Legend of Sixkiller: Sonny Has a Babe Ruth Moment in '71 Opener

Sonny Sixkiller was so good now, he was clairvoyant.

Running the Washington huddle with authority, he looked up at all the faces staring back at him and he told his teammates what was going to happen next in the 1971 season opener.

"Hey dudes, hold them," he instructed. "This is a touchdown pass right here."

Sonny took the snap, backpedaled a few steps and rifled the ball to wide receiver Jim Krieg for an instant 27-yard score against UC-Santa Barbara, bringing the Husky Stadium crowd of 56,000 to its feet. Just like that. Babe Ruth couldn't have called it any better.

And so the second year of Sixkiller, and all of its carnival-like excitement, was in back in action in 1971.

On this day, Krieg's six-pointer was one of nine the explosive Huskies scored against an overmatched UC-Santa Barbara team, en route to a resounding 65-7 season-opening victory. It was the most points scored by a UW team in 27 years.

In the days leading up to the opener, Huskies coach Jim Owens publicly said he was going to give his dashing quarterback more of a chance to call his own plays.

The coaches had timed Sonny in 3.5 to 4 seconds on the average for taking the snap and getting rid of the ball.

The guys protecting Sixkiller on the field, such as senior tackle Rick Hayes, were believers in his magic.

"He had such a presence in the huddle," said Hayes, who now lives in Hawaii. "With his confidence and arm, we felt we were going to score on any play."

This game actually had a strange beginning. The nation's fourth-ranked passing team from the previous season came out and ran the ball three times -- and fumbled it away.

Santa Barbara, which had been playing Division I football for only two years, drove 57 yards for an immediate 7-0 lead, with quarterback Randy Palomino throwing an 8-yard scoring pass to Mike Anton Scott.

Sixkiller as nonplussed by this. He let everyone know it, too, as they gathered for the second UW offensive series.

"This is (expletive) up," he told his teammates. "We have to get it together."

Nine touchdowns later, everyone was feeling a little more comfortable, if not smug, about things.

Sixkiller played only the first quarter and part of the third as the Huskies began substituting liberally. He was in long enough to complete 6 of 7 passes for 152 yards and two touchdowns, one each to Krieg and the new guy Tom Scott.

On his lone miss, Sonny said, "It was my fault. I was off balance."

Scott caught passes of 46, 25 and 42 yards, with the last one going for a second-quarter score. It was welcome to Husky Stadium for him.

"Sixkiller was almost 100 percent responsible for me coming to Washington," the California speedster said. "I wanted to come to a Pac-8 school that had a passer. When I saw Six, I wanted to come here. Yeah, I love catching his passes. You have to catch his short ones off your body because he throws them so hard. The long ones are easy to catch."

The Santa Barbara game had a sentimental ending to it.

Gene Willis, a Sixkiller high school teammate and the one-time starting quarterback for the Huskies, played in his first game in a year and a half.

He tore up a knee in 1970 spring football practice and eventually was replaced by Sixkiller.

Willis, after sitting out the previous season, was taking snaps again and punting, averaging 49 yards on a pair of kicks. He led the Huskies to their final score against Santa Barbara, doing the honors himself with a 1-yard TD run.

He expressed absolute amazement over what had happened to the Husky football program since he went down -- the emergence of Sixkiller.

"No, I never thought that Sonny would develop into a top quarterback," Willis said candidly. "He seemed too small."