SEATTLE — My wedding day, the days my two girls were born and Jan. 1, 1992, were the greatest days of my life. Please don't make me rank them in order.
When I was a student at the University of Washington, the football team went to three consecutive Rose Bowls. The one on January 1, 1992, a victory over the Michigan Wolverines, earned them a national championship.
Each year my buddies and I drove down I-5 to attend the games.
We lived on Taco Bell, cheap beer (Natural Light), and crammed into hotel rooms to make the trip affordable. After all, game tickets were $40!
I was somehow able to sneak my VHS camcorder into the Rose Bowl. I recorded footage of the team coming out of the tunnel and catching a couple of touchdowns. My favorite was the Mark Breuner grab right in front of our area.
The Dawgs dominated Michigan. We ended the season at 12-0.
The next morning we woke up to learn we were national champions. (So were the Miami Hurricanes. In those days there wasn't a playoff system and teams could split the title).
That didn't diminish what the Dawgs had done. The Huskies blew almost everyone out, beating Nebraska on the road. They did everything they could to prove they were the best. We were #1 and we loved it. That game was a core memory, one we still celebrate today, 32 years later. At the time we knew it was a special thing.
My roommate that fall was Adam Palmer. He and I cut out headlines and pictures from the newspaper after every Husky victory and plastered our walls with the images of Steve Emtman's sacks, Billy Joe Hobert's throws, and of course, "Super" Mario Bailey's touchdown catches.
My group of buddies remains close today. We were at each other's weddings (we got the UW band to play in one of them!), climbed Mount Rainier together, and still get together for Husky home and road games. Now our families join us. (We still drink beer too, just not "Natty Light.") And during every Husky game, we have a massive text string sharing the ups and downs of every game.
Unfortunately, since graduation, we have lost some of our friends over the years.
My former roommate, Adam Palmer, died in an avalanche in 2021. The last time I saw him was at the 2019 Rose Bowl.
When Oregon missed a last-second field goal to lose to the Huskies in October, Adam's dad, Wayne Palmer, texted all of us saying Adam pushed the ball to the right. That's something he would have done!
Monday night Wayne, along with some of my college buddies, will be at my house in Olympia rooting on the Dawgs.
Some of my friends will be in Houston, but we'll all be together on that text string.
Win or lose, it's been an amazing season for the UW football team, and my friendship with those guys.
And yes, it's only a game, but winning the title on Monday would give us all another core memory. Something to share, and remember forever, just like the game on Jan. 1, 1992. Go Dawgs!