Why the UW depends on football

John Connors, a major Tyee donor, points not to the field but to the sidelines of Husky Stadium to illustrate the difference of Washington football under Rick Neuheisel and Tyrone Willingham.

Empty sidelines, he said, indicate a fundamental change in attitude.

In the Neuheisel era, hundreds of donors, alumni and other friends of the program were allowed to roam the field area during games. Sideline passes were status indicators, privileges that many, including Connors himself, cashed in on.

These days, however, Connors and friends are relegated to regular Husky Stadium seating. Not that he has a problem with that.

"It's quite honestly much more professionally run," Connors said.

Professionalism is a hot concept in Washington's athletic department, especially when it comes to football. The historically successful program that recently fell upon hard times is still clawing its way back to respectability. But professionalism, while important, is not enough.

"Our mission is about creating winners," said Athletic Director Todd Turner. "Creating students that succeed in the classroom, on the field [and] in life. Our goals are to go to the Rose Bowl, play for a BCS Championship, go to the Final Four in men's and women's basketball, win another national championship in an Olympic sport or two."

By consistently finishing in the top 20 of the Directors' Cup, which ranks overall athletic success, the UW seems to be completing that mission every day. But just as the entire athletic complex rests in the shadow of a looming Husky Stadium, the entire athletic program is marked by success or failure on the football field.

Even men's basketball coach Lorenzo Romar readily admits that football is No. 1 at the UW. He pointed out that even Hec Edmundson Pavilion sellouts fall short of the atmosphere the football is capable of creating.

"When our football team is doing well and that place is packed, that's really, really special," Romar said. "I know I love seeing it. A couple times this year I had goose bumps."

Despite just seven victories in two seasons under Willingham, and criticism that the athletic department has not placed enough emphasis on football, UW officials are confident in its future.

"They're clearly on the right track," said UW President Mark Emmert. "Everybody sees that and everybody knows we have the right people in the right places there."

Part of the criticism has been that Willingham was hired more for his reputation of discipline and sound character than his performance on the field. But Turner was quick to dismiss that notion. He said he liked the fact that Willingham's attitude and values were in step with his own, but that was not why he was hired.

"The primary reason was because he is a good coach," he said.

Athletic department officials and donors are also quick to bring up the football-enhancement project, a multimillion dollar investment for celebrating and communicating the dynamic history of Washington football. Plans include the construction of a "Legends Center," intended to be essentially a football-specific hall of fame.

"It's a really important part of our efforts to put football back in shape," Turner said. "...We've got 14 Rose Bowl appearances, and a Doak Walker Award winner and five or six people in the College Football Hall of Fame, but it's hard to find the history of that walking around here. That's going to change."

But change in performance matters more, said Jeff Bechthold, assistant student information director. Bechthold believes that Washington football is headed in the right direction and realizes how important it is to achieve success on the field.

"When your football team wins, it's better for everyone, literally everyone," he said.

Especially other student-athletes.

Washington has around 800 of them, and the vast majority plays neither football nor basketball. The students who rely on revenue from football and basketball because their sports generate none are the foundation of UW athletics, Emmert said.

"Athletics winds up in American universit[ies] being a really important piece of the social fabric of university life," Emmert said. "It in many ways is kind of an adhesive or a glue that keeps people attached to the university and keeps them involved with us. It's fun and exciting, and it adds a vibrancy to the campus life."

That high regard of athletics affects the relationship between Emmert and Turner ,as well as the relationship between the University and the athletic department. In some ways, UW athletics is an independent agent.

Financially, for example, the athletic department is entirely self-reliant. Turner explained that athletics is a break-even enterprise, with income from basketball and especially football as well as donations determining the budget. Like any business, success in athletics brings money, and money brings even more success.

But although independent financially, athletics is more tied in with University operations than ever before. Turner and Emmert keep in touch constantly, meeting officially once a month, casually at least weekly and corresponding regularly by email.

Formally, Turner is the first athletic director to serve on a UW president's cabinet, meaning he sits with the provost and other academic leaders. Turner has input on major campus decisions, and other figures have input on athletic decisions.

"It just makes sense to fully integrate it into the fabric of the UW," Emmert said. "Athletics and the rest of the University are, I think, more tightly bound together than they've been in a long while."

It's a relationship that makes sense, especially considering the UW's fast-growing global reputation. Athletics, Emmert said, is a worldwide spectacle and can be helpful in strengthening international connections.

In June, for example, Emmert saw Washington's national championship women's volleyball team play in Shanghai, China to what he called an outstanding reception. He cited the volleyball team's accomplishment as not just a positive reflection of the UW, but also as a catalyst for opportunity.

The opportunity for a select group of student athletes to spend 12 days in China is an exceptional but symbolic one. The mission of Washington athletics manifests itself daily in smaller opportunities like the chance to excel in sports and in academics.

It is enhancing those opportunities, according to Emmert, that makes success in football so vital. And it is acting on a principled foundation that makes those opportunities both legitimate and constructive.

Reporter Eric Nusbaum: ericnusbaum@thedaily.washington.edu