Questions with answers that leave questions
Malamute, 23 April 2011

Most of the answers to the questions below need further elaboration by someone with more expertise than me (or should it be I?).

(Editor's note: Geez, Mal, we're among friends here. Are you out of your head?)

My questions concern an injury to a key player, a missing tape from 1971, the Dour Dane, ESPN's Ted Miller, and the spring game.

-- Question: Wouldn't it have been better if UW head coach Steve Sarkisian had held LT Senio Kelemete  (13 starts in 2010) out of spring practice and let the partial tear of his plantar fascia heal rather than letting him practice, only to suffer a complete tear? Isn't the offensive line the most important positional unit on the team?

According to Wikipedia, "The plantar fascia is the thick connective tissue which supports the arch of the foot. It runs from the tuberosity of the calcaneus (heal) forward to the heads of the metatarsal bones (toes). It is the source of the painful condition plantar fasciitis."

Answer: Sarkisian explained that a full tear is actually a step in the right direction to full health, pun intended.

Bob Condotta (Seattle Times) quotes Sarkisian as saying "No, it's not concerning. What the injury is, he's got his plantar fascia was pulled. And those things really never heal until they finally pop and then it heals 100 percent full and so you are hopeful really when you have a pulled one that it pops sooner rather than later and you can start the healing process. His finally popped so now his is really, truly on the mend instead of just playing through the pain he is actually now healing. We knew it was a matter of time, it never just goes away it will always have been there so it finally popped for him. It's pretty painful. I've actually done it myself so I know what he was going through but the end result is that thing will heal 100 percent and it won't be a lingering, nagging injury come fall camp. It will be 100 percent.''

-- Question: What happened to the missing tape?

January 22, 1971. UW players deny racism -- or the case of the missing  audio tape. Click on the photo (left) to enlarge. "We wanted our opinions known and they were given freely. We asked that a tape be made so the expressions given would be completely accurate ... Yet President Odegaard and members of the Board of Regents said they never heard the tape. Somehow the tape disappeared," one of the players said.

Answer: "We know the tape was good and trusted it was safe in the hands of (Provost) Samuel Kelly. Dr. Kearney (former AD in 1971) has related to me since then, many other factors that, I'm convinced, were at work here," one of the former players at the meeting said.

-- Question: Why have some historians called Gil Dobie (UW, 1908-1916, 59-0-3) the Dour Dane? Dobie was Scottish in heritage and better known as the Sad Scott.

Answer: Dobie was an eternal pessimist as was Shakespeare's Hamlet, who is known as the Dour Dane. Maybe some of the players responsible for the sobriquet had recently taken a course in Shakespeare, specifically studying Hamlet's soliloquy. It is said that the Ghost in Hamlet haunts Denny Hall at night -- where I took a course in Shakespeare -- while the Dour Dane haunts the vestiges of Denny Field, a double whammy.

-- Question: Why has this website compared Washington quarterback Jake Locker with John Elway, particularly at the time when Elway played at Stanford? See our article, "The Locker watch: big, bad John."

Answer: Who would know better than Elway himself. Recently Elway said Locker reminds him of himself. See the article "Elway: Locker resembles me."

-- Question: Why did ESPN blogger Ted Miller leave Jake Locker out of his top 25 players from the Pac-10 in 2010? Miller used to be a UW beat writer when he worked for the now defunct Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Answer: Has Miller joined the "east-coast mafia?" He is a native of Atlanta, went to the University of Richmond, and used to be a beat writer covering Auburn. Think Cam Newton, who is out of Auburn, SEC bigots, the upcoming NFL draft and the SEC bigotry concerning Locker's lack of accuracy, which is a bunch of hooey.

Actually, when Miller worked in Seattle, he was one of its more objective writers. Miller used to mill around the UW practice field joking with Josh Miller. I know, we'll sic the Dour Dane on him, using Mike Archbold's gypsy lady.

-- Question: After quarterback Keith Price's play against Oregon in 2010, critics questioned his arm strength; could he use more strength in his throwing arm?

Answer: Maybe I've missed the discussion but that's been a non-topic this spring; I guess his throwing arm is strong enough to get the job done.

-- Question: It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that Tyrone Willingham, 51, was a questionable fit for Washington when he was hired in December 2004. Notre Dame had allegedly fired him for not winning enough games, and those around the Irish program said he was a poor recruiter, this in a very competitive environment.

Why hire a controversial coach, one of whom had been fired from his last job, and give him a five-year contract worth $1.4 million per year?

Answer: See our article titled, "Were Turner, Willingham right for the times?"

-- Question: What do you want to see in Washington's spring game?

Answer: A lot of points on the board and some great defense, as in the first and second teams versus the third team.

Depending how Sark mixes and matches his players, he can predetermine any outcome he wants. The main thing is to come out of the game without any major injuries, such as a fully torn plantar fascia. I'm thinking of the Bolts' Antonio Gates here, who tore his plantar fascia in week 8 of 2010 and missed playing in the Pro Bowl.