An Interview with Derek Johnson, Author of Husky Football in the Don James Era

There was an interesting column by Blaine Newnham of the Seattle Times last year where he interviewed Coach James [ED: link]. Coach said that his family doctor told him that if he had coached another five years, he would have died from the stress he was constantly enduring. So if that is to be taken at face value-- and if that doctor was competent in his assessment-- then one day between 1993-1997 we would have been shocked by the breaking news reports of his passing.

I know that when I interviewed Coach James at Husky Stadium in 2004, I asked him about life as a retiree. He motioned toward his wife and joked, "Well, for one thing, I think Carol is getting tired of me always hanging around the house." Also, having interviewed many of his former players, several remarked how much more relaxed Coach James is now than when he had to stay atop of every detail of running a football team.

So that is my long-winded way of saying that there is no way Coach James would have coached until he was 80+ years old, like Joe Paterno. Though I will add, that one of the biggest what-if questions will always be how many more Rose Bowls in a row could the Huskies have gone to. We had been to three in a row when he resigned in protest of the sanctions from the Pac-10. In a parallel universe, how long could that momentum have kept going? We will never know.

Something you allude to in the book but never describe in detail was a 1989 game vs. Oregon State when the Huskies put in their attack defense--the defense that eventually won the National Championship...how long had it been in the works, and why did they employ it for that game, the second-to-last one of the season? What had to fall into place for it to be ready?

Well, in a preceding chapter there is a description about Washington's 45-28 loss to Colorado at Husky Stadium. I used a quote from Blaine Newnham where he talked about how Washington had recruited better talent and speed but lacked something to rally around. That set up the next chapter, where Dave Hoffmann talked about Coach James and Defensive Coordinator Jim Lambright scrapping the read-and-react style, and going on the attack. If the Husky defense hadn't faltered against several teams earlier on in the 1989 season, they never would have sought out a remedy such as this. It was born out of frustration. But in going to the attack style, they quickly defined a new era of Husky football. You know, they won 33 of their next 35 games, starting from that Oregon State game.

What current college football coaches would you say are most like Don James?

I had a two-hour interview with former Husky Steve Emtman, and we went into some interesting stuff. He talked about how the players have changed in their mentality these days, even compared to fifteen years ago. Emtman saw this as a strength and conditioning coach for a few years at the UW under Coaches Neuheisel, Gilbertson and Willingham.

Emtman said that a coach like Don James might have trouble succeeding as well in this era of 2007. He said that if you tell current Husky players to do something, they all want to know "why?" and what the reasons behind it are-- before they will carry it out to the fullest. Emtman said that when Coach James gave direction to his players, it was never questioned, and the players possessed such reverence for him that everybody went full-out.

Emtman's experience with the current era of players might have to do with the type of pampered athlete brought here by former Coach Rick Neuheisel-- but I don't know for sure. But at USC, they have highly spirited and intense practices, so I tend to think I am right.

When I think of Don James, I think of him as a conservative coach, but he did some pretty radical things--fake punts at his own 20, long field goals into the wind, etc...where do you think that gambler's streak came from?

To call it a gambler's streak is too facile a term. It implies that Coach James derived a vicarious thrill from rolling the dice. But that wasn't the case at all. He took chances early in his career, like that famous fake punt from his own 20-yard line in the '78 Rose Bowl, because he knew he was outmanned against Michigan and needed to resort to trickery to give his team the greatest chance for victory. But it was all tactical and well planned-out. They had practiced that fake punt for several weeks. If he had a kicker attempt long field goals into the wind, it was because he had three different All-Americans at that position and he felt they could get the job done (Mike Lansford, Chuck Nelson and Jeff Jaeger).

You know more about this era of Husky football than any other writer--was there anything you learned while researching the book that surprised you?

First off, I learned what it takes to write a book. I knew it would be tons of work but I had no idea what the experience would be like. But I had deep passion for the topic, so that fact propelled me at those periodic times when I felt like the project was stalling. But as strange as it may sound, I learned to "let go" and allow the book take the shape that it wanted to take. When I did that, so many pieces fell into place. So much serendipity, it would take me hours to describe to you the little things that fell into place that were not of my doing.

The other surprise would be that going into the project I knew that Coach James was greatly respected by his former players. But I was surprised to see that it went well beyond respect-- it was deep reverence and even love by many. And in an age where everytime we turn on the news or log onto the internet, we are forced to read ridiculous and dumbing-down headlines about idiot celebrities and the like, I feel like this book provides a meaningful contrast. It testifies to the career of a man who was good and decent and worthy of giving honor. As a role model and example, I'll take Don James anyday over a drunken Lindsey Lohan or Rosie O'Donnell.

Photos: Derek Johnson Books, LLC