Post by Coach Campbell on Sept 27, 2005 18:10:22 GMT
THE LEGEND OF SONNY SIXKILLER
Sixkiller's aerial show at UW was a big hit in the early '70s
Sonny Sixkiller, starred in Husky Stadium during the early 1970s, when he became a sports hero in Seattle.
You look at Sonny Sixkiller and notice the tightly wound body, the broad shoulders and boyish smile on a tanned face unmarked by time. It couldn't be -- simply couldn't be -- 30 years since Sixkiller started to set passing records at the University of Washington.
It couldn't be 30 years since he led the nation in passing as a sophomore.
It couldn't be that long since he whipped touchdown passes to names such as Tom Scott or Jim Krieg or John Brady. Or handed off to Bo Cornell, a bull of a fullback.
But 30 years it has been. Yes, it was a wildly eventful time at Montlake from 1970 to 1972. But it's done. And Sixkiller has put it in perspective.
He has memories. Good and bad. Mostly good. But always exciting.
Sixkiller works for KOMO-AM radio now, selling advertising. He has kept his ties with football, working color commentary for Fox Sports Net.
He occasionally comes to Husky practices, back to the same stadium in which he routinely put on aerial displays that thrilled crowds and enraptured a nation.
The memories are fresh. Even three decades removed.
"When you have a son who just graduated from college, reality does set in," he said. "Thirty years. When you think of it in those terms, it seems like it's been a long, long, long time. It's like going to a high school reunion and saying, 'Whoa!' But when I think of playing, when I come out and see these kids play, it doesn't seem like it's been that long."
It was a magical time in Washington football history, even going solely by numbers:
Sixkiller's 5,496 career passing yards rank him third in school history, behind the Huard -- Damon and Brock -- brothers. He sits atop the school lists in passing yards per completion and passing attempts per game.
This was an era before anyone dreamed up the pass-happy West Coast offense. The ground-chewing wishbone was the rage then.
But when then-coach Jim Owens saw Sixkiller, he completely revamped the offense to an air show. From a 1-9 season in 1969, without Sixkiller, the Huskies finished 6-4 with him in 1970.
He introduced himself to the nation by completing 16 of 35 passes for 277 yards and three touchdowns in a 42-16 upset of Michigan State. It was his first varsity game, and the Associated Press named him national back of the week.
There were others.
Sixkiller completed 30 of 50 passes for 360 yards against Oregon State. He was 30-for-57 for 341 yards against USC. He hit 18 of 35 passes for 277 yards and three touchdowns against favored UCLA, a 51-20 UW victory.
But more important than the numbers was the feeling.
Seattle was in a difficult time shortly before Sixkiller's impact came forth. On campus, Owens' job was not the most secure in town following 1969, a year in which he battled two separate black-athlete revolts against his authority.
Seattle was a depressed city, economically and otherwise. Boeing's highly touted supersonic transport program had been shot down. Seattle's unemployment rate was the highest of any major city. Major League Baseball yanked the Pilots from Seattle and moved them to Milwaukee. The Sonics were upstarts. The Seahawks hadn't even been thought of.
The town needed a hero. And Sixkiller was it.
"Those years kind of put the Huskies back on the map," Sixkiller said. "They'd been down for a few years. There was a lot of excitement around the city. You have to remember the Vietnam conflict going on. Boeing was, 'The last one out of town, turn off the lights.' There was not a lot of hope, it seemed like. We came along and it was kind of exciting. We weren't expected to do much and we did some good things.
"I think bringing the community back together was a great thing."
Individually, it came at a price. The sudden fame meant Sixkiller had little time to himself. He couldn't even go into the Husky Union Building for a hamburger because he would be mobbed.
But it went beyond campus. Indian groups sought his support for everything from fishing rights to tax issues. At 19, fresh out of Ashland, Ore., Sixkiller hardly had the knowledge or interest to accommodate.
"I said, 'Fishing rights? What are you talking about?'" he said.
Sixkiller also had to endure the most ludicrous examples of shoddy journalism, not to mention blatant racism. Sixkiller is Cherokee. And that's all some journalists needed.
One writer declared, without the slightest basis in fact, that Sixkiller's surname was "handed down to him by his father -- a father who had accomplished the unusual feat of killing six bison and therefore won the name the family carries."
There were almost daily references to "the Cherokee Nation's gift to the University of Washington," "deadeye," "warpath," "scalping" and "smoke signals from the Far West." Sixkiller was "The Chuckin' Cherokee."
The solution: Sixkiller hung out with friends, mostly teammates. And there were more than a few times he "missed" a media event.
"Sonny handled it as well as any kid could have," Owens said.
The UW media relations department would get 25 calls a week, wanting Sixkiller to do everything from endorse Arrow shirts to pose throwing a pass on a bicycle.
"It was just overwhelming, really overwhelming," Sixkiller said. "Most people don't understand that two years prior, you're in high school and not giving a hoot about a lot. And now, everywhere you go, people recognize you and want a piece of you. It was tough, not only on campus, but off campus."
Midway through Sixkiller's sophomore season, Husky captains wrote to the Seattle media, imploring them to stop focusing on race and more on football. Not that it mattered.
"It still went on," Sixkiller said. "It was out of my control."
Sixkiller still finds in his mailbox Sports Illustrated magazines from Oct. 4, 1971, the one with him on the cover. People he doesn't know still come up to him and talk to him about this game, this year, this pass. They show him purple and gold "6-Killer" T-shirts that any self-respecting kid wore then. They sing "The Ballad of Sonny Sixkiller," which a Seattle disc jockey composed.
"I saw a guy wearing one of those shirts last fall at a Husky game," Sixkiller said. "It was a little tight on him."
Yes, the heyday was 30 years ago, but the impact of those three years still are felt today. And even through the racism and media frenzy, Sixkiller thinks of those days with a smile.
"I feel really proud that I was at the University of Washington," he said. "Even now, I love the opportunity to stay close to some of these young athletes, just to get to know them. I enjoy all of it."
Sixkiller's aerial show at UW was a big hit in the early '70s
Sonny Sixkiller, starred in Husky Stadium during the early 1970s, when he became a sports hero in Seattle.
You look at Sonny Sixkiller and notice the tightly wound body, the broad shoulders and boyish smile on a tanned face unmarked by time. It couldn't be -- simply couldn't be -- 30 years since Sixkiller started to set passing records at the University of Washington.
It couldn't be 30 years since he led the nation in passing as a sophomore.
It couldn't be that long since he whipped touchdown passes to names such as Tom Scott or Jim Krieg or John Brady. Or handed off to Bo Cornell, a bull of a fullback.
But 30 years it has been. Yes, it was a wildly eventful time at Montlake from 1970 to 1972. But it's done. And Sixkiller has put it in perspective.
He has memories. Good and bad. Mostly good. But always exciting.
Sixkiller works for KOMO-AM radio now, selling advertising. He has kept his ties with football, working color commentary for Fox Sports Net.
He occasionally comes to Husky practices, back to the same stadium in which he routinely put on aerial displays that thrilled crowds and enraptured a nation.
The memories are fresh. Even three decades removed.
"When you have a son who just graduated from college, reality does set in," he said. "Thirty years. When you think of it in those terms, it seems like it's been a long, long, long time. It's like going to a high school reunion and saying, 'Whoa!' But when I think of playing, when I come out and see these kids play, it doesn't seem like it's been that long."
It was a magical time in Washington football history, even going solely by numbers:
Sixkiller's 5,496 career passing yards rank him third in school history, behind the Huard -- Damon and Brock -- brothers. He sits atop the school lists in passing yards per completion and passing attempts per game.
This was an era before anyone dreamed up the pass-happy West Coast offense. The ground-chewing wishbone was the rage then.
But when then-coach Jim Owens saw Sixkiller, he completely revamped the offense to an air show. From a 1-9 season in 1969, without Sixkiller, the Huskies finished 6-4 with him in 1970.
He introduced himself to the nation by completing 16 of 35 passes for 277 yards and three touchdowns in a 42-16 upset of Michigan State. It was his first varsity game, and the Associated Press named him national back of the week.
There were others.
Sixkiller completed 30 of 50 passes for 360 yards against Oregon State. He was 30-for-57 for 341 yards against USC. He hit 18 of 35 passes for 277 yards and three touchdowns against favored UCLA, a 51-20 UW victory.
But more important than the numbers was the feeling.
Seattle was in a difficult time shortly before Sixkiller's impact came forth. On campus, Owens' job was not the most secure in town following 1969, a year in which he battled two separate black-athlete revolts against his authority.
Seattle was a depressed city, economically and otherwise. Boeing's highly touted supersonic transport program had been shot down. Seattle's unemployment rate was the highest of any major city. Major League Baseball yanked the Pilots from Seattle and moved them to Milwaukee. The Sonics were upstarts. The Seahawks hadn't even been thought of.
The town needed a hero. And Sixkiller was it.
"Those years kind of put the Huskies back on the map," Sixkiller said. "They'd been down for a few years. There was a lot of excitement around the city. You have to remember the Vietnam conflict going on. Boeing was, 'The last one out of town, turn off the lights.' There was not a lot of hope, it seemed like. We came along and it was kind of exciting. We weren't expected to do much and we did some good things.
"I think bringing the community back together was a great thing."
Individually, it came at a price. The sudden fame meant Sixkiller had little time to himself. He couldn't even go into the Husky Union Building for a hamburger because he would be mobbed.
But it went beyond campus. Indian groups sought his support for everything from fishing rights to tax issues. At 19, fresh out of Ashland, Ore., Sixkiller hardly had the knowledge or interest to accommodate.
"I said, 'Fishing rights? What are you talking about?'" he said.
Sixkiller also had to endure the most ludicrous examples of shoddy journalism, not to mention blatant racism. Sixkiller is Cherokee. And that's all some journalists needed.
One writer declared, without the slightest basis in fact, that Sixkiller's surname was "handed down to him by his father -- a father who had accomplished the unusual feat of killing six bison and therefore won the name the family carries."
There were almost daily references to "the Cherokee Nation's gift to the University of Washington," "deadeye," "warpath," "scalping" and "smoke signals from the Far West." Sixkiller was "The Chuckin' Cherokee."
The solution: Sixkiller hung out with friends, mostly teammates. And there were more than a few times he "missed" a media event.
"Sonny handled it as well as any kid could have," Owens said.
The UW media relations department would get 25 calls a week, wanting Sixkiller to do everything from endorse Arrow shirts to pose throwing a pass on a bicycle.
"It was just overwhelming, really overwhelming," Sixkiller said. "Most people don't understand that two years prior, you're in high school and not giving a hoot about a lot. And now, everywhere you go, people recognize you and want a piece of you. It was tough, not only on campus, but off campus."
Midway through Sixkiller's sophomore season, Husky captains wrote to the Seattle media, imploring them to stop focusing on race and more on football. Not that it mattered.
"It still went on," Sixkiller said. "It was out of my control."
Sixkiller still finds in his mailbox Sports Illustrated magazines from Oct. 4, 1971, the one with him on the cover. People he doesn't know still come up to him and talk to him about this game, this year, this pass. They show him purple and gold "6-Killer" T-shirts that any self-respecting kid wore then. They sing "The Ballad of Sonny Sixkiller," which a Seattle disc jockey composed.
"I saw a guy wearing one of those shirts last fall at a Husky game," Sixkiller said. "It was a little tight on him."
Yes, the heyday was 30 years ago, but the impact of those three years still are felt today. And even through the racism and media frenzy, Sixkiller thinks of those days with a smile.
"I feel really proud that I was at the University of Washington," he said. "Even now, I love the opportunity to stay close to some of these young athletes, just to get to know them. I enjoy all of it."