UW Husky football coaching legend Don James battling cancer

Taken from Wednesday’s edition of The Dori Monson Show.

This is not the kind of news I wanted to report today.

I consider Husky football coaching legend Don James to be a extraordinarily important person in my life.

That is because when I was a student at the University of Washington, and I was doing play-by-play of Husky football on the campus radio station – it had about a 10 watt signal. You could hear it in the dorms and maybe you could get it on Greek row and that was about it.

But Don James, when the Huskies were a consistent top-five team, and he was being heralded by Sports Illustrated as the greatest college football coach in the land, Don James was just incredibly, incredibly good and kind and gracious to me as a college kid, doing a coach’s show every Friday morning with me for our little Podunk broadcast on the campus station. He gave me a half hour just like he gave Bob Rondeau at KOMO Radio.

I want everybody to keep the Dawgfather in their prayers and in your hearts because he’s been diagnosed with cancer and he’s going to begin chemotherapy treatment soon for a malignant tumor on his pancreas.

He’s 80 years old. He is the legend. He is the guy who led the Huskies to the National Championship in the 1991 season that culminated in the ’92 Rose Bowl.

There have been some great advances in cancer treatment of course, so there’s no reason to expect he won’t beat this.

But I would like all of my listeners to keep Don James and his family in their hearts and prayers because he’s a good man, and a great, great coach.

Taken from Wednesday’s edition of The Dori Monson Show.

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