By Lauren Kirschman
The News Tribune
LAS VEGAS — Chris Petersen’s influence is scrawled on the pieces of paper — the ones he encouraged his players to tuck into their wallets or hang inside their lockers.
Each one is different. All of them are personal. During a meeting with Washington’s leadership group, Petersen asked the players in attendance to write down three of their core values and define them. Then, he told them to keep the papers in an easily accessible location. On bad days — and sometimes on really good ones — the players pull them out to read again. From the outside, they’re just pieces of paper. But what Petersen really gave them, said junior defensive back Elijah Molden, was a foundation.
“That makes life a lot easier for me and I think a lot of people,” Molden said. “No matter what you do in life, it could benefit from that.”
Senior center Nick Harris considers it an honor to have played for Petersen. He knows it sounds cheesy, but he still repeated it twice during the Huskies’ meeting with the media last Saturday.
“He’s probably one of the best college coaches of all time,” Harris said. “His stats speak for themselves. The people he’s built speak for itself. The things he teaches and preaches to us and the values he puts into us over and over, just letting us know these things. It goes way beyond football, the impact he’s had on so many football players here and wherever he was before.”
Today, Petersen will coach his last game for UW. He’ll step down after the Las Vegas Bowl, handing the program over to current defensive coordinator and long-time assistant Jimmy Lake. But he’ll remain in the athletic department, taking on a leadership advisory role. Ask his players, and they’ll tell you he’s been doing a little bit of that all along.
“How you carry yourself outside of football is one of the big things he likes to hit on and I feel like that’s important for a lot of people coming into college,” said senior linebacker Brandon Wellington. “If you’re an 18, 19-year-old freshman coming into college, that’s something that you need so you’re not just out there (being) reckless or doing a bunch of extracurriculars that you shouldn’t be doing. He likes to focus on that and mold us into great men.”
‘He never said anything he didn’t mean’
Before Petersen took over as head coach, former Huskies and current Seahawks linebacker Ben Burr-Kirven wasn’t even considering UW. He met with Petersen after he was hired, only knowing him from the on-the-field success at Boise State. But what he learned at that meeting had nothing to do with football. Instead, Petersen walked him through the Built for Life program.
It was the first time a coach’s pitch to Burr-Kirven didn’t include football. And when it came time to commit, that was the deciding factor.
“The importance that he placed in the off-the-field is the big reason why a lot of us were there,” Burr-Kirven said. “I think it’s easy in college football today to get caught up in trying to get all these big-name recruits and just win, win, win. You kind of forget about the kids once they aren’t strapping up the helmet for you and stuff like that. I think that’s what made Pete so different is that he truly cared about who we are as people and our families.”
That hasn’t stopped now that Burr-Kirven has left the program. Petersen texted him during the NFL Draft process, and he’s checked up on him throughout his first NFL season. Burr-Kirven’s moms went to several UW games this season. Petersen’s wife, Barbara, often brought them to sit in a suite.
“I think that just speaks to who he is as a man,” Burr-Kirven said. “He never said anything he didn’t mean. He told you when you’re coming to be a Dawg, you’re basically going to become part of this family. He really cares about you and you see that whether you’re a guy that started for you or a guy that didn’t. I’ve seen him help so many guys who didn’t keep playing football get jobs after ball at UW, so I think that he set us all up for a really successful life whether it was in football or not.”
Former defensive lineman Jaylen Johnson is sticking with football, but he’s standing on the sideline now as a first-year assistant at Inglemoor High School. Like Burr-Kirven, Johnson hears from Petersen often. They talk about coaching, and they talk about life. When Johnson considers the kind of coach he wants to be, he always comes back to how Petersen treats his players and staff.
“I try to carry that into the way I coach and try to get a players’ perspective as much as I can,” Johnson said during a phone interview on Thursday. “Just make it overall a great experience while still expecting respect from them and realizing I can give back so much. That’s what Coach Pete really was about. He was so respected because we all knew he can give us so much and help us out in so many different ways.”
The day Petersen announced he was stepping down, Johnson sent Petersen a text message. He didn’t expect a response, not with the amount of texts and phone calls Petersen was likely fielding. But later that day, Petersen replied to him. Johnson said that tells you everything you need to know about Petersen.
“I don’t think I can find a single person,” he said, “that doesn’t like Coach Pete.”“
‘Just being a good man’
For senior wide receiver Aaron Fuller, Petersen has been a father figure. Fuller’s parents divorced when he was a teenager, and Petersen went through a similar experience when he was young. He often gave Fuller a shoulder to lean on. And after the Huskies’ practice on Wednesday, as Fuller listed what he’s learned from Petersen, football didn’t come up once.
“Showing me how to treat women, how to treat people in general,” Fuller said, “and just being respectful to everyone you meet.”
Molden absorbed similar lessons, saying there’s a “night and day” difference between the person he was when he arrived at UW and the one he’s become.
“I’m more consistent in how I go about my day,” Molden said. “Just more of a man, really. He taught me how to take care of the people I love, checking up on my parents and my family members and making sure my house is in order.”
Said Johnson: “For me as a person, from when I first got to UW until now, I’m completely different. I feel like I matured 10 times over and I’m so grateful for everything that he’s done for me in my personal life as well as on the football field.”
One of Petersen’s favorite sayings is, “Eat the frog.” It’s an odd expression, but a memorable one. It had the desired effect: Burr-Kirven can still recite it. Out of all of Petersen’s expressions — “He is a saying machine,” Burr-Kirven said — that one has stuck with him the most.
“(It) means just get all the bad stuff out the way,” Burr-Kirven said, “and don’t gripe about it. In college, the way that it’s built, you have to do everything in the morning with classes and all that stuff. … It’s just saying, there’s no point in waiting around. Get it out of the way, get stuff done and don’t procrastinate.”
Harris has a favorite Petersen saying, too. His is, “What’s done in the dark comes to light.”
“I think that’s an important type of thing to know,” Harris said. “Just always being a good person no matter who’s watching and taking everybody into consideration no matter who you are or what your status is.”
When he first arrived at UW, Harris admitted he was overly emotional and often irrational. He was constantly blowing things out of proportion. He was a freshman, and he had a lot of growing up to do. Now, four years later, he’s one of the Huskies’ unquestioned leaders, a steady and reliable voice in the locker room.
Changing wasn’t easy. But Harris credits Petersen with getting him there.
“Just being a good man, having a good foundation, just being accountable,” Harris said. “You got to be accountable to yourself. I think that’s the biggest thing I kind of learned from him. When you know you’re not doing something you should be doing, you got to correct yourself before somebody else can.”
The day after Petersen decided to step down in early December, UW held a combined press conference with Petersen, Lake and athletic director Jennifer Cohen. When she hired Petersen in 2014, Cohen said he immediately set a “crazy high expectation” for the program. For the most part, he lived up to it: Two Pac-12 championships, three straight New Year’s Six bowls from 2016-18, an appearance in the 2016 College Football Playoff.
But that’s not what Cohen wanted to talk about, at least not solely.
“‘He reconnected us with our purpose,” Cohen said. “Hey, what’s this thing about anyways? This college sports thing? It’s about developing kids and helping the become the best versions of themselves. When I think about Coach Pete, I think that’s his legacy: That he built a championship program, with championship values, and he changed a lot of lives a long the way.”
The News Tribune’s Gregg Bell contributed to this story.
