Apple Fritter: Sixkiller's Career Ends with a Thud Against WSU in 1972
On a cold and dank Saturday afternoon in Spokane, Sonny Sixkiller played his final University of Washington football game. It should have been memorable.
For a half, The Huskies held everything together in the 65th Apple Cup.
They led Washington State 10-3 when play stopped for intermission at Joe Albi Stadium. Sixkiller threw what would be the last of his 35 touchdown passes as a collegian, a 64-yarder to fullback Pete Taggares in the second quarter. His team was well on its way to finishing 9-2.
"Then the wheels fell completely off," Sixkiller said. "They took it to us. Joe Albi was like drearyville."
In what he termed the lowest point of his otherwise remarkable Husky career, the record-setting quarterback and his teammates went in the tank for the last two quarters.
They could do nothing right in the second half. They were left a disheartened 27-10 loser by the Cougars.
Adding great insult to agony, WSU linebacker Gary Larsen sacked Sixkiller three times and broke into an impromptu war dance over the Native American quarterback on his second backfield invasion.
So what happened that day?
"We were freezing our asses off and we couldn't go to a bowl game," Sixkiller said. "Half of the team was like, 'Whatever.' "
The then-Pac-8 Conference operated under an archaic rule where only its championship team went to the Rose Bowl and everyone else stayed home. It took another three years before the restrictions were eased by the league and USC was permitted to go to the 1975 Liberty Bowl while UCLA wound up in Pasadena on New Year's Day. The Huskies didn't go anywhere else for a postseason game until the 1979 season, when they faced Texas in the Sun Bowl.
"Who wouldn't have wanted us in a bowl game back then?" Sixkiller said.
This 1972 contest marked one of the better match-ups of the long-running state rivalry series. The Associated Press poll ranked the Huskies 17th and the Cougars 20th. Emotions were high throughout.
As UW players walked onto the field, they were greeted by signs from the WSU faithful that read "Sonny Who?" and "Sack Six, Go for Seven," and "Sonny, Your Momma's calling."
The Huskies, for whatever reason, turned extra charitable in this one. They lost five of six fumbles, threw three interceptions and had a punt blocked.
Then there was the matter of Sixkiller getting sacked seven times, with Larsen turning theatrical after one backfield conquest.
He dropped Sixkiller for a nine-yard loss on the fifth offensive play of the game and calmly returned to his defensive huddle.
In the second quarter, Larsen picked up Sixkiller and slammed him to the ground for an eight-yard loss. This time, he decided a celebration was in order.
The sophomore linebacker from Seattle broke into an animated war dance that enthralled the Cougar faithful but it didn't go over well with the fallen quarterback.
From a seated position, Sixkiller threw the ball at Larsen and gave him a middle-finger salute.
In the third quarter, Larsen broke through and spilled Sixkiller once more for a seven-yard loss, but he walked away. He'd made his point already.
Sixkiller, of Cherokee descent, felt the WSU player's on-field choreography was insulting and demeaning.
"I saw him afterward and he said he was trying to celebrate like in the NFL, and I said, "I don't think so," the UW quarterback said while telling Larsen his actions were racially motivated. "I said, 'I know what you did, saw what you did and it was blatantly that.' You wouldn't get away with it today."
Larsen said any cultural slam wasn't intentional. He was just caught up in the moment. The Cougars hadn't beaten the UW in seven years.
"The fact is NFL players did it and it was fine," the WSU linebacker said. "When I did it, Husky fans took it as an ethnic slur. It was something that wasn't planned. It was something spontaneous, something I hadn't done before. It just came out that way. I can't dance, period."
In his final UW outing, Sixkiller completed 11 of 27 passes for 213 yards and the lone score.
He missed four and a half games that season. This wasn't how he wanted to go out. This was his bowl game. But once things went bad, there was no changing course.
"I made some picks and the next thing I know we fumble," Sixkiller said. "There was not a lot of fight in the guys after that. It was a strange game. It kind of sticks with you."