They all talk about the crowd noise.
“It’s like a wall of sound,” said former quarterback Marques Tuiasosopo.
They talk about the wailing siren.
“When it’s a big play and the crowd is going crazy and then the horn, it still gives me goosebumps,” said Sonny Sixkiller, another former UW quarterback.
Of course, there is the tunnel leading to the charge onto the field.
“You come running out of there and suddenly, at the other end of the field … you don’t know how you got there,” Tuiasosopo said.
But all those former players will tell you in the same conversation that the reconstruction is not only overdue but necessary.
“It’s time,” said Lawyer Milloy, a hard-hitting former safety from Tacoma. “Appearance is everything to a young kid and their family when they are looking at the school.”
And it’s not as though the stadium is being moved.
“I don’t really look at it as the last game at Husky Stadium because it’s still Husky Stadium,” said Warren Moon, another former quarterback. “It’s still going to have that same mystique.”
To the players, it isn’t about the stands or the press box or the luxury boxes, it’s about the fans, siren, tunnel and mystique.
“Just because you go into to new stadium, it doesn’t mean the traditions will change,” Milloy said. “Everything will be the same, it will just be better.”
It isn’t an end to the former Huskies, it’s more of a beginning.
“It’s going to be sad,” said Roy Lewis, currently an NFL defensive back with Seattle. “But you know what? I’m looking forward to seeing the new place, too, and those guys deserve that. They’ve worked their tails off. And this new stadium is for all those past Huskies, too. We’ll enjoy it just as much as the young guys getting ready to go out there and suit up each weekend.”
