The Villainous Six of 2008

Published 4:02 pm Thursday, January 1, 2009

Rome, the historians and oft-quoted proverb remind us, was not built in a day.

And so the rubble that was the Seattle sports scene will not become a palace at the turn of the calendar year. As 2008 was filled with heartache, let 2009 be a year of construction.

Names like Jack Zduriencik, Jim Mora and Steve Sarkisian certainly have some work ahead of them: some blueprints to draft and some seeds to be sowed.

They will surround themselves with countless people, in whose hands the Puget Sound will trust the future of sports in this area.

As for what has been left behind, well, it took only six men to burn it to the ground.

When it comes to sports in this state, 2008 will be remembered for The Villainous Six.

The leader is a man whose place in Seattle sports history is forever cemented, alongside past evil-doers like Alex Rodriguez, Jim McIlvaine and Jerramy Stevens. The man lives 2,000 miles away, and yet his effect on this city will not soon be forgotten.

Clay Bennett

The owner of the Sonics, er, Oklahoma Stolen Thunder is to this town what Art Modell is to Cleveland. What Bud Adams is to Houston. What Angelina Jolie is to Jennifer Aniston.

By no means was Bennett, the man who took Seattle’s NBA team to the Midwest, a one-man army. NBA president David Stern acted the part of a sleeping security guard, while former Sonics owner Howard Schultz has deservedly taken his share of abuse because he still walks the streets in this town.

When Bennett moved the Sonics out of Seattle, he did the kind of damage that not even a 101-loss baseball season can do.

And speaking of 101 losses, the second man on our list was not directly responsible for all of them. He just seems like the kind of guy who didn’t weep after a single one of them.

Erik Bedard

What a glorious Mariners season this was supposed to be. Coming off a year in which Seattle’s baseball team stayed competitive well into August, the Mariners seemed to be a front-line starter away from AL West supremacy.

In came Bedard, at the rate of a king’s ransom, and all the city’s optimism soon dropped off like a Kazuhiro Sasaki sinker. Bedard’s not-front-of-the-rotation record of 6-4 was the least of his problems, as a disinterested demeanor and a series of injuries stunted his season — and that of the Mariners.

The fact that Mariners GM Bill Bavasi gave up three top prospects, an All-Star closer and $7 million only worsened the blow. And when we’re talking tough blows, we’re talking Josias Manzanillo.

Bedard might not have had the worst ERA in the American League (his 3.67 ranked third among Mariners starters), but he certainly led the majors in ENT.

That is, Effect on a New Team.

Tyrone Willingham

OK, here’s a dinner party that would be about as entertaining as a potato patch: Willingham and Bedard, perhaps the two most uncooperative interviews to ever come through Seattle.

The only thing more dry than Willingham’s press conferences was the way his University of Washington football teams played. Not even a Milk Bone would have been scared of these Dawgs.

Willingham inherited a drowning UW football program, and he doused it in water, culminating in the first 0-12 season in the program’s history and a ticket out of town for himself.

Tim Ruskell

OK, so maybe he doesn’t have a medical degree. And truth be told, the Seahawks’ biggest problem this season was a medical one, not a problem of chemistry.

But Ruskell, the Seahawks’ Midas-touch team president, has certainly taken his share of heat for the 4-12 debacle. This team was not built well and lacked the depth it needed to stay afloat during an injury-plagued season.

He tried to solve the running game by signing Julius Jones. He did nothing to improve a defense that was inconsistent in 2007 and got even worse in ‘08. And when it came time to fill in for injured starters, the Seahawks could do no better than Courtney Taylor, Mansfield Wrotto and Darryl Tapp.

Throw in first-round picks like Chris Spencer, Kelly Jennings and Lawrence Jackson, and the Ruskell era has taken a turn for the worse.

Spencer Hawes

At least this guy got out of town before his Husky ship sank.

We knew he probably wouldn’t stick around long, but his early departure left UW in a world of hurt.

The 7-footer landed at Montlake when the basketball program was flying high. When a 19-year-old Hawes took his game to the NBA a year later, all that he left behind was a seven-foot hole in the lane and a bunch of guys who shot free throws like the rim made fun of their mamas.

By the time the 2008 calendar year rolled around, the Huskies were way over their heads in a conference full of national contenders.

Andy Roof

To call this guy a savior would be like calling Jerry Springer a man of integrity. The massive lineman probably couldn’t have done much to prevent the Washington State football program from sinking to the historic level where it was by season’s end.

What Roof was, however, was a symbol of all that’s wrong in Pullman.

The oft-troubled Cougar ran into the law so many times that you’d have thought he was a Dallas Cowboy. When new coach Paul Wulff finally tired of Roof’s act, he kicked him off the team and vowed to clean up the program.

Wulff did just that, leaving every drop of talent in a mop bucket that got dumped in the rolling fields of the Palouse.

To have the kind of sports year the state of Washington did in 2008 — and we dare any one of the other 49 states to put their resume up against ours — it would take more than six bad cooks to spoil the broth. Seattle and the surrounding area was ripe with sports anti-heroes in 2008, and yet six of them rose above the rest to symbolize all that went wrong.

And wrong it went. How wrong? Let’s just say that the highlight on the playing field might have been the Mariners’ three-game winning streak to close out a 61-101 season. (And who would have thought that the M’s would turn in the most impressive year of any of the city’s three major teams?)

For 12 months, the Seattle sports scene was a never-ending delivery to the city dump.

A new calendar year won’t cure all of the region’s ills. It will just serve as closure on what was, is, and forever shall be, the worst year in sports this area will ever see.