My feelings about UW are unprofessional

I faced a significant professional choice in mid-2002.

I could accept a job covering the Seattle Supersonics for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer or I could remain at The Seattle Times where I would begin covering the Washington Huskies full-time.

I chose the pro beat, a decision I wound up regretting for a number of reasons. None of them, however, had anything to do with the subject matter, and as I’ve spent the past six days unreasonably angry about Washington’s departure from the Pac-12, I’ve found myself thinking back to that 2002 decision when I was 27 and hungry for the next step in my career and opted not to cover the team I felt most passionate about.

I did not dream of covering Washington’s football team as a newspaper reporter. I’m not even sure that I would have listed it as a goal, but that was definitely the direction I was headed in while in my mid-20s.

I was in the second of what would be three stints at The Seattle Times, covering Eastside high schools as a three-year intern.1 That first year I would spend the week writing stories about the various sports teams among the two KingCo conferences, and on the weekend, I would be occasionally asked to help out with event coverage from a Washington game, which most often constituted writing a story about what the opposing coach and players said after the game. I was told that this policy dated back to 1986 when California lost 50-18 at Washington and afterward, coach Joe Kapp responded to a question by unzipping his fly, and asking if a reporter wanted to inspect further. Seriously. Here’s an excerpt from a story on it from the Los Angeles Times:

The Seattle Times didn’t have a reporter there to similarly document the color of Kapp’s undergarments, and from that point on it was a policy to have at least one reporter present for the opposing coach’s press conference.

In 2000, I became more involved in our college football coverage, writing a weekly feature spotlighting a player from the opposing team in anticipation of the Huskies’ game that weekend. I covered the occasional practice, filling in for the regular beat reporter Bud Withers,2 and I covered home games. When the Huskies played at Oregon that season, I drove down to cover the game, assigned a seat at the very top of the press box where I had to lower my head to see the far edge of the field.

A couple of things happened that year turned out to be particularly formative for me. First, Washington upset Miami in what was certainly the most impactful home win the Huskies had since I’d enrolled in 1993. I covered that game and was watching from the sideline when it ended. I remembered how freaking loud it was, the turf feeling like it was almost vibrating and yet I was professionally prohibited from joining any bit of that emotion.

The second thing was that my union went on strike that November, and we were still not back to work when New Year’s rolled around, which means I drove my little red Mazda truck down to Pasadena and attended the game with four of my college roommates. I (repeatedly) informed Purdue fans their quarterback — Drew Brees — was monosyllabic, noting the Huskies phonetic advantage with Marques Tuiasosopo.3

The topic of objectivity can be a touchy one in journalism. There were some papers back then that had policies that no reporter should be assigned as a beat writer for the school they attended, believing there would be a bias. I think that’s silly. Having been a fan doesn’t preclude someone from being objective. In fact, I would say that having been a fan gives you an insight into the issues and topics that are most important to your main audience.

However, I also believe that covering a team as a journalist is based upon critical thinking and a concerted attempt to recognize and check those feelings which are based on emotion or pre-existing bias. I believe that the mindset and approach required to be a good reporter makes it pretty much impossible for you to be a fan of the team in a traditional sense. You become more analytical, less emotional.

For this reason, I never quite know how to answer when people ask me if I’m a Seahawks fan. Not in a conventional sense. While I religiously watch the Seahawks, and generally want them to win, it’s more out of professional curiosity and personal self-interest than any feelings of allegiance or investment. I don’t get mad when they lose. Personally, I’m more invested in the people who make up the team than I am the franchise itself.

It’s different with Washington. Very different, which brings me to the end of May and early June in 2002. I had applied for a job covering the Seattle Supersonics for the Seattle P-I. This made sense professionally. I was still covering high-school sports for the Times, which in the wake of the strike had promoted two other young reporters ahead of me.4 The Huskies beat was about to open up at The Seattle Times, though, and I was told that I would move into that role if I stayed, passing up the job at the P-I.

I took the job covering the Sonics. It was covering a pro team and offered a higher wage. My desire to return to being a college-football fan wasn’t my only motivation. I’m not sure if it was even my primary motivation, but it was a factor.

I came to regret my decision to leave The Seattle Times. Looking back, many of the reasons I did so were short-sighted and emotional. I was running away from issues instead of solving them, but the one thing I don’t regret is the fact that I didn’t wind up covering the Huskies.

I love being a Huskies fan. It’s the one thing in sports that I am most passionate about. Don’t get me wrong, I love sports. I like to watch them. I like talking about them. I like talking to the people who play them. But I would characterize that as an intense interest whose primary fuel is professional curiosity.

The way I feel about the Huskies is something different. It’s more visceral. Less rational. I get more mad than I should. In 2008, I had to stop watching the Husky games on television because I would get so frustrated. I started listening to them on the radio, doing home-improvement projects while I did so, believing this would be an outlet for that emotion. When Jared Karstetter caught that 45-yard pass in the fourth quarter of the Apple Cup, I turned off the radio and left the house. The Cougs had not yet scored the game-tying touchdown, let alone won in overtime, but I knew where this was headed and I didn’t trust myself to be around anything that was either sharp or breakable.

Two years ago, I was standing on the subway platform out in Flushing, N.Y., waiting to come back from a day at the U.S. Open when I opened Twitter and after learning that Washington was trailing Montana I actually became dizzy. I care about Washington, which is probably why this past week has bothered me so much.

It’s not just the move from the Pac-12, either. I mean, don’t get me wrong, that part really sucks, and anyone who has paid any attention to what I’ve written either here or on Twitter the past week is pretty aware of my unhappiness. But I’m also mad at the reaction that I’ve gotten from other Husky fans and — it seems — a particular fan site. Not all of them, but enough that I’ve developed some bitterness about those people who aren’t willing to be respectful of a fellow Husky fan who might have a different opinion about what’s happening. When one of the individuals affiliated with this particular Web site observed that I probably wasn’t that big of a Husky fan to begin with I pointed out that I remained part of a season-ticket quartet despite living in NYC and that in 2020 I had donated my ticket fee to the athletic department.

This is a fair counterpoint. Why did I feel compelled to make it, though? I’m closing in on 50, and I’m trying to prove my bona fides to someone on Twitter? It’s kind of embarrassing, honestly, and one sign that I’ve taken this all a little personally. Even the other Husky fans who feel like they’ve won something by having Washington in the Big Ten. It’s the Internet and everyone is entitled to their opinion, and if I didn’t want to hear a negative response I probably shouldn’t say things that are deliberately provocative like advising Husky fans to apologize to Cougar fans. But still, I’m pissed because that’s part of what being a fan is: being emotionally invested beyond what is logical or rational. It’s what I wanted even if it occasionally hurts.