bears drafted the Husky cornerback in the second round with the 39th overall pick, and the Windy City sports enthusiasts want to know more about him.

Lake, the recognized longtime molder of NFL-bound defensive backs, offered the highest praise for the 6-foot, 200-pound Gordon. You can hear his interview here.

“This is the most athletic player that I’ve ever coached,” Lake said on the air. “He is a ball of energy, a ball of clay that can bend any which different way. He’s the type of guy that can just sit here and do a backflip right in front of you. He can contort his body to go defend passes, pick off passes. [The Bears] are getting an extreme athlete that can play inside and outside. This is a big-time pick for Chicago.”

As a then-UW co-defensive coordinator, Lake recruited Gordon from Mukilteo, Washington, and Archbishop Murphy High School in 2018, pulling him away from Notre Dame.

The former coach fully expects his cornerback to thrive wherever the Bears put him, but he offered a suggestion.

“If I was coaching him and I was sitting there in Chicago, I would start him outside,” Lake said. “Although everybody wants the 6-foot-1, 6-foot-2 corner — you want that length and I want it as well — he doesn’t have that but what he makes up for is an over 40 [inch] vertical jump, which we had at the University of Washington, ultra speed and athleticism, and he can match with his quickness. He’s going to be elite outside.”

And with that, after 11 minutes of discussion, Lake hung up and went back into isolation.

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