I Give Up!

I’ve finally been beaten into submission. I no longer care where the Huskies play the Cougars. Play the Apple Cup at Martin Stadium, play it at Husky stadium, play it at Qwest field, play it on an aging aircraft carrier, play it at Marymoor Park. Move it to Chelan…autumn is beautiful over there…play it in the Olympic national park, or Humptulips…play it on at Tom Robbins estate in La Conner.

I don’t care.

If the teams don’t need the revenue..why has this come up anyway?

If you are going to inconvenience the 40 some thousand season ticket holders..at UW and leave the band behind…why has Scott Woodward joined in the hand holding around the fire? To help the cousins from the other side of the state?

Nope. If the economics don’t work…then let’s just keep it as it is.

I had a take on this last Friday…move it to Qwest field. Make a payday…bolster your budget…play the remaining schedule at your fields…improve the facilities in the meantime.

But wow, the vitriol, especially when I suggested that the Huskies move the whole schedule to Qwest field and turn the stadium into a green space.

You want the college feel, the intrinsic experience, the drip line and the band. You want students to roll out of bed at 11am on a Saturday and stumble down the hill to the game. You want the shrimp pink on the back of the 30 foot Carver tucked inside Webster point. You want that 7 hour trek to the Holiday Inn express…the free breakfast …a prefunk at the Coug’ and the field house….all right it’s yours…YOU WIN.

You don’t need the money?

Last I saw the Spokesman Review reported the deal was near that would guarantee about 2 million a year from this deal. That’s compared to $800,000 apiece when the teams play at Husky Stadium…and 240,000 when they play in Pullman.

You beat me down…dawgman…12 bucks a month 700 subscribers…I bet I was good for another 10 or 11 basement dwellers….that’s fine. I got a lot of calls…

But what really kills me is that outside of adolescent young adulthood memories about…boozy car rides..or tight sweatered Betty Lou…or the snowball you plunked some dude with…or seeing your buddies from Lambda Ki…..or the over achieving tech engineer with the Delta tau Delta hottie…the occasional drama on the field between two dead end teams… outside of that what really kills me about this rivalry…hallowed revered rivalry is that

these

two

teams

don’t

win…the limp..to the Apple Cup rendering it inconsequential to anybody but alumni.

What kind of a rivalry is that?

No one cares but you….look at the numbers. In the Last 5 years UW’s record is 12-47 while the Cougs are 22-37. Uninspiring to anyone other than those going to the universities. And from a look at the attendance figures, there aren’t that many of those folks who care.

I’ve finally been beaten into submission.