I haven’t read Larry Henry’s pro-Washington State drivel, but I can make a pretty good guess at what he’s going to say.
You probably can, too. Lord knows you’ve seen it before.
He’ll give us the same high-and-mighty tripe that he’s been in the business for better than 40 years and has seen it all. Knows it all. And he’s about to grant us the supreme favor of sharing his vast knowledge.
In the process, he’ll fire the same, tired cheap shots at me that he’s done in the past.
That I’m a greasy, self-righteous liberal with no head for sports.
That I’m a bandanna-wearing hiker with the IQ of treebark.
That I couldn’t outrun a glacier.
Like any of that has to do with what the subject is: Apple Cup, and who’ll receive the Apple Cup trophy from Gov. Gary Locke, predecessor of who-really-knows-who.
Larry will say the Cougs may well win by triple figures because Casey Paus is about as mobile and throws about as well as Johnny Unitas. And Unitas has been dead for four years.
He’ll say the UW’s running game is dead as well, because its two best blockers, tackle Khalif Barnes and fullback Zach Tuiasosopo, are injured.
Speaking of injuries, he’ll remind us that the Huskies are on their junior-varsity receivers, what with starters Charles Frederick majoring in hamstring pulls and Corey Williams getting a Ph.D in wrist fractures.
He’ll remind us that, much of the time, the Huskies play three true freshmen on the defensive line, which is about as smart as wearing a sheep suit in a shark tank.
After he runs his daily 6 miles in the mountains (Pffft! Like that’s a big deal. Mary Slaney used to do that before she brushed her teeth in the morning.) and changes out of that Speedo swimsuit he uses for running shorts, Larry’ll sit down and write that the only hope Washington had was in its improving defense. Then he’ll say that the Huskies blew that chance the moment linebacker Joe Lobendahn tried to catch Cal quarterback Aaron Rodgers from behind last week and fractured his wrist in the process.
Then watch him drop some names like UW receivers drop passes. He’ll claim he called buddies Mike Price, Jim Lambright, Chuck Knox, Lenny Wilkens, Marv Harshman, Bert Clark, Bert Parks, Bert Convy, Tim Conway, Tim Russert, Tiny Tim and Bill Cosby, all of whom told him to bet the mortgage on the Cougs.
Larry likes the safe side. Always has. Remember when he went out onto that creaky limb and said the Seattle Seahawks wouldn’t make the playoffs? Then he rattled off that they could only make the post-season if this, this, this and this happened.
It was a good, safe, logical argument, even with the cheap shots.
And he was wrong.
They made it, Larry, just as I predicted on these pages that they would. You may know logic and you may know athletes, but I know mysticism as it relates to sportsdom.
And if you’ve studied Apple Cup history, there’s enough mysticism and voodoo to get Dionne Warwick all atwitter.
Larry, for the very reasons you’re leaning on the fact that the Huskies can’t possibly win Saturday – incompetent quarterbacking, the injury epidemic, no offensive line, no defensive line, shaky secondary, blocked punts galore, no punt returns, lame-duck coaching and weather as cold as downtown Minsk – are exactly the reasons they will.
They stink. They’ve stunk all season. They’re CSPAN 2 boring. They’ve got zero chance at this thing.
Just as they had zero chance in 2001.
And 2002.
And 2003.
Oh, wait.
They pulled upsets then. Right, Larry?
So run to your big-deal buddies’ houses and tell them your tree-hugging colleague said so.
John Sleeper is The Herald’s college writer
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
