What the past 6 years taught us about Chris Petersen (2024)

SEATTLE — If you will oblige, a quick Chris Petersen story.

It was summer 2014, just before his first preseason camp at Washington, and I was covering the Huskies for The (Tacoma) News Tribune. I and another beat reporter had each asked to sit down with Petersen for a one-on-one interview so we could write the standard first-year coach profile before the season started. Petersen accommodated both requests, but on an airtight schedule. The other reporter, from The Seattle Times, would interview him for no more than 30 minutes in his office, and I would interview him immediately afterward, also for a maximum of 30 minutes.

So I waited in the lobby for the other reporter to finish, then conducted my interview in 21 minutes and 54 seconds (I checked). Each of our papers also had photographers waiting inside the Husky Stadium tunnel, where Petersen had agreed to pose for a portrait shoot, also on an airtight schedule. One photographer would set up and take his shots, and then the other would set up and take his shots, after which Petersen would escape to make recruiting calls or whatever.

Petersen, a UW sports information staffer, myself and the other reporter boarded the elevator and headed to field level. Petersen wore a purple UW polo shirt, but had the foresight to grab another out of his closet, smiling as he said to us, “I figured you wouldn’t want me wearing the same shirt in both photo shoots, so I’ll just change in-between.” (As it turned out, neither photographer really cared, so he stuck with the purple shirt for both.) The photographers arranged their light sources and shot their photos. Originally, Dean Rutz, the photographer from the Times, had planned to use Dubs, UW’s live Husky mascot, as part of the shoot, but the dog did not take kindly to the flash on his camera, so that fell through. Otherwise, the whole process was as clean and concise as Petersen could have hoped for.

I kept coming back to the shirt, though. Talking to the media might have been Petersen’s least favorite thing about being a head coach, and he couldn’t possibly have cared if two local papers happened to feature different photos of him wearing the same shirt. Yet he couldn’t help but think of this minute detail nobody else had considered. It was a rare, simple interaction, but a telling one, I thought.

My experience with Petersen primarily was in formal news conference settings, and he never was a candidate for the All-Quotable team. Off-the-record conversations were few and far between. The truth is we didn’t learn a tremendous amount about Petersen during his time as UW’s coach because he wasn’t all that interested in talking about himself or revealing much about his personal life. He is about as private as a public figure can be. There is something respectable about that, in this era of over-sharing, but it made it difficult to answer the common question from friends, family and readers: “So, what is Chris Petersen like?”

Still, I heard, saw or otherwise monitored nearly every public word Petersen spoke the past six years, and spent much of that time speaking with many others who know him far better than any of us in the media. So here is my attempt at documenting what I’ve learned about Petersen as a person and coach since Washington hired him in December 2013.

He didn’t aspire to coach, but his experience at UC Davis put him on that path

His dad, Ron, was coach at Yuba City (Calif.) Junior College, in the town where Petersen grew up. Petersen was really into the team, working as a ball boy, living and dying with every win or loss, watching his dad break down film in the living room. But he saw the physical and mental toll that even a junior college job can exact on a man, and vowed, as he put it so many times over the years, not to let a group of 18- and 19-year-olds dictate his happiness.

He signed with the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes after a stellar two-year career as the starting quarterback at UC Davis, but that franchise collapsed and Petersen needed something to do. So he agreed to coach the UC Davis junior varsity team while attending grad school, and found himself enamored with the challenge. He relished working with legendary coach Jim Sochor and a staff that included mentors Bob Foster and Bob Biggs. Sochor won a bunch of games, but valued trust, unity, togetherness and positive reinforcement above all else. Petersen tried to instill a similar culture at Washington.

I asked Petersen in December, a few days before his final game, whether he thought his program resembles Sochor’s at UC Davis. “I would hope that how we treat the kids, and how the staff interacted and how we all meshed that way, would look very, very similar,” he said.

New coach Jimmy Lake has adopted a preferred phrase around this idea, too — “uncommon unity.”

He hated school, but made it a central part of his mission as coach

Petersen is a thinker, a curious guy, a multi-dimensional leader with a master’s degree in educational psychology. But he never was much for school itself. He chose psychology as his college major, he said, because “I hated that least of all,” and never considered grad school until the chance to play in the CFL fell through.

This put him in unique position to preach the importance of academics to players because he could relate to those who didn’t particularly love going to class. The important thing, he told them, was to put forth their best effort, whatever that meant. You don’t have to like it — but you do have to do it.

“As long as you’re putting forth your best effort, if that’s a 2.5 (GPA), we’re going to celebrate that for you just the way we do for the 3.5 or 4.0 kids,” Kim Durand, senior associate athletic director for student development, told me last summer.

Petersen valued academic performance during the recruiting process and wasn’t likely to target prospects who did not show some proclivity for the classroom. Striving for high marks became part of his program’s culture — UW set another program record for team GPA during the fall quarter of 2019, and it became “cool” for players to compete for a spot on the 3.0 Board.

He reads a lot, and his favorite books reveal his true passion

This is no secret — there’s a reason UW athletic director Jen Cohen included “best book recommender” in her opening remarks at Petersen’s farewell news conference. Several titles I’ve heard or seen Petersen recommend or reference, many of them more than once:

• “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . and Others Don’t,” by Jim C. Collins

• “The Slight Edge,” by Jeff Olson

• “The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business,” by Patrick Lencioni

• “The Energy Bus,” by Jon Gordon

• “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” by Doris Kearns Goodwin

• “Legacy: What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About the Business of Life,” by James Kerr

• “The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism,” by Doris Kearns Goodwin

• “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us,” by Daniel Pink

• “Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines and Habits of Billionaires, Icons and World-Class Performers,” by Timothy Ferriss

• “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” by Stephen Covey

• “The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation For Failure,” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

As you can see, Petersen is big on topics of leadership and organizational health, and is endlessly intrigued by how successful people became the way they are. He is a fan of Gordon, in particular, and he’s not alone in the sports world. Gordon is tight with Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, and has consulted with numerous college and pro sports organizations over the years. Petersen recommends “The Energy Bus” to his players, and actually brought Gordon in to speak with the team during preseason camp before the 2018 season. When Petersen wore his “Stay Positive” shirt to a news conference after UW’s loss to Cal that season, it was at Gordon’s urging (the man did, after all, write a book called “The Power of Positive Leadership”).

“They’re very intentional about what they’re there to do and create,” Gordon told me over the phone last year about his visit to UW. “And then the kind of student-athletes they bring to their program — like, off-the-charts character. Incredible conversation. I don’t think I ever received so many questions in Q-and-A from a team before — almost like an Ivy League kind of mentality in terms of just awareness and understanding and willingness to want to talk and share. Just really sharp guys. (I was) really impressed with the way they were thinking and asking, and the critical thinking they were doing.”

Gordon said he had “never experienced anything like UW in terms of just a very unique culture. I worked with Clemson the last seven years, so I’d say the same thing about them.” Washington’s culture under Petersen, he said, is “very different from Clemson’s culture, but awesome in its own right.”

He’s a big fan of sayings and mantras

Most coaches are. Here is a sampling of some Petersen sayings that shed at least some light on his principles and philosophies.

“Eat the Frog.” I believe this is borrowed from a quote attributed to Mark Twain, who is purported to have said or written something like, “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.” Whether Twain actually said that is another matter, but you can distill the message to something far simpler: Do the hard stuff first. That was a big reason Petersen favored morning workouts and practices.

“How you do small things is how you do all things.” Former defensive lineman Benning Potoa’e explains: “Details matter. (Something) as little as making your bed in the morning carries over to a lot of things. You cheat yourself in small things, and you’re going to see yourself cheating yourself in bigger things. It’ll be a snowball effect, and your house won’t be in order.”

“Do common things in uncommon ways.” Similar to the previous saying, the idea is that even ordinary tasks present the opportunity for excellence and achievement.

“What’s done in the dark comes to light.” This is fairly self-explanatory, but former center Nick Harris said it’s the saying he’ll remember most: “Always being a good person, no matter who’s watching, and taking everybody into consideration, no matter what your status is. Just being considerate of all people. That’s one thing that’s going to stick with me a long time.” It was important to Petersen, for example, that every player and coach know the name of every trainer and manager.

“It’s not what you say, but how you say it.” This one might be more helpful for coaches than players, but I suppose it can apply to anyone. There is a video available on YouTube of a presentation Petersen gave at a coaching clinic when he was at Boise State. During his speech, he references a study that determined six positive statements carry the same weight as one negative statement (just a guess, but he might have seen that study in the Harvard Business Review, another favorite of his). As he said at that clinic: “We try to use words like, ‘Hey, think about next time maybe doing it this way,’ rather than, ‘That’s terrible. That ain’t gonna get it.’ ” You can trace this emphasis on positive reinforcement to his time with Sochor and staff at UC Davis.

His ‘Built For Life’ program was legit

It’s easy to roll your eyes at a college football coach who swears he prioritizes human development as much as player development, and that he strives to prepare his players as much for life after football as he does for football itself. And, look, Petersen wanted to win games just like every other coach. But he really did live the built-for-life part.

He brought guest speakers in for “Real Life Wednesdays” — other coaches do this, too — to address myriad non-football topics. He prioritized academics and empowered UW’s academic services staff. He was passionate about developing players into “real men,” to use his terminology, with an emphasis on treating women the right way, being accountable and responsible and taking care of your family.

“First and foremost, it’s being a good husband, being a good boyfriend, a good man to women,” former receiver Aaron Fuller said.

“It’s not like he has a format of, ‘This is what you have to do to be a perfect man,’ ” former linebacker Brandon Wellington said. “It’s more that you’re going to have to look yourself in the mirror, and what do you value? And what you value as a person is going to be what you put out into the world as a man.”

This message often resonated with parents when presented during recruiting visits. So, too, did the idea that attending school in Seattle would foster valuable business connections in the future, a talking point that recruits began mentioning more and more during interviews in recent years.

Petersen isn’t the only coach to preach any of these things, but his philosophies in this regard did strike me as next level a lot of the time. The example that sticks with me the most: A UW player — I believe it was defensive end Joe Mathis — had recently welcomed a child, and asked Petersen for his best parenting advice. Petersen told him that being a good father starts with being a good husband.

He’s old school

Petersen often (and accurately) described the job of head coach as a political position, though he has never considered himself a political person. He longed for the good old days, he said, when he could wear a San Francisco 49ers hat and a Michigan sweatshirt to coach practice at UC Davis and nobody cared. He was the highest-paid coach in the Pac-12, and to my knowledge, he never refused any of his paychecks — yet I do believe he liked college football better before it became such a big-money enterprise. He made a lot of money, but I never got the sense that money motivated him the way it does many others.

Petersen despises social media, and is endlessly intrigued by its connection to depression and anxiety among younger generations. He realized, though, that keeping up in recruiting would require him to embrace at least some portion of social media’s rise. He banned his players from Twitter at Boise State, but never tried that at Washington (though he didn’t allow phones in team meeting rooms). He even started his own Twitter account upon arriving at UW because he needed it to interact with recruits. He (or a staffer with his password) mostly just tweeted “WOOF!” to unofficially announce a recruit had committed. His last tweet was Dec. 22, the day after the Las Vegas Bowl, a standard goodbye-and-thanks-for-everything missive as he left the job.

Recruiting, too, can get him going. He has referred in general terms to “vultures” and “low-down tactics” and “used car salesmen” who wouldn’t back off once recruits committed to Washington. He didn’t like how sped-up the recruiting process became, preferring to conduct extensive research into a prospect before offering him a scholarship (but he did offer early when he knew he had to). UW offered fewer scholarships during Petersen’s tenure than nearly every other Power 5 program, and that became a point of pride. So, too, was UW’s somewhat unconventional approach to commitments. If a recruit wanted to publicly commit, that meant shutting down his recruitment entirely. This approach might have cost the Huskies access to a high-profile recruit or two, but it also allowed Petersen to largely avoid decommitments and last-minute flips.

He has a lighter side

Petersen revealed his dry sense of humor with the media every now and then, but mostly displayed as little of his personality as possible. You always got the sense that he was a little looser behind the scenes.

Camilo Eifler, a four-star signee in the 2016 recruiting class, once told me that Petersen hopped on Eifler’s skateboard and rode it around during an in-home recruiting visit, but quickly hopped off once Eifler pulled his phone out to record. Petersen owned a gaudy pair of purple camouflage pants he occasionally would wear to practice, and was known to roll out a humorous Halloween costume or two. He relished slinging zingers at KJR radio host Dave “Softy” Mahler during interview sessions. Josh Racanelli, the father of 2020 receiver signee Sawyer Racanelli, played quarterback at Portland State when Petersen coached that position group. He said Petersen always would include a question on his pre-game quizzes that poked fun at one of the quarterbacks, and the others would try to out-do each other with joking responses.

In the days before the Las Vegas Bowl, I asked a few UW players for their funniest Petersen memories. Here’s what they said.

Potoa’e: “We had a team meeting before we were about to go out and do a light practice. This was during freshman fall camp, and he must have told us, ‘If we bring energy right this second, we won’t go out.’ And the whole team room was just flying around, jumping over chairs, throwing stuff all over the place, and he canceled practice. It was awesome.”

Fuller: “It was after maybe Wazzu, my freshman year (2016), over there. We had just solidified our spot in the Pac-12 championship, and just his dancing in the locker room. Somebody raised him up into the air and he was flopping around like a little kid. I think I got a couple snaps of it.”

Harris: “My favorite memory is during fall camp when we have our ‘Husky Olympics’ and we have teams, and at the end we do skits and stuff like that. Most of the skit is someone imitating ‘Coach Pete,’ and it’s always funny seeing his reaction and how he hates the attention on him.”

Myles Bryant: “One team meeting, I think he came in, he was dressed pretty nice so everyone in there was hyping him up, so he broke out in a little dance. That was something nobody really saw before coming from him.”

Petersen: “I’m not funny.”

(Top photo: Kirby Lee / USA Today)