No More Bright Lights For Huskies UW Focuses On Football Just In Time To Face Iowa In Low-Profile Sun Bowl

Thick-necked American men will no longer be crossing the Mexican border in search of the most magnificent Jose Cuervo 1800 margaritas.

So, too, has ended their pursuit of pulsating Tejano-Salsa-techno Hispanic music that kept them so deliriously bumping and grinding away the Rio Grande nights.

Down in this west Texas town, after a week of party-party-shop-and-party, it is finally down to business for the Husky football team.

Still, when defensive end Jason Chorak said that he and some of his fellow Huskies had left it all on the field during Sun Bowl practices these past eight days, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand where he’s coming from.

“We heard about the Mexican border city of Juarez, and we decided we should go find out about it for ourselves,” the Vashon Island native said.

In other words, he was the ringleader for late-night hijinx. Chorak and his best buddy, defensive end Jeff Shoe, led expeditions to discos and country line-dancing clubs.

“Denim and Diamonds was great,” Shoe said. “I guess Jason and I are dancers at heart. Of course, the people in Juarez get pretty creative with their booze. Mr. 1800 and I got along real well.”

Meanwhile, the Huskies’ Sun Bowl opponents, the Iowa Hawkeyes, were the subject of some nasty rumors. People were saying longtime coach Hayden Fry had instituted a nightly lockdown.

Turns out not exactly to be the truth.

“We went two-stepping,” Hawkeyes quarterback Matt Sherman said in defense of his Big Ten teammates.

“We went out, we went to clubs, although coach did give us the feeling that we better be in before it got too late.”

Now it doesn’t matter whether Iowa or Washington cut more rugs or snagged more cowboy boots. All that is done with.

The locals have back their downtown streets, which are lined with shops and vendors selling everything from tricycles and watches to western wear and all sorts of Dallas Cowboys paraphernalia.

There’s enough Cowboys stuff in these parts to clothe every Mexican and American child in both countries in Troy Aikman jerseys and Emmitt Smith jackets. There’s more Cowboys blue and silver than Husky purple and gold around these parts, although the Huskies are determined to hoist themselves back up the Division I football flagpole for a full, colorful display.

After two seasons in the Pac-10 sanctions slammer, they’ve got their reputation as a national power to restore. They’ll start where they must, in the high desert, in a little football game that no one is paying much attention to.

While the Sun Bowl may not be one of those high-falutin’ Tier I, II or III gigs like the one that will determine whether Nebraska or Florida is No. 1 - and neither is it on the same prestige level as the Rose or Cotton or Aloha, where other Pac-10 powers are getting the brighter lights this bowl week - the Huskies are satisfied with where they are.

For this year, anyway.

With their final practice completed Wednesday, the clock began ticking toward this afternoon’s Sun Bowl kickoff louder than a tequila hangover.

It’s time to get serious, so Washington coach Jim Lambright finally broke down and installed a new weapon in the renowned and adept Husky defensive arsenal - something that needed bolstering with the announcement that Lawyer Milloy and David Richie will not play.

Lambright’s latest defense is called: “The curfew.”

“There were more than a couple of guys who came to practice and I know they had not been to bed the night before,” Lambright said, a customary twinkle in his eye.

Lambright, in his first bowl game as head coach, obviously had fun letting his players have free reign over two North American border towns. But now he has closed up shop in preparation for Iowa.

“It’s not like the old days,” said Lambright, who should know bowls after so many years at Washington as a player, assistant coach and now leader of the Purple and Gold.

“When I went down to play in the Rose Bowl in ‘64, they just about put bars on the windows,” Lambright said. “There weren’t any rules in those days like there are now about how many hours you could practice. So they figured the more they worked us, the more tired we would get. Not that guys didn’t go out the window.”

Much has changed since that Jim Owens era. It was Don James who finally decided to give his players complete freedom for most nights leading up to a bowl game - a James’ tradition that Lambright will not discard, not when he is about to truly commence his own era, now that the Huskies are free and clear from restrictions and bans.

The Huskies in El Paso had been the envy of the entire national bowl set. Their relaxed, party time attitude almost made up for the fact they were shut out of Dallas and Honolulu, where Oregon and UCLA were picked for their postseason games.

It almost even takes the sting out of not being in Pasadena, where the Huskies’ Pac-10 co-champion, USC, gets Northwestern in prime time on New Year’s Day.

“On film, the Huskies should be in the Rose Bowl,” Iowa coach Hayden Fry said Wednesday, opening up a sore subject for some Husky players. They know that they were a field goal against Oregon and a defensive stop against USC from a Rose Bowl appearance.

“With USC, they line up and do the thing time after time. Washington has such great athletes and they do a million things. I think Northwestern has a real great shot at winning that game,” Fry said.

No matter that Fry gave the Huskies a belated Rose Bowl endorsement. They are here, where they took full advantage of surroundings that aren’t much unless you’re into dirt and desert scrub brush and broken-down vans and pickup trucks.

The Huskies may not be playing their first bowl game since 1993 anywhere near Hollywood or Beverly Hills. They may not be playing for a national championship like the Cornhuskers and Gators - programs the Huskies have a hankering to contend with soon.

Heck, they’re not even playing in a bowl game that means anything more than three filler hours for CBS sports. But after two long seasons without reward, the Huskies have exulted in their return to the postseason.

So far, they’ve got suitcases full of cowboy boots and some funny memories to prove it.

Today, the Huskies hope a win over Iowa will be a sign they won’t be back in this neck of the woods any time soon. No offense to the hospitable Sun Bowl hosts.